Benedict Cumberbatch

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch CBE (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received various accolades, including a British Academy Television Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Laurence Olivier Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015, he was appointed a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to the performing arts and to charity.

Cumberbatch studied drama at the Victoria University of Manchester and obtained a Master of Arts in classical acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He began acting in Shakespearean theatre productions before making his West End debut in Richard Eyre's revival of Hedda Gabler in 2005. Since then, he has starred in Royal National Theatre productions of After the Dance (2010) and Frankenstein (2011), winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for the latter. In 2015, he played the title role in Hamlet at the Barbican Theatre.

Cumberbatch's television work includes his performance as Stephen Hawking in the television film Hawking (2004). He gained greater recognition for playing Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock from 2010 to 2017, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. For playing the title role in the miniseries Patrick Melrose (2018), he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.

In films, Cumberbatch has played Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and has appeared in the historical dramas Amazing Grace (2006), 12 Years a Slave (2013), 1917 (2019) and The Courier (2020). He received critical acclaim and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performances as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game (2014) and as a volatile rancher in The Power of the Dog (2021). From 2012 to 2014, through voice and motion capture, Cumberbatch played Smaug and Sauron in The Hobbit film series. Since 2016, he has played Stephen Strange in several films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with Doctor Strange (2016) and most recently appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).