Benedict Cumberbatch Talks Doctor Strange & Does More Impressions | MTV

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- And, we are live with Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch.
- That was agonizing.
I wanna know if we were stuck.
- I hope we were. - Like that, yeah.
- Like Doctor Strange, himself would freeze us in time.
- Exactly.
- It's always good to see you,
my friend. - Good link, good link.
- Thank you, likewise.
Lovely to see you, too, says in a manly way,
patting his upper thigh.
- Get off my thigh. - Awkward.
- Personal space - Awkward.
- Well, no, I was gonna say,
I mean, I think the internet has already dubbed us.
We have a Brangelina like moniker.
- Do we? - Yeah, yeah.
There's a Cumberwitz Tumblr out there.
- Oh, that's good,
that's good. - So, thank you for
dragging me into your
insane world. - I'm sorry.
The craziness of it all, it affects everyone I'm near,
or touch the knee of.
- No, it's all wonderful things.
- It's passed on.
- Congratulations on the film, man.
- Thank you. - We have a lot of
questions from the fans.
Some questions from myself.
All the questions that you don't like
will be questions from the fans.
Okay, don't blame me. - Okay, okay.
Alright. - Can you do that?
- Alright, yeah, I can live with that, just about.
- Let's talk first about this role.
I was telling you before, I love the film.
Everybody, from the time you were cast in it,
was saying, "He's perfect for this.
He's gonna be a perfect Doctor Strange."
Did you take that as a badge of honor,
or were you like, wait, why do they think I'm perfect
for a narcissist, arrogant?
- Yeah, exactly.
Oh, yeah, another clever guys who's a bit of a prick.
There is that, there is obviously that.
There is a correlation, I guess,
between certain characteristics
of a certain detective I'm known to have played,
or still play, I should add, still playing.
But, to be honest,
it was the differences that really attracted me.
This is an American born and bred hero, for starters,
so culturally, just a completely different space to occupy.
And, also, somebody who,
you know, he sense really involved with his world.
He has appetites, he has fast cars, fast relationships.
So, I don't know, his sort of psychological makeup's
very, very different.
- Definitely.
- Unlike a lot of characters, yeah,
there's pride before the fall,
there's all sorts of pathos with that,
but it was the humor, it was the MCU in general,
but you know, when they initially talked to me
about this character,
of course I went to the comics,
and those drawings, the original comics are extraordinary.
He is ridiculously obnoxious
in the first few iterations of him,
and I was like that's a little bit, that's full-on.
So, I was very intrigued to know how Kevin
would spin his usual sorcerer supreme magic,
Kevin Feige, and create a character
that really lived and breathed in the 21st century.
And, goes on as realistic a journey as you can,
between the space of being a neurosurgeon and a sorcerer.
(laughs)
Sounds ridiculous every time I say it,
but you do have to treat that seriously.
- Yeah, and you sell the journey.
It is an amazing journey for the character in the film,
as you say.
- And, as an acting thing, that was the real hook in.
- You're in New York, this week,
we were talking when you sat down,
culminating this crazy worldwide press tour
with hosting Saturday Night Live
for the first time. - Yes.
- Which, I'm so excited for.
I imagine you are stoked for.
- I'm already having less sleep than I normally have
thinking about it, but yeah, no.
- Are you bringing ideas,
or are you letting them kind of like give you some?
- I don't know how it works.
Of course, I haven't completely sat on my hands.
I mean, I might be doing a lot of this,
but certain things have popped up.
There's a little thing called an election going on
somewhere near here. - Is that happening soon?
- Yeah, somewhere.
Somewhere, some place, some time near you.
(laughs)
Apparently.
So, there's that.
So, my mind races. - Are you very engaged in
the political race here?
- I've got all the emails.
It's all to do with me.
(laughs)
So, yeah.
No, seriously, no, of course not.
It's not my country, and it's not my business,
but as far as material for SNL,
that's obviously been kicking around my head,
but I think the idea is you turn up,
and you see what they've got,
and then you try to bring your own funny,
and see what happens.
- If only this guy were good at impressions,
and different kind of characters.
- Very sweet,
but having said that, it's a whole different ballpark,
when it's live and it's a legendary, legendary kind of,
I was gonna say hotbed, but that sounds a bit saucy,
but you know, bedrock of American comedy,
and the greatest talents in every part of the industry
come out of there.
Yeah, it's hallowed ground to be treading on.
I'm very excited for (mumbles).
- In honor of Doctor Strange,
we asked for some strange questions for you,
so here we go, okay. - Of course, of course.
- I'm sure you got a bunch of these,
already, but here we go. - I do not have webbed feet.
(laughs)
I'm not a hermaphrodite.
Okay. - Breaking news.
Strangest place someone's asked for a picture?
- Sorry,
strangest place? - Strangest place, yeah.
- Literally going into a bathroom,
like a washroom in a service station.
Literally running to the loo,
because I just kept it going for too long in the car,
and it was,
this is gonna be disastrous.
And, I literally, with one hand, pushed back,
saying this is gonna get really ugly.
You have to move away now.
(laughs)
- You might wanna see a doctor.
I don't know how you're going to the bathroom, now.
(laughs)
- Yeah, what do you mean, as in?
Oh, no. - Never mind.
It's okay, it's okay. - (mumbles) no, it's
not scatological.
- Strangest nickname a friend has for you?
- Astounding business.
Strangest nickname a friend has for me,
which we'll now.
Yeah, that's a dangerous one.
Cumby, actually.
Not strange, at all.
Oh, no, no.
Bendydick Cum-on-my-baps, but that was, that was.
- [Josh] Whoa.
- Sorry, we're live.
I'm so sorry.
Oh, dear.
But, that was, yeah.
- That's more of a command, I feel like, that's more of a.
- It is, really, isn't it?
Yeah, it was an imperative.
I don't think it was, at the time.
- You like the fan (mumbles),
'cause you're just - No, that person,
- feeding more, right now. - that person,
- he's someone I used to act with at school,
and he's now a racing
correspondent for Channel Four.
- Amazing.
- Yeah, his name is Nick Luck.
I've shamed him.
- You might as well.
- No, it's a badge of honor.
That was the most inventive of many names in high school.
- Strangest thing you do, now that you're a parent?
Strangest adjustment you've made?
Strangest (mumbles)?
- All wonderfully strange.
All wonderfully, privately strange, but you know,
just...
the great thing that it is.
- Strangest dance move in your repertoire?
(laughs)
- What do you call that?
- I don't know.
The Worm Hand, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Get me after the SNL after party.
There'll be some pretty weird shapes on that night,
I'm pretty sure.
- What would Doctor Strange's dance move be?
- It would involve lots of hand stuff,
and he'd do a bit of this, and then go into
a sort of disco circle thing.
Then, get the hips going with the same.
(laughs)
Something like that, I don't know.
Gif.
That's just a gif, right there.
Gif gifts. - You're the human gif.
- I'm a gif gift.
- The accent of this.
Remember, I pestered you on the press line about this.
(mumbles)
- In this very beautiful town,
which is obviously his habitat,
I was running down Fifth Avenue
in the shadow of the Empire State Building,
just feeling properly like a superhero,
which is a good thing,
because there were more paparazzi
than there were crew filming me.
And, so the sort of thing of like,
I'm taking off in the Cloak of Levitation,
just looked like me kind of going skip.
And, it's quite a powerful move to initiate.
It's that when,
I was throwing a ball in on the line of a soccer match.
I was, you know, conducting an orchestra,
I was - Yeah,
it works for every occasion. - Zip-wiring.
Yeah, it's a multifaceted move.
So, maybe that's the Strange move.
It's like that on the dance floor.
- Okay, so talking about the choice of the accent,
was there ever a consideration to make him British,
or was it a no-brainer to keep him?
- Not on my part, no,
and I just kind of, yeah,
I think that was a no-brainer, for me anyway.
Yeah, because, you know, he's New York.
He's a New York superhero.
Bring him home.
- Now, since you're so good at accents and impressions,
could we just see what Doctor Strange would sound like
in a couple different
voices? - If he was Mongolian.
Yeah, okay.
- I've got one of my favorite lines in the trailer.
- Okay.
- So, what would that sound like, for instance,
like, I don't know, a Boston accent, or a Russian accent?
- I can't do Boston, because
that's really specific. - You went down that road.
- Russian. - Russian?
- I don't believe in fairy tales about chakras or energy,
or power of belief.
I spat all over you when I said
belief. - No, it's okay.
What about like a Kardashian?
- I believe,
I don't actually, I don't have them in my head.
I haven't consumed enough Kardashian to do them justice.
- [Josh] Okay, Trump?
- I don't believe in fairy tales.
No.
I've got to brush this up before Saturday.
Or chakras, or energy,
or any of that nonsense.
Yeah, that's about it.
- Here's a fan question that I also have a question about.
If you could cast yourself in a future Star Wars film,
who would you play, what would you do?
- I mean, yeah, like most kids growing up on that franchise,
Han Solo, I think that part's already taken, but
in an alternate universe, in a parallel universe,
what a great role, and just,
I think maybe, because of the great Harrison Ford,
it's a great, great role.
- Would you ever show up like Daniel Craig style,
in a stormtrooper, just for the hell of it?
- Yeah.
- Why not? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I could do a little bit of that, maybe.
I'd rather do that than like a Peggtastic whole,
I mean, Simon's gear was,
I've met him when he was doing a little bit of
sort of jiggery pokery for the (mumbles) department,
and I just, I couldn't believe
the amount of stuff he had on.
- [Josh] Yeah.
I mean, he really is sort of subsumed by that.
- Have you done a full mocap thing, yet?
- I have done mocap, yeah,
but not with the whole kind of
body costume, - Or you'd smell,
of course, yeah. - like an alien.
Yeah, yeah, so that was me running around
being a bit of a tit, but grateful.
- Was the shirtless scene in Doctor Strange your idea?
Was that something you were just like, you know guys.
- Hell yeah.
I worked out for seven months.
You gotta see the result.
No, I thought it's obligatory.
He doesn't lose his vanity, and out of that scragginess,
when everything's hit the fan,
he really does lose all care, and
he's looking completely lost and a bit wild,
and I thought, as his confidence comes back,
it's really important to see him being a bit
"Hmm" in the mirror,
and getting to that point where that happens.
And, I had this whole idea that it was,
maybe when he was shaving,
because his hand was shaky, he couldn't finish it off quite.
So, that's partly why we get the
you know, very famous fan. - No, it makes sense.
Yeah, that whole shape, goatee thing.
- Well, I was gonna say, I mean your.
- Shirt off, most men shave with their shirt off,
and God damn it, yeah, I'd done some press ups.
- Can we expect in the next Avengers film,
all the guys basically,
like a shirtless. - Everyone's shaving, yeah.
- A giant shirtless scene, a shaving scene?
- Yeah, I think Iron Man and Doctor Strange
should definitely have a shaving scene.
That's gotta be on the cards.
- A lot of people have talked about this,
how it's still intriguing.
- [Benedict] How similar our facial hair is.
- It's intriguing, yes, the facial hair,
but intriguing to see this character in future incarnations
rubbing up against these other characters,
and in particular, Tony Stark has been mentioned,
because they're both, they have some similar traits.
- Yeah, they're pretty acerbic,
kind of confident and funny guys.
- Do you know the dynamic, yet?
I don't expect you to say,
but do you know sort of where you fit in?
- No, not yet.
That wasn't Kevin Feige off camera, by the way, saying,
"Don't talk about it, don't talk."
If I knew more, I wouldn't say, of course,
because what would be the point?
It would just ruin it, but
hell, I mean, of course I don't pick favorites,
but it would be wonderful to see those guys together.
There are so many characters
that I'd like to see Strange with,
and he's the sorcerer, not sorcerer supreme, yet,
but he becomes something that is incredibly important
to guarding their reality, and they don't even know it.
There's stuff going on in other dimensions,
this whole new kind of faction
that's attacking the sanctuary and the safety
of what they're trying to provide.
So, even in that domestic squabble of civil war,
that to him is, not to belittle it,
but I imagine that he's sort of above sides,
because he's doing something that's.
- Like, there's some bigger stuff to deal with, guys.
- Well, yeah, just holding stuff back
that they're not even aware of.
So, it'd be interesting to see how that plays,
and, but of course,
the greatest thing about these massively busy frames
you see in the Avengers movies,
is you get these fantastic scenes between characters
who are so at odds with one another,
yeah, whether it's Thor, Iron Man, or Ant Man,
I mean, it'd be great.
- Do you think he'd make a good leader of the Avengers?
People have said that he could eventually,
potentially lead the Avengers.
Would Strange be a good leader?
Is he ready to be that leader?
- I don't know.
I really don't know.
I mean, certainly not at the end of our film, he's just,
that's an origin story,
and he's earned the Cloak of Levitation,
he's earned that moment at the end
where he goes, "Right, this is it.
I'm allying myself to the greater good,
and I turn my back on my selfish ways,
and I am committing this cause, this fight,
and beyond that, I don't know.
Kevin Feige, I'm sure knows.
I'm sure he knows about everything until 2030.
The man is a, he's a genius.
- Who would win in a fight, Strange or Loki?
- Oh, come on.
- What?
- I could tie knots.
I could just dance.
I wouldn't even have to, me, Strange.
(laughs)
- [Josh] Does Tom know this?
- He's got it coming to him.
No, I don't know.
I'm impossible to play Top Trumps with in that regard,
because
it's true.
I don't know quite how
what they have to offer comes into play,
but I would say, again,
it's about him being on the periphery,
even if Loki is the master of disguise and mischief,
and everything that he gets up to with his magic,
as well as his strength, his power.
Yeah, Strange is kind of doing things,
he's humanly vulnerable.
- Yeah.
- If he got around to, in the blink of an eye,
being there when he wasn't expecting it,
and stabbing him, it would hurt.
He's a human being,
but if Strange is on his game and a step ahead,
then it's pretty hard to catch him.
- Well, does it boggle your mind that your friend,
who we always joke about, Tom,
that you guys are at this place in your careers
where you're both part of this universe, you're both
where you're at? - We're being asked
who would win in fights.
- Exactly. (mumbles)
- That's my friend I'm talking about.
Well, no, and also, again, it's not my,
ultimately, the fanboy in charge of this is Kevin Feige,
so please write your letters on a postcard tomorrow,
and I'm sure he'll get back to you.
But, seriously, it's one of the joys of the film
is to see who trumps who,
and how that gets mixed up.
How the most vulnerable become the most strong,
that's part of the tale, I guess.
So, I know it's a flip question,
and I know it's supposed to be fun,
but I don't have an honest answer for it, as well,
but for me, it would definitely be Doctor Strange.
- Today's Halloween.
Is Halloween a big holiday for you?
Generally, it's bigger here in the States.
- Yeah, right, right.
Clearly not, because we're both
in a studio talking about that.
I mean, I should be somewhere, you know
with a pumpkin on my head. - What are you dressed as?
You're dressed as promotional
Benedict. - Promotional wizards.
- Yeah.
Promotional Ben.
Yeah, what a weak superhero that would be.
He can talk
and talk. - The least popular one
at Target to buy.
No one buys that one.
- The action figures aren't flying off the shelf.
- No.
- But, I'd say, yeah, absolutely.
It's becoming bigger and bigger every year in the UK,
and where I live in London, it's a huge deal.
It's a really good area for kids to go trick or treating.
Yeah, looking forward to maybe doing some of that.
- I have some gifts on the way out,
if you want some potential costumes for you.
- Brilliant, brilliant.
- Do you want an Indiana Jones fedora?
- I mean, anything that fits. - Wanna try it?
- I doubt that will fit, but I'll give it a go.
Let's try it, let's try it.
- If you liked Han Solo,
you must love Indian Jones. - This might be horrific,
because it won't fit.
Will it fit?
It might fit.
You think it fits?
Fits?
Fits.
- Do you feel like Indiana Jones, right now?
- No, I feel like I'm wearing a fedora
that's slightly too small for me.
I feel like I'm having a kind of, you know,
natural face lift.
- Trying to get your a future. - My eyebrows are
escaping onto my scalp.
- I figured you need another franchise,
because you don't have enough.
- There we go.
- It's good to see you, my friend.
- Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- Congratulations.
Doctor Strange opens this Friday, November 4th.
Everybody go see it.
Check it out in 3-D, by the way.
It looks amazing. - Yeah.
- What Scott Derrickson, the director,
has done with this one,
and I'm thrilled that you're a part of this universe,
because it means we just have
more excuses to talk. - More time to hang out.
This is true, this is true.
- Next time, we'll do the slumber party,
Hiddleston syle.
- Yeah, pillow fights all around.
- Good to see you, man.
- Thanks, guys, lovely to see you too, Josh, thank you.
- Thanks for watching, guys.
- Thank you.