Benedict Cumberbatch – 怎能不爱他
By Caitlin Moran, The Times, 11 May 2013

[译者按:Caitlin Moran一直是我很喜欢的专栏作者。她在时代报每周有三个专栏——周六杂志专栏,电视评论和明星见闻。她言语风趣,观察入微,写的文贴近生活,引人入胜。推荐她的专栏精选作品集《Moranthology》,里面两篇通篇提到Sherlock,尤其是Benedict。]

他在电视上是一个快节奏的夏洛克•福尔摩斯,现在又以《星际迷航》征服了好莱坞。且看Caitlin Moran去他父母家吃午餐能发现什么。

我不知道你记不记得,去年夏天一段时间——在奥林匹克结束后,选秀节目未知因素X Factor开始前——有这么一段奇怪的潮流,大家都喜欢找Benedict Cumberbatch的茬,因为他“过于上流社会”。

无论Cumberbatch多少次试图解释说他“只是中产阶级,真的”,一个小九九总是一次次被引用:哈罗教育+六个音节的上流名字 = 一个坐拥城池的男人。甚至有一系列的八卦专栏特地来讨论他的上流因子,美其名曰“上流到美国去”或者“可怜的上流社会男孩”。

貌似这股潮流的基本假设是Cumberbatch是一个半吊子的年轻王子——净会偷走一些重要角色比如神探夏洛克里的Sherlock Holmes,队列之末里极端压抑的地主Christopher Tietjens,说的好像这些角色本来应该属于工薪阶级的演员比如Danny Dyer或者Shane Richie,并且为他们无限惋惜。

当然,跟所有类似的谣传一样,来的快去的也快。其中有那么一部分的原因估计是因为他将在星际迷航里出演重要角色,从而将成为近十年来最成功的英国演员之一。

我坐在记程车后面一边翻看关于Cumberbatch的剪报一边回忆这些事情。

“都是些什么乱七八糟的垃圾,”我默默在心里说。“这整件所谓上流社会的事。全是混账话。这个世界真他妈搞笑。”

那是一个美丽的周日下午。我应邀来到Cumberbatch格洛斯特郡的父母家里做客。星际之暗黑时代就快开始,这是他唯一可以接受采访的时间。于是我做出牺牲,坐了火车来到斯温顿。

记程车把我在住宅区放下。

“就这里。”司机说。

我从车里钻出来,眼前不远处是一所宏大的,蜜色的豪宅,和门前修葺得一丝不苟的平整草地。在停车坪停着一辆伦敦标志性黑色出租车,和一辆银色的古董劳斯莱斯。

昨天晚上,Benedict问过我要不要来接火车站接我。他说他有一辆非常非常好的车。

我盯着眼前价值不菲的车,在心中对自己说:“是,你还真有,不是么?你有一对呢。”

于是我捧着一大束鲜花,提着一瓶好酒,踢哒着走上车道。我对准信箱口大喊:“你好!我从伦敦来!我来郊外度假的,一不小心就来到这里了!”

一片寂静。我围着这豪宅转了两圈,实在太大了,我居然找不到前门。

我决定去问下邻居,怎么样才可以潜入这个Cumberbatch庄园。

我朝着旁边一户小屋走去。

Benedict Cumberbatch站在这小小别墅前门口,穿着一双旧旧的蓝色灯心绒拖鞋,饶有兴趣地看着我一步步穿过种满了风信子的草地。

“你在Kate Moss家那边干吗来?”他问道,用一种很和善的口吻。

啊。Kate Moss。工薪阶层出身的国际名模。那豪宅是她的家。

这被指称为“上流社会”的Cumberbatch一家,正相反,住在隔壁小农舍里,上楼三个小房间,下楼三个小房间。所有目之所及之处都堆满了书,照片,或者是猫头鹰。

“请进,请进,”Benedict一边说一边微微侧头钻进矮门。哪怕穿着拖鞋,他也有一米八,显然不是适合这个17世纪的老别墅的身高。“谢谢你赶过来。”

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吉尼斯世界记录暂时没有这个名录,但是Benedict Cumberbatch绝对可以入选“最快窜红的艺人”。

2010年7月25号,晚上8点59分,Cumberbatch还是一个虽然在业界被交口称赞,然而在坊间默默无闻的演员。他在《霍金传奇》中扮演霍金,《凡高传记》中扮演凡高。如果你是个负责选角的导演,或者剧作家,你会很乐意接听他的电话。但是除此之外,Cumberbatch的生活可谓波澜不惊。

当晚9点,《神探夏洛克》播出。到9点20分的时候,他的名字在推特上面成为世界性话题,背后是一群自动自发的歇斯底里的观众——粉丝群立时三刻诞生并且一发不可收拾。

他的福尔摩斯是那种一期一会的机缘。由神秘博士的Steven Moffat和绅士联盟的Mark Gatiss创作,这个版本的夏洛克神秘,刺激,有着如同神赐的魅力。他破门而入,直奔主题,然后90分钟内一刻不停。他第一个镜头是拿着马鞭抽打尸体。下一幕里他兴致高昂得在推理上飞跃,就好像超人冲向天空。

终于来了一个连环杀手,他叫道,兴奋不可名状。“最爱这类——总能让人有所期待。”

这还不算,黑色卷发逗留在额角,Cumberbatch的夏洛克带着一种简直不属于这个世界的吸引力。仿佛不见阳光般的苍白外表下,他把滔滔不绝的长篇独白演绎得跟像帕格尼尼的小提琴独奏一样地眩目,捎带着Nick Cave酷酷的哥特风范。这个版本的福尔摩斯简直有着摇滚明星的魅力。

当然,这种魅力转移到了Cumberbatch本尊身上。一周未结束,他的私生活已经遍布八卦小报。他穿过的那件1,700英镑的Belstaff大衣成了需要轮侯的热卖品。当第二季在英国伦敦电影学院首映的时候,粉丝们从早上六点开始在冷风中排队等候。当他到场的时候,尖叫声震耳欲聋。到那时,他的照片已经遍布英国所有主流杂志报刊。斯皮尔伯格指名要他演《战马》,而他正在拍摄好莱坞大片《锅匠,裁缝,士兵,间谍》。

再看看他的各项提名——BAFTA英国电影电视学院奖,Olivier奥利威剧院奖,Emmy美国艾米奖,Golden Globe金球奖——他赢得了半数以上。一种惊人的爆发力,对于一个只有36岁的演员来说。现在呢,霍比特,星际,好莱坞。
眼下呢,午餐。
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Ventham-Carlton-Cumberbatches一家极为好客。

Benedict的父亲Timothy跟我说的第一句话是:“要不要来一大杯酒?”他刚从花园里进来,膝上还沾着泥土。他给我倒了一大杯高度金酒,正适合一个如此舒适的周日。

Benedict的母亲Wanda,哪怕在忙碌地烹饪周日烧烤,也挡不住她四射的明艳光芒。我相信如果她眨动睫毛,整个房间都会为之颤动,降为瓦砾。

Benedict拥有二代才华。Google找出了Wanda Ventham和Timothy Carlton (本名Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch) 在《神秘博士》,《继续攀登开伯尔》,《红花侠客》,《圣人》里的剧照。

跟Benedict的自称为Cumberbitches的粉丝为他做的网站一样,Wanda和Timothy也有过这样的关注,来自于上一个年代。

“Wanda Ventham是不是一个美丽性感,引人注目的美女?绝对的。”有人这么写道。另有人这样形容Timothy在《红花侠客》里的形象,“穿着欲望的绿色外套”(Green coat of sex)。

Timothy 和Wanda在厨房里穿梭着准备午餐。Wanda跟老公调笑,就好像他是一个年轻适龄的对象一样,哪怕他坐下的时候会不由自主地哼一声。光看着就很感动。Benedict趁机带我到处看。如果我们不是为了消磨时间的话,可能不用一分钟就能转完。实在是太小了。

当然Benedict是一个改不了的话唠,于是总共花了20多分钟。

“他们在我12岁的时候买了这套房子,”他说,“看,这是我,在哈罗的第一天。”

他指着一张图,图中一个看上去礼貌谦和的小男生,戴着一个大大的水手帽蹦蹦跳跳去学校。

“太上流。”我说。

“太上流。”他笑了。

整个楼梯都挂满了他儿时的照片。Benedict跑着。Benedict小婴儿蹒跚走路,10岁的Benedict,泛白的金发,偏瘦,穿这小小泳裤,在雅典的一个海边岩滩上。还有一张,照片中Wanda扯下他的泳裤亲吻他的小屁股。

“那是我妈妈亲我的屁股的照片。”他点头说。

那时候他正在学吹小号。他说他的嘴型变成现在的样子都是拜它所赐。

“吹小号能吹伤嘴,”他满不在乎地解释说,“当初就是因为这个。”他用手指按了按他饱满的下唇。“我有一张小号嘴。”

我们参观了他的卧室,不大,有点花哨。在一张印花棉布罩着的桌上放着一个小瓷壶,盖子上用花体写着“我觉得聪明可爱”。

我问他这是不是他每天早上对自己的肯定。“唔,我是觉得我很可爱。”他一本正经地回答。这时候他妈妈上楼来,用一种母亲的特权打断我们的闲聊。她对着我着急地说:“你能不能。。。给他找个姑娘?”她问。“你一定能给他介绍一个姑娘。在伦敦一定有合适的。我想要孙儿。拜托了,帮我儿子找个姑娘。”

非常有趣——眼睁睁看着Sherlock Holmes因为单身而被母亲斥责。尤其是在我们站着的周围全部是Wanda四处收集的猫头鹰标本(“妈妈迷猫头鹰”)。所有的猫头鹰都用跟他妈妈一样的敏锐目光盯着他看。

“我还好啦。”他求饶——身体语言就像一个笨拙的少年。

“我等不及了。”她回答,很坚定的语气。“找个女朋友。好了,可以开饭了。要不要再来一杯?”

Wanda跟她收集的猫头鹰一样,是一个喜欢讲话的人。午餐吃了很长时间,期间她讲了不少趣闻轶事——包括某天Benedict带着她和Timothy去看《星际》拍摄。

“。。。然后他们重拍了一次又一次,”Wanda用她的雕花玻璃般动听的淑女口音说着,一边把布丁放到每个人盘子里,“一遍又一遍重来。花了一整天的时间。就是为了把Ben弄到这个该死的宇宙飞船里去。一次我跟他们说,‘你知道,我拍UFO [70年代Gerry Anderson导演的科幻系列],连拍三次我就到月球上了!”

Benedict的父母从来不是真的想要他们的独生子成为一个演员。他们很清楚以此为生会有多么不稳定。这就是为什么他们那么辛苦赚钱供他去哈罗读书,为了给他一个“正当的教育”。他明显需要足够事情做——哪怕还是小婴孩的时候,Wanda形容Benedict“是个小旋风——从来没有停下来的时候。

“我新陈代谢很快。”他说。

“他皮包骨头!”Wanda继续说道。“我们真的有喂饱他,真的。”

“他们担心我甲状腺有问题。我经常到了学校门口已经浑身汗透,因为我会跑着去上学。我从来不停下慢慢来。”|

然而,显然从很早的时候就开始,只有一件事情能够分散他的注意力。

“我就是一个人家眼里的沙子。喜欢显摆,”他边说边加了一点酒。“不是故意很坏的那种,就是爱捣乱。他们想看我能不能把所有的过剩精力都投入到好的方面,而不是尽用些傻傻的配音来破坏课堂秩序。”

于是他拿到了他人生的第一个角色,在校园剧场制作的《仲夏夜之梦》里。

“我想我们所有人都记得Benedict的 Bottom。”Timothy说,言若有憾的表情配合得恰到好处。

“因为这个我拿到了《半个六便士》!”Benedict大叫。“我演了安,亚瑟•开普斯逆来顺受的妻子!”[译者按:《半个六便士》是英国Tommy Steele写的出名的歌舞喜剧。Benedict提到这部剧,估计是因为《仲夏夜之梦》里说Bottom因为人不在,每天都会损失六个便士。在伊利莎白时代,六便士相当于一天的人工。]

他说着说着开口便唱起《半个六便士》里面安的那首“我一个字都不信”——一个36岁的男人装成他10岁的自己,表演一个由24岁的女明星Julia Foster演红的角色。实在太精彩了:搞笑,愤世嫉俗。他一边跳舞一边由房间一面晃到另外一面。

他父母还以为演戏只是儿子的一个爱好,直到Wanda带他去看爸爸Timothy在伦敦西剧院的演出。

他们就那么站在剧院舞台边厢看演出,Benedict突然开始大声说:“我想上台,我想上台!”他几乎失去控制。

“我们不得不阻止他冲上台,”Wanda边清理盘子边说。

“但是为什么不呢?”他问道,表情略带恳求地看着我。“哪个孩子不会想那么做?你见过后台吗?所有的那些布景,每个后面都有自己那一幕的名称,最下方都有负重来固定。站在边厢,你能看到这所有的道具。但是当你走上舞台的时候,你走进一个真实的世界,所有的观众都在看着同一个现实。这多么令人惊叹。”

之后还有更多的酒,第二道烤肉,然后是甜点,然后是第二道甜点。Benedict拾起盘子里剩下的一块牛蒡——“我不能再吃了。我正在进行五比二节食。必须的,为了《神探夏洛克》。”[译者按:5:2节食就是说每周两天低卡节食,五天正常饮食。]

再然后,在我本来计划离开的一个小时以后,红酒喝得头晕脚软的我跟他一起走进另外一个房间去正式开始采访。

采访Benedict是这样子的:有点儿像采访一个瀑布。虽然得不到任何问题的确切答案,但看上去堪称一绝。他没有故意忽略或者回避你的问题——绝对不是。那是没完没了的,热切的渴望倾诉。你听到一个关于被海葵蛰到小弟弟的故事,一口气还没有结束的时候,他已经转到讨论第一次进入哈罗图书馆的紧张:“因而我这样想,我可能一辈子都不可能读完第一个书架上的书——更不用说第一个大厅里的,再不用说尼玛一整个图书馆。我总是在想法子自我提高——想了解所有关于葡萄酒的知识,然后能够告诉你各种不同的鸟鸣声,还有去探索我周围的世界。”

然而如你所见,也如同他母亲痛惜的那样,他其实就是一团无穷的精力——他停不下来。这就是为什么他能够扮演那些伟大的,非凡显著的角色:凡高,霍金和福尔摩斯;《队列之末》的数学天才;霍比特中的那条龙;舞台上的扮演造物主的疯狂科学家还有他的怪物。在不久的将来,汉姆雷特,阿桑奇,披头四经纪人布莱恩•依斯坦。

因为我们已经延迟了,Benedict试图规划出一个新的安排。他第二天早上7点就要到布鲁斯托去拍第三季的《神探夏洛克》。他拿起剧本翻看,很努力地想在不剧透的情况下让我看看他的工作量。

“这一幕有40页那么长。这是个40页的推理,”他说,“基本上就是长篇大论。而我必须在睡觉前背过所有的。”

指着墙上的用各种鸟的图案代替数字做成的挂钟,他说,“因此我们必须结束在”——他仔细看了一眼——“苍头燕雀过后半点钟,可以吗?”

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眼看我们已经沉溺在过去的时光中了,因为四周随处可见的照片,我们决定停留在过去。

午餐时候已经聊到了哈罗,Benedict离开父母在伦敦肯辛顿区的顶楼公寓去寄宿的学校。“正当肯辛顿开始走下坡路的时候;藏污纳垢,诺丁汉还有骚乱。一个两室一厅的公寓,才两千镑——连壁纸都跟那时候没有分别。”

当他进去哈罗以后,他有没有发觉自己挺聪明?

“也没有很聪明。不是离谱的那种。反应还算机敏——我学东西很快。尤其模仿别人。”问他有没有被欺负过?“没有。因为。。。”他小心翼翼地选择用辞,“我这一生中父母都完全毫无保留地爱我。因此我感到对世界有信心。不是觉得有资格。而是。。。我觉得我可以步入这个世界。去探索它。”

他怀念他的学生时代——“我真的很爱那段时光。各种活动和娱乐。。。我交了一批一辈子的朋友。写信回家的时候,我说,‘我无比开心’,我真的是这么想的。”

第一次,也是唯一的一次,有人想要欺负他,感觉非常陌生而危险。——“他让我感觉到没有安全感和畏缩,而我真的只是想自信一点,开开心心而已。”——彻底暴怒的Cumberbatch把他抵到墙上,直到对方结结巴巴地求饶。

他继续扮演班上的小丑——不是跟很多未来的表演艺术家一样为了防止被欺侮,他奇妙的出发点不过是令人窝心地想得到年幼的孩子们的认同和敬意。“如果你能叫他们笑,小孩子就会听话地上床睡觉或者刷牙,”他回忆道,表情带着一丝天真。

唯一美中不足的是他的外表:“我很迟才发育,”他说,“很迟很迟,15,16,还是17的时候。”他很担心,甚至去看医生。“18岁之前的我还是个孩子,其实。但是男校的好处是你可以不必说实话。男女混校的话你就必须得拉着你的女朋友在人前晃荡。我在女生面前有点Hugh Grant的感觉。‘老天,天哪,额,你介不介意我,唔,碰一下,哦,那个?哎呀,我感觉有点晕。’我不是怪我父母,但是我不会送我的孩子们去男校或者女校。我宁愿有经验。去他的成绩单。我现在是‘我终于明白女孩子是怎么一回事了——但她们人呢?’”

他的初吻“是在水下。玛莉。我才11岁。史上最湿的嘴唇。我想那应该是我的初吻。除非我在那之前已经在哪个坑爹的舞台剧里面亲过某个男孩了——这简直毁了我所有关于第一个异性吸引的亨博特式的邪念。[Humbert Humbert是名著《萝莉塔》里面的恋童癖,有点像Atonement里面他的角色Paul Marshall。]

哈罗的最后一年,他接触了“大麻,女孩,和音乐”,“有点不爱读书”,代价是失去了去剑桥牛津读大学的机会。他停学一年,在一个香料商那里工作了六个月,赚了足够的钱,跑到西藏去教英语。[关于缺去的是西藏还是喜马拉雅山脚的巴基斯坦小镇,不同的采访给出不同的结论。本文按照Caitlin采访原文翻译。]

在香料商那里,他学会了品味“明快的柑橘——香柠檬,香根草。”

有次,重感冒的他服务了Richard E. Grant[演员,剧作家,导演]。就在他为Richard礼物包装的时候,他惊恐地眼睁睁看着自己的一滴鼻涕落进了客人的布伦海姆香膏里。——这简直是2013年最佳戏剧化趣闻。

一个月后,他到了印度,看到虔诚的侯死者在恒河边游行,听着他们乞求被焚烧后水葬的祷告。

“空气中弥漫着一种味道。这个古老的传统一点都不令人着迷。你呼吸的都是被焚烧过的尸体。能尝出来,在你嘴里。”

他差点死在了印度:“我得了高山症。在山上迷路了。那是一趟可笑可怜的探险——有点不幸的预兆。我们的准备严重不足。我只有。。。妈妈给我织的另外一条围巾 和。。。一小块芝士。”

下山的时候他的肺里积水,他的医生朋友警告他,说他可能得了动脉瘤,Cumberbatch产生了强烈的幻觉。“我梦见星星变成了闪电。”

他记起这一段的时候十分兴奋。突然,满房间都是急促的鸟鸣声。

Cumberbatch瞄了一眼墙上的钟。

“该死。该死。这已经过了苍头燕雀半点了。如果我们等到猫头鹰,我今晚也不用去布里斯托了。”

*********************************************************

“但是你没有死,”我轻快地提醒他,“因为你好好的在这里呢。告诉我,你过去三年有没有感觉很不现实。你知道,从2010年7月开始一切都变了。”

他真的有仔细考虑这个问题。他想了大概一分钟,大概是一天之内他保持安静最长的时间。

“金球奖的时候,”他最终开口了。“Meryl Streep过来跟我说话:‘我的天哪,我们是你的粉丝呢。我们好喜欢你的神探夏洛克。你到底怎么演出来的?’还有,Ted Danson,他说,‘天,是夏洛克本人!’”

Benedict说着模仿了下跟Sam Malone和Mrs Kramer之间的一段偶遇,两位都为他激动地尖叫,让他觉得有点不知所措。“还有,George Clooney给我建议该如何处理突然成名的困扰。”他张开双臂,象征过去三年的时光。

之后的星途一帆风顺,包括好莱坞。2012年秋,他跟Streep,Julie Roberts, Juliette Lewis和Sam Shepard拍摄了新片《八月的奥赛奇》。

他这样形容跟Streep演对手戏。“她的角色是一个食道癌患者,老烟枪,镇定剂瘾君子,行为举止表现得像个可怕的母系社会的翼龙。我们当中没有一个可以跟她比拟。一个都没有。在对戏的时候我们都曾经在不同时候过去跟她讲,‘很抱歉,我无法在你周围演戏因为。。。我没法不去盯住你看。我们都想看你表演。’”

拍摄的时候正值美国大选。他掏出他的iPhone来,给我看Roberts和Streep摆出她们自己的“是的我们可以”选举海报。当结果公布,Obama再次当选,他们都对着电视兴奋地大叫。

他和Streep是最后两个起身的,在俄克拉何马的万豪酒店。“我们互相击拳庆祝他获胜”。

他犹豫了一分钟。

当粉丝不再针锋相对的时候,Cumberbatch还是非常感激他的粉丝们。

他不愿意叫她们“Cumberbitches”——用一种令人心疼的谦虚,他提出“Cumberwomen” or “Cumbergirls”。

“不是我太守礼,我只是不会想让你们成为我的bitches。我觉得这种称呼把女权主义这几年的努力打回了好几步。你们是。。。Cumberpeople。”

最近呢,Cumberbatch的各种专署粉丝网站都在讨论新一季的《神探夏洛克》——尤其是自从Cumberbatch被拍到在拍摄现场做出一个神秘的三角手势。大家对这个手势蕴含的意义的猜测层出不穷。听到这个,Cumberbatch看上去有点汗颜——然后他开始笑出声来。

“你知道吗,我就是在捣乱而已。这个手势是Alt-J乐团的主唱在表演Tessellate(油管链接:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPH89HIBLiw)的时候做的一个手势。我喜欢那个乐队。但是,”他为自己辩驳,“我记得Brett Anderson [英国山羊皮Suede乐队主唱]曾经说过,‘表演不就是为了让神秘感更加强烈一点吗?’不是吗?如果你把不错的毛衣拆掉,就会发现只有一团毛线是很无趣的。”

差不对该走了。我还有一个问题留到了最后。我有一个非常棒的主意。我想看看传说中的“毛衣”。

“来吧。”我说。

“啥?”他问,有点糊涂了。

“来点表演。”我说。“来演上一段戏吧。”

看上去非常乐意被当做Cumberbatch牌点唱机,他弹起来站好。

“你想我演什么?”他问,用他特有的看上去即兴奋又有点为难的热切表情。今天本来是唯一的休假。

“就演。。。那个《星际》里的坏蛋吧。”我的模棱两可一定听上去很不专业。“谁知道他叫什么,那么普通的,半点都没有银河系感觉的名字。西蒙。”

“约翰•哈瑞森,”他有点埋怨地说。

之后的事情真是难以想像。我们在一个小小的,桃红色的房间里——Benedict的发丝几乎擦到低矮的房梁。透过窗户,你能看到他的爸爸,跪在花园里,微风轻拂过他身边的洋水仙。这是世界上最安全,最正常的房间。整栋房子还残留着午餐的香味。

然而当Benedict开始他的对白的时候,你看得见斯皮尔伯格在他身上看到的东西,看得见斯特里普在他身上看到的东,看得见斯德帕在他身上看到的东西。你能看到他如何凭借《神夏》一举成名,能看到他如何在只有两天时间准备的情况下征服了《队列之末》。这个高大,随意,神游天际的大孩子突然间聚焦——超亮的聚光灯下,他变成了另外一个人。

穿着牛仔裤和拖鞋,套着他旧旧的T恤,现在的他看上去像是一个徘徊在整个银河系边际的孤独的灵魂,变得如此痴狂。他脸上的温柔消失了。他的面部表情变得高度紧张。他是一个想要毁掉地球的恐怖分子。哪怕他台词说到一半笑场了,他也立刻重新入戏,甚至更加猛烈——在这段对白终结之后,还能感觉到那种冰冷的,静止的憎恨。

时间仿佛停顿了。我应该鼓掌的。

“再来一个,”我对着他扬了下酒杯。“演。。。那条龙。”

史矛革,《霍比特人》里面的。他不再说什么。只是开始特意的呼吸。像龙一样的呼吸。一条龙,在自己的洞里面呼吸着的声音。他的脖颈渐渐伸长,他的手张开,好像生出了脚爪。我都录下来了。我要放给你们听。前所未见,令人惊叹。

就是它了。那个每个演员都终其一生追求的,却很少人到达过的境界。完全的,辉煌的,忘却自我。

*********************************************************

五月二号,周四。伦敦莱斯特广场:《星际迷航之暗黑时代》首映

在一个阳光绚烂的午后,一切都那么完美。莱斯特广场被改头换面成一个《星际》的音乐节。震耳欲聋的音乐振奋着人心。有人已经住在帐篷里等了一个晚上,为得就是在红毯边占好有利位置。到处都是模仿Spock的假耳朵。一个男人带着他自己的进取号——一个玻璃纤维的硬壳做成的成人大小的三轮车。是我见到过最疯狂,同时也是最值得敬佩的东西。

剧组到场,一个接一个,在人群狂热的尖叫中踏上红毯。Chris Pine的柯克舰长,Zachary Quinto的瓦肯星人斯博克。跟每个首映一样的有节奏的喊叫,小心循环的微笑,和孜孜不倦的闪光灯。

但是当Benedict最后一个到达的时候,现场观众的反应完全不同。尖叫声简直到了一个新的高度——比起来“一世代One Direction”的现场演唱会不过是渐渐远去的海鸥的啼叫而已。如此的骚动让保安人员异常紧张,只听他们大喊:“好了,女士们,冷静,”不自觉自己的声音都略带恐慌。

我站在一个来自布特尔的女士身边。她在帐篷里待了一个晚上,手捧着她费劲心思画的进取号全体人员画像。她想把画给导演J.J.Abrams看。她被兴奋的人群挤住,几乎喘不动气。终于她大失所望,转身挤出人群。

“这些人根本不是来看《星际》的,”她说,恨恨地扫了一眼激动的粉丝们。“他们根本不知道什么是《星际》。他们就是为他而来而已。”她厌恶地朝Cumberbatch的方向戳了一拇指。

在红地毯上,Cumberbatch显得有点点慌乱——在酒店里,着急找不到袖扣和领带,现在要面对眼前疯狂的人群。一个女孩不住挥舞手中的海报,上面大字写着“Benedict ——我有了,孩子是你的”一个勇敢无畏的开场白。他的造型师不停地坚持要他把卷发抹平。他并没有。头顶上60平方的巨型海报上只有他,没有别的任何人。每个人都在叫着他的名字。非常标准的发音,不是什么搞笑的“Bendybum Cumbycatch”。

“恩,这太疯狂了,”他一边很通情达理地说,一边为一个穿着柯克舰长的制服尖叫的女孩签名。
*********************************************************

凌晨3点,切尔西:Aqua酒店首映派对


今天是很长的一天。听说名人如Sean Penn都到场了。Benedict周围一直围着一圈人,带着渐增的醉意告诉他,从此以后他的人生都将改变。他听着,面带微笑不置可否,抿着手中的伏特加。凌晨三时,他切换到到迪士哥策略:“现在我打算。。。不再用文字表达我的想法了。”他说着,表情很严肃。他滑进舞池,跟随着80年代的经典旋律开始跳舞,就在那耀眼的镭射灯下面。


*********************************************************
访谈结束,坐在即将出发的火车上,我收到了Benedict发来的一条短信。

“还有那么多没有谈到的事情呢!”他叹息。“辛普森,明年纽约之行,冰岛。。。我见识了红尘白浪,曾翻山越岭,浮游沧海,我一生并没有虚度,我奋发努力,饰演了一段段人生。就算明天这一切都不再,我也了无遗憾。我非常幸运,我太清楚不过。我真的算是拥有过五千个精彩的人生。”

[全篇翻译完,待整理]

原文高清扫描戳http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/BI7tz



英文原文:

He was an all-action Sherlock Holmes for TV and now he’s conquering Hollywood in Star Trek. Caitlin Moran joins the actor at his parents’ home for Sunday lunch
 

I don’t know if you remember, but some time last summer – between the end of the Olympics and the return of The X Factor – it briefly became the thing to have a go at Benedict Cumberbatch for being “a posho”.
 
However many times Cumberbatch tried to explain that he was “just middle class, really”, a sum kept being done, over and over: “Harrow education” + “called ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’” = “A man who wipes his bum on castles”. There was a series of catty columns about it, with headlines like “Posh off to America” and “Poor posh boy”.
 
The underlying presumption seemed to be that Cumberbatch was some dilettante princeling – stealing roles such as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock, and the painfully repressed landowner Christopher Tietjens in Tom Stoppard’s Parade’s End, that would otherwise have gone to working-class actors such as Danny Dyer, or Shane Richie from EastEnders, and that this was all a great pity.
 
Of course, as with all these things, it blew over quite quickly – not least because it was superseded by the news that Cumberbatch had been cast in the new Star Trek movie, and was, therefore, about to become one of the most successful British actors of the past ten years. But I am reminded of it all today, in the back of a cab, leafing through a pile of cuttings on Cumberbatch.
 
“What a load of balls that was,” I muse. “The whole posh thing. What a load of old balls. What a funny old world.”
 
It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I have been invited to lunch with Cumberbatch at his parents’ house in Gloucestershire. Star Trek Into Darkness is now about to open and this is the only day he has free to talk. I have made the great sacrifice and taken a train to Swindon.
 
The cab driver drops me outside the house.
 
“Here you go,” he says.
 
I climb out of the car, and stare at a gigantic, honey-coloured mansion, with immaculately tended lawns. Parked in the driveway are a black London taxi and a vintage silver Rolls-Royce.
 
Last night, Benedict had offered to pick me up from the station, saying he has a “loooooooooovely car”.
 
“Yes – you have, haven’t you, Benedict?” I think to myself, staring. “You’ve got a lovely pair.”
 
I crunch up the drive, carrying a massive bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine, and shout through the letter box.
 
“Hello! I’m from London! I’ve come on holiday, to the countryside, by accident!”
 
Silence. I circle the house. The place is so big, I can’t work out where the front door is.
 
I decide to go to ask a neighbour for advice on how to penetrate the Cumberbatch estate.
 
I head towards a nearby crofter’s cottage.
 
Benedict Cumberbatch is standing in the doorway of the tiny cottage, in a pair of knackered navy corduroy slippers, watching my progress across the lawn – lavishly strewn with hyacinths – with some curiosity.
 
“What were you doing at Kate Moss’s house?” he asks, mildly.
 
Ah. Kate Moss. The working-class girl from Croydon made good. That mansion is her house.
 
The “posh” Cumberbatches, by way of contrast, live next door: three small rooms downstairs, three small rooms upstairs. Every available surface is covered in books, family photographs or owls.
 


“Come in, come in,” Benedict says – tilting his head slightly to get through the low door. Even in slippers, he’s 6ft, and not built for a 17th-century cottage. “Thank you for coming.”

*********************************************************
 
The Guinness Book of World Records does not yet carry this category, but Benedict Cumberbatch is in the running for the “Fastest Ascent to Fame Ever Recorded”.
 
At 8.59pm on July 25, 2010, Cumberbatch was merely a well-regarded actor who had played – to enthusiastic reviews, but little public notice – Stephen Hawking in Hawking, and Van Gogh in Van Gogh: Painted With Words. If you were a casting director, or a writer, you would be delighted to take his call; but otherwise, Cumberbatch lived a life unburdened by excess attention.
 
Sherlock began broadcasting at 9pm. By 9.20pm, his name was trending worldwide on Twitter. A trending fuelled by a mass outbreak of spontaneous hysteria – the fandom was instant and visceral.
 

His Holmes was one of those once-in-a-generation big entrances – written by Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat and The League of Gentlemen’s Mark Gatiss, this Sherlock was fast, dark and insanely charismatic – he kicked the door in, off its hinges, and didn’t stop for the next 90 minutes. His first scene had him thrashing a corpse with a whip. The second had him making illative leaps in much the same way Superman flies. Looping, and high.
 
We’ve got ourselves a serial killer, he cried at one point, at full gallop. “Love those – there’s always something to look forward to.”
 
On top of this, with his blond hair newly dyed black, and lolling across his forehead, Cumberbatch’s appearance took on an otherworldly hotness. Pale enough to have never seen sunlight, when he launched into his bullet-train monologues, he did it with the intensity of Paganini; or Nick Cave, with one black boot up on the monitor. There was a definite rock-star element to this Holmes.
 
And, so, by transference, to Cumberbatch. By the end of the week, his private life was tabloid fodder. The coat he wore – a £1,000 Belstaff – a waiting-list bestseller. When the second series of Sherlock premiered at the British Film Institute in London a year later, fans queued outside from 6am, in the bitter cold. When he arrived, they screamed. By then, he’d been on the cover of pretty much every major magazine in Britain, Spielberg had signed him up for War Horse, and he was shooting Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
 
Looking down his subsequent list of nominations – Bafta, Olivier, Emmy, Golden Globe – he’s won more than half of the awards he’s been up for: 18 vs 16, an astonishing strike rate for someone who is still only 36. And now, The Hobbit and Star Trek. And now, Hollywood.
 
And now: lunch.
 
*********************************************************
 
The Ventham-Carlton-Cumberbatches are an incredibly hospitable crew.
 
Benedict’s father Timothy’s first words, on coming in from the garden – earth still on his knees – are, “Would you like a large drink?” He pours a cripplingly strong gin, which is exactly the right thing to do.
 
Benedict’s mother, Wanda, meanwhile, manages to combine “cooking a Sunday roast” with “emitting the background radiation of someone scorchingly hot in the Sixties, and who could still clearly reduce a room to rubble now, if she flashed her eyes”.
 
Benedict is second-generation pretendy: Google reveals Wanda Ventham or Timothy Carlton (birth name Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch) in Doctor Who, Carry On up the Khyber, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Saint.
 
Just as there are, now, websites dedicated to young, swooning fan love for Benedict – written by the self-proclaimed “Cumberbitches” – so there are for Wanda and Timothy, written by the generation before.
 
“Is Wanda Ventham a beautiful, remarkably sensual woman? You bet!” one writes. Another describes Timothy, in The Scarlet Pimpernel, as “wearing the green coat of sex”.
 
As Timothy and Wanda move around each other in the kitchen, preparing lunch – Wanda still spars with her husband as if he were a young suitor, even as he sits down with an involuntary, “Ooof!” It’s rather touching to watch – Benedict takes me on a tour of the house. If we weren’t dallying, it would take less than a minute – it’s so small.
 
Benedict, however, is an inveterate dallier, and so it takes a good 20.
 
“They bought this house when I was 12,” he says. “Look. There’s me, off for my first day at Harrow.”
 
He points at a junk-shop painting of a young Fauntleroy type, skipping off to school in a huge sailor’s hat.
 
“So posh,” I say.
 
“So posh,” he laughs.
 
All up the stairs are pictures of him as a child. Benedict running, Benedict as a toddler. Benedict aged 10 – white-blond, skinny, in tiny swimming trunks, on a rocky beach in Greece. One of the pictures shows Wanda pulling his trunks down and kissing his bottom.
 
“That is a picture of my mother kissing my arse,” he confirms.
 
This was around the age he was learning to play the trumpet – the event he credits with shaping his much commented upon mouth.
 
“Playing a trumpet wounds you,” he explains, gleefully. “That’s how this happened.” He presses his finger into his generous lower lip. “I have trumpet mouth.”
 
We look around his bedroom, which is small and floral. On the chintzy dressing table is a small china pot, with “I Feel Pretty & Witty” painted on the lid, in curlicue script.
 
I’m just asking him if this is his morning affirmation – “Well, I do feel quite pretty,” he’s saying, thoughtfully – when his mother comes upstairs, and interrupts in the way that is the birthright of all mothers. She addresses me with some urgency: “Can you just… find him a bird?” she asks. “You must be able to find him a bird. There must be someone in London who’s suitable. I want grandchildren. Please – find my son a bird.”

 
It is interesting – watching Sherlock Holmes being berated by his mother for still being single. Especially as, where we are standing, we are surrounded by Wanda’s collection of stuffed barn owls (“Mum’s obsessed with owls”) who are all staring at him with pretty much the same gimlet expression as his mother.
 
“I’m doing all right,” he pleads – body language now that of an awkward teenager.
 
“I can’t wait much longer,” she rejoins, firmly. “Get a bird. Anyway, it’s time for lunch. Come and have another drink.”
 
Wanda is, much like her owl collection, a hoot. Over a long lunch, she tells a series of anecdotes – including about the day Benedict took her and Timothy onto the set of Star Trek Into Darkness.
 
“…and they did take after take,” Wanda says, in her cut-glass finishing-school accent, serving up the pudding, “reset after reset. It went on all day. Just to get Ben in this bloody spaceship. At one point, I said to them, ‘You know, when I was doing UFO [the Seventies Gerry Anderson sci-fi series] it only took me three takes to get to the Moon!’”
 
The Ventham-Carltons never really wanted their son to be an actor – they knew how precarious it is as a lifestyle. It’s why they scraped together the money to send him to Harrow, for a “proper education”. He certainly needed something to fill his days – even as a baby, Wanda describes Benedict as, “A whirlwind – he never stopped.”
 
“I had a very fast metabolism,” he says.
 
“He was skeletal!” Wanda continues. “And we did feed him, we really did.”
 
“They worried that I had a thyroid problem. I would arrive on the school steps drenched in sweat, because I would run there. I never stopped.”
 
However, it became obvious, early on, that only one thing provided enough distraction for him.
 
“I was a pain in the arse. Show-off,” he says, pouring more wine. “Not malevolent – just disruptive. They tried to see if I could put all my energy to good, rather than just disrupting yet another lesson doing a silly voice.”
 
He was given his first role, in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
 
“And we all remember Benedict’s Bottom,” Timothy says, with perfectly timed lugubriousness.
 
“And I got Half A Sixpence!” Benedict cries. “I played Ann, long-suffering wife of Arthur Kipps.”
 
He launches into I Don’t Believe a Word of It – a 36-year-old man doing an impression of his 10-year-old self, playing a role popularised by Julia Foster when she was 24. It’s actually brilliant: funny, indignant. He dances from one side of the room to another.
 
Still, the Ventham-Carltons could kid themselves acting might just be a hobby for him, until Wanda took him to see Timothy, who was in the West End at the time.
 
As they stood in the wings, watching, Benedict suddenly started saying, loudly, almost wildly: “I want to go on. I want to go on!”
 
“We had to stop him from running on stage,” Wanda says, clearing the plates.
 
“But why wouldn’t you?” he asks, appealing to me now. “What kid wouldn’t? Have you ever been backstage? All the sets, with the name of the production on the back, with weights on the bottom of them, to hold them steady. And in the wings, you see all that. But then you walk on stage – and you walk into a real world, for the people who are watching it. It’s amazing.”
 
There is more wine, and seconds of the roast, and pudding, and seconds of pudding. Benedict picks at leftover roast parsnips – “I’m not supposed to. I’m on the 5:2 diet. You have to, for Sherlock.”
 
And then, finally, an hour after I was supposed to leave, and woozy with red wine, we go into the other room, to do the interview.
 
Here’s what it’s like interviewing Benedict Cumberbatch: a bit like interviewing a waterfall. It won’t really answer any of your questions, but it’s fabulous to watch. It’s not that it’s trying to ignore or avoid your questions – God, no. It is endlessly, eagerly forthcoming, and shows a touching courtesy towards the whole notion of being interviewed. It will tell you a story about being stung on the penis by a sea anemone in the same breath as discussing the panic of entering the library at Harrow for the first time: “Because I thought, I probably won’t have a lifetime long enough to read the first shelf – let alone the first room, let alone the whole f***ing library. I’ve always been after the idea of betterment – to know exactly everything about that wine, and tell you about the birdsong I can hear, and to understand the world around me.”
 
But as you can already see, and as his mother has lamented, he is just an energy – he never stops. This is the force he plays into these huge, notably unusual characters: Van Gogh and Hawking and Holmes; Tietjens in Parade’s End with his genius; a dragon – Smaug – in The Hobbit; in the West End, in turn Frankenstein, then his monster. And, soon, Hamlet, and Julian Assange, and Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles.
 
As we’re already late, Benedict tries to map out a schedule. He’s due on set in Bristol at 7.30am tomorrow, for the third series of Sherlock. At pains not to give away any plot, but keen to show what his workload is like, he picks up the script and flicks through it.
 
“This scene is 40 pages long. It’s a 40-page-long deduction,” he says. “Basically a monologue. And I have to learn it before I go to bed.”
 

Pointing at the clock on the wall, which has birds instead of numbers, he says, “So we have to stop at” – he stares – “half-past chaffinch. OK?”
 
*********************************************************
 
As we’re already in the past – surrounded by photos – we stay there.
 
The conversation at lunch got us as far as Harrow, where Benedict boarded – leaving his parents’ top-floor flat in Kensington, “when Kensington was run-down; smalls hanging out in the smog, riots in Notting Hill. A two-bedroom flat for £2,000 – the wallpaper the same now as it was then.”
 
When he got to Harrow, did he find out he was clever?
 
“Not that clever. Not ridiculously clever. Sharpish – I was a quick learn. A good impersonator.” Was he bullied? “No. Because…” he chooses his words carefully, “my parents loved the f***ing life out of me. So I felt confident about the world. Not… entitled. Just like… I could step into the world. Investigate it.”
 
He loved his school days – “I really did. Sports and outings… I made lifelong friends.
 
In my letters home, I wrote, ‘I am blissfully happy,’ and I really meant it.”
 
The first and only time someone tried to bully him, it felt so alien – “He made me feel insecure and shy, and all I wanted was to be confident and happy” – that Cumberbatch pinned him against the wall, in utter fury, and his assailant stuttered an apology.
 
He continued being the class clown – not, as it is with almost all future performers, to prevent bullying, but, oddly and sweetly, to get the respect and attention of younger children, instead. “You could make younger kids go to bed and brush their teeth on time if you made them laugh,” he recalls, fondly.
 
The only fly in Cumberbatch’s ointment was physical: “I was a very late developer,” he says. “Very late. 15, 16 – maybe even 17.” The worry was so great, he even went to the doctor. “I was a kid until I was 18, really. But the one grace of an all-boys boarding school is that you could lie about what you’d done on your holidays. Not like a mixed school, where you had to parade your girlfriend around the playground. I was a bit Hugh Grant around women. ‘Good gosh, er, do you mind if I, erm, touch, ah, it? Gosh, I feel funny now.’ I don’t hold it against my parents at all, but that’s why I would never send my kids to a single-sex school. I would have killed for experience. F*** the grades. I was all, ‘I understand what girls are now – where are they?’”
 
He’d already had his first kiss: “Underwater. Mary. I was 11. The wettest lips you could possibly kiss. I think that was definitely my first kiss. Unless I’d kissed a boy at school in a f***ing play – which would ruin that very erotic Humbert Humbert-like memory I have of my first female obsession.”
 
In his last year at Harrow he discovered “pot and girls and music”, “got a bit lazy” and forfeited his chance of Oxbridge. He took a year out – working for six months in a perfumier’s to earn the money to allow him to teach English in Tibet. At the perfumier’s, he learnt to prefer “bright citruses – bergamot, vetiver”.
 
Once, with a severe cold, he served Richard E. Grant and watched, with horror, as a drip from his nose “landed right on his Blenheim Bouquet as I giftwrapped it” – the most gently dandy thespian anecdote of 2013. A month later, he was in India, watching a parade of keening mourners take the dead down to the river, to be burnt.
 
“You taste it in the air. It’s not a charming ancient tradition. You are inhaling the smoke of a burning body. Palpable – in your mouth.”
 
He nearly died in India: “I got mountain sickness. Lost on a mountain. It was a pathetic expedition – Mallory-like. We were woefully under-prepared. I had simply… an extra scarf my mother had knitted me and a… piece of cheese.”
 
With water on his lungs, and his doctor friend warning him he was at risk of an aneurism, Cumberbatch hallucinated wildly on his way back down the mountain: “I dreamt the stars turned to lightning.”
 
He looks excited as he remembers this. Suddenly, violent birdsong fills the room.
 
Cumberbatch looks across, to the clock on the wall.
 
“S***. S***. It’s already half-past chaffinch. If we get to barn owl, I am never getting to Bristol tonight.”
 
*********************************************************
 
“So you didn’t die,” I remind him, briskly, “because you are here. And here is pretty odd. Tell me a story about how unreal the past three years have been. How everything has changed since July 2010.”
 
He thinks – for nearly a minute. The longest he’s been silent all day.
 
“The Golden Globes,” he says, eventually. “Meryl Streep coming up, going, ‘Oh my God, we’re such big fans. We love you as Sherlock. How do you f***ing do that s***?’ And then Ted Danson – going, ‘Oh my God, it’s f***ing Sherlock.’ ”
 
Benedict mimes being trapped between Sam Malone from Cheers and Mrs Kramer from Kramer vs. Kramer, both of them freaking out, with him in the middle, mind blown. “Getting advice from George Clooney, on how to handle all of… this.” He stretches his hands out, to represent the past three years.
 

As luck and Hollywood would have it, he then spent autumn 2012 shooting the forthcoming August: Osage County with Streep – plus Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis and Sam Shepard.
 
He describes acting opposite Streep. “Her character is suffering from oesophageal cancer, smoking like a chimney, high on downers, behaving like the most monstrous matriarchal pterodactyl you can ever imagine. And none of us could act opposite her. None of us. We all, one at a time, went up to her and said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t act around you because… I can’t stop watching you. We all want to watch you.’”
 
The American elections occurred while they were shooting. He gets his iPhone out, and shows shots of Roberts and Streep posing for their own “Yes We Can”-style election posters. As results came in and Obama pulled ahead, they were all screaming at the television.
 
Eventually, he and Streep were the last ones up, in a Marriott hotel in Oklahoma, “bumping fists when he won”.
 
He boggles for a minute.
 
When the fan polarity is reversed, Cumberbatch is graceful with his fanbase.
 
He refuses to call them “Cumberbitches” – mentioning, with aching courtesy, the “Cumberwomen” or “Cumbergirls” instead.
 
“It’s not even politeness. I won’t allow you to be my bitches. I think it sets feminism back so many notches. You are… Cumberpeople.”
 
Recently, Cumberbatch websites have been alight with discussion over the next series of Sherlock – particularly since Cumberbatch was photographed, on set, making a mysterious, triangular hand signal. The speculation over the meaning of this gesture has been intense. Here, Cumberbatch looks slightly guilty for a minute – then starts laughing.
 
“You know what? I was just being silly. That sign is just something the lead singer of Alt-J does when he plays Tessellate. I love that band. But,” he says, springing to his own defence, “I remember Brett Anderson [from Suede] saying, back in the day, ‘Isn’t the point of art to deepen the mystery a bit?’ You know? If you start to unweave the jumper, it’s boring to look at a… ball of wool.”
 
It’s time to go. I have one question left to ask. I have a brilliant idea. I want to look at the jumper.
 
“Do some now,” I say.
 
“What?” he asks, confused.
 
“Some acting,” I say. “Do some acting now.”
 
Sportingly willing to be a big Cumberbatch jukebox, he springs to his feet.
 
“What do you want me to do?” he asks, with pleasing, if baffling, eagerness. It is, after all, his one day off from work.
 
“Do the… baddie… in Star Trek,” I say, with unprofessional vagueness. “Whatever his incredibly normal and unintergalactic name is. Simon.”
 
“John Harrison,” he says, vaguely chidingly.
 
And it really is the most amazing thing. We’re in a tiny, peach-coloured room – the beams so low Benedict’s hair almost touches them. Through the window, you can see his dad, on his knees, in the garden, as the wind moves the narcissi. This is the safest and most normal room in the world. The house still smells of Sunday lunch.
 
But when Benedict starts his monologue, you see, again, what Spielberg and Streep and Stoppard see in him. You see what he does in Sherlock, and in Parade’s End, where he tore up the screen with only two days’ preparation. This big, scattershot, slightly space-cadet kid suddenly comes into focus – painful, super-bright focus – and becomes absolutely other.
 
In jeans and slippers and a knackered T-shirt, he now looks like someone who has been to the loneliest, outermost reaches of the galaxy, and become demented. The softness disappears from his face – the skin becomes tight. He is a terrorist who wants to destroy the Earth. Even when he giggles, for a minute, in the middle of the monologue, he pulls it back immediately, comes in even harder – ending the speech full of cold, still hate.
 
There is a pause, during which I probably should have applauded.
 
“Do another,” I say, waving my wine glass at him. “Do… the dragon.”
 
Smaug, from The Hobbit. He doesn’t say anything. Just starts breathing. Breathing like a dragon. The sound of a dragon, breathing in its cave – his neck lengthens, his hands reach out for invisible things, palpable talons. I have it all on tape. I will play it you. It is amazing.
 
It is the thing. It is the thing every actor hopes they will be, and almost never is. It is someone becoming utterly, brightly gone.
 
Thursday, May 2. Leicester Square: the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness

 On a perfect sunny evening, Leicester Square has essentially turned into a Star Trek Glastonbury. Music booms from the PA as the crowds mill. People have camped out overnight for a good view of the red carpet. Prosthetic Spock ears abound. One man has turned up in his own USS Enterprise – a fibreglass shell bolted to an adult-sized tricycle. It is one of the most admirably demented items I have ever seen.
 
The cast turn up, one by one, to roars from the crowd. Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock. There is the usual rhythm of name-howling, carefully rotated smiles, and flashbulbs.
 
But when Cumberbatch arrives – last – the audience reaction is something other. The screams are another level entirely – the wild seagull ululation of One Direction gigs, and fainting. There is a surge that has security shouting, “All right, ladies, calm down,” in a slightly panicked manner.
 
I am next to a woman from Bootle who has camped out all night with her beautifully painted portrait of the Star Trek crew, which she wishes to present to director J.J. Abrams. She is becoming increasingly crushed, and disillusioned. In the end, she turns and tries to fight her way out of the crowd.
 
“These people aren’t here for Star Trek,” she says, casting a hateful eye over the gleefully calling fans. “They don’t even know what Star Trek is. They’re just here for him.” She jerks a disgusted thumb at Cumberbatch.
 
On the red carpet, Cumberbatch is slightly flustered – in the hotel, there was an incident with cuff links, and then a tie – but is dealing with the crowds ebulliently. One girl is waving a poster that reads, “BENEDICT – I’M PREGNANT AND IT’S YOURS” – a bold new conversation-opening technique. His stylist keeps catching his eye, saying, “Benedict – your hair,” and urging him to smooth it out of his eyes. He doesn’t. The 20 x 30ft hoarding above us that says Star Trek Into Darkness shows him, and no one else. And everyone is calling his name. Properly, too – and not “Bendybum Cumbycatch” for the lols.
 
“Well, this is insane,” he says, quite reasonably, as he signs an autograph for a crying girl dressed as Captain Kirk.
 
*********************************************************
 
3am, Chelsea: aftershow party at Aqua

It has been a long night. Sean Penn is apparently in here somewhere. Benedict has been at the centre of a constant circle of people telling him, in varied and increasingly slurry ways, that his life is about to change for ever. He has taken all this lightly, joyfully, and with a series of vodkas. At 3am, however, he switches into Disco Tactics: “I’m going to become… non-verbal now,” he says, owlishly. He oils onto the dancefloor, and busts a move to a series of Eighties gay anthems, right under the glitterball.
 
After our interview last week, I received a text from Benedict before the train had even pulled out of the station.
 
“All the things we didn’t talk about!” he lamented. “The Simpsons, New York at new year, Iceland… I’ve seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should it all end tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I am very lucky, and I know it. I really have lived 5,000 times over.”

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