Ĭumberbatch attended boarding schools from the age of eight he was educated at Brambletye School in West Sussex and was an arts scholar at Harrow School. He attended Richard III's 2015 reburial and read a poem. Cumberbatch is third cousin 16 times removed of King Richard III, whom he portrayed in The Hollow Crown. His great-great-great-grandfather, Abraham Parry Cumberbatch, was a wealthy slave owner in Barbados, Jamaica.
His great-grandfather, Henry Arnold Cumberbatch, was a diplomat who served as consul in Turkey and Lebanon, and his great-great-grandfather, Robert William Cumberbatch, also was a British consul in Turkey and the Russian Empire. His grandfather, Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, was a submarine officer of both World Wars, and a prominent figure of London high society. He has a half-sister, Tracy Peacock, from his mother's first marriage. He grew up in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Stephen Strange in several films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Doctor Strange (2016).īenedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in the London district of Hammersmith, to actors Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch) and Wanda Ventham. From 2012 to 2014, through voice and motion capture, Cumberbatch played Smaug and Sauron in The Hobbit film series. He received critical acclaim for his performance as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game (2014) and as a volatile rancher in The Power of the Dog (2021), earning two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In films, Cumberbatch has played Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and has appeared in the historical dramas 12 Years a Slave (2013), 1917 (2019) and The Courier (2020).
For playing the title role in the miniseries Patrick Melrose (2018), he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.
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. In 2015, he played the title role in Hamlet at the Barbican Theatre.Ĭumberbatch's television work includes his performance as Stephen Hawking in the television film Hawking (2004). 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. He began acting in Shakespearean theatre productions before making his West End debut in Richard Eyre's revival of Hedda Gabler in 2005. In 2014, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).Ī graduate of the Victoria University of Manchester, Cumberbatch continued his training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, obtaining a Master of Arts in Classical Acting.
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. Programme Front Row, 23 December 2010 īenedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch CBE (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor.