Interview: Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange

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Disclosure: This event and trip to LA was an all expense paid journey sponsored by Disney. All thoughts, opinions and experiences and character crushes are 100% my own!

Interview: Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange

If you are not yet a Marvel fan, DOCTOR STRANGE might just be the movie to pull you in. With each new Marvel film, I become more and more of a fan, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved this film. I’ll be posting my review soon, but I’ll be sharing some cast interviews with you first. 

Last week I had the awesome opportunity to interview Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Doctor Strange, and let me tell you, there is a lot more to this character (and actor!) than meets the eye!

Benedict Cumberbatch is just as charming as you might have guessed. He came into the interview room all smiles, and quickly jumped into conversation. He was very thoughtful in his answers, and it was quite obvious that he really enjoyed his role in this film.

As Doctor Strange, Cumberbatch is now forever part of the Marvel Universe and after screening the film (which I loved, by the way!) I honestly don’t think they could have cast a better actor for this roll.

Doctor Strange is such a strong character. His personality (and ego) are larger than life. It was so neat to listen to Cumberbatch talk about (while grinning from ear to ear) his excitement over getting into character:

I felt like a kid. I mean it was just amazing. It was the first proper moment when I thought, oh my God, I’m actually playing a superhero. There’s nothing like it, I was very giddy. I was really, really giddy. And then the day when the cloak comes on. I just remember smiling like …you can’t contain yourself. I never had this on my bucket list. I mean not even being a superhero.  I never thought I’d be a superhero. As a kid I really enjoyed being an audience member of Marvel’s cinematic universe, I just enjoyed being a part of watching it but I never thought I would get to do it. 

But the minute I heard I was like “yeah, let’s get down to business.” Great fun. Great, great fun. The other moment that was a really pinch yourself superhero moment I guess was running down Fifth Avenue with literally with the silhouette of the Empire State Building at one end, knowing that’s the building that people crafted storyboards and built these comics on paper at the very beginning of all of this. And I’m running along in red and blue, jumping, pretending to take off on Fifth Avenue. It was amazing….amazing! 

I had the opportunity to ask Cumberbatch about an incident that he had going into a café in Manhattan in full costume, and he told us the funniest story of this lunch break that he took in full costume and how the café crowd barely even noticed him dressed in full costume as Doctor Strange.

It was brilliant. Well basically it was first day we’d all been out all together on the set and it was madness. There were more paparazzi than there were crew. And I just sort of thought this is getting crazy. It’s really distracting when you’re working and you want to just clock off for a second. So I said let’s just go somewhere. Shall we just go somewhere? And they went, you’re in costume, you’ve got makeup on. I went, yeah, but it’s New York! And sure enough that’s exactly what happened. 

He then added that during another filming day, they found themselves filming right outside of a real comic book store. 

I thought it would be funny for them to see one of the guys off the shelf come in and say hello. It was very funny.  They were like chill New Yorkers, they’re like “okay, cool, nice to see you.”  I said, “Look,  if the movie doesn’t work out. can I come and stack shelves for you?” and they were very dry, and like,” yeah, that’d be great.”

Now cemented into the Marvel Universe, Cumberbatch expressed his excitement about future films and adventures.

Oh the sky’s the limit. I mean this guy defends our reality against other dimensions, so it’s pretty hard to stop at one thing. And obviously I know it might be a bit of an leading question to ask who I’d like to work with in an Avengers movie but the truth is all of them. I mean I know a little bit about who I will be working with and I’m very, very excited about that… but it’s hard to say without then giving stuff away.

I personally can’t wait to see more of Doctor Strange. I really feel like Cumberbatch was perfectly cast for this part and I think that you will all agree! Check out this fun trailer for a sneak peek at what you can expect:

More Doctor Strange Interviews Coming Soon!

Stay tuned from more of my interviews with other talent from this movie including Rachel McAdams (“Christine Palmer”), Tilda Swinton (“The Ancient One”), Mads Mikkelsen (“Kaecilius”), Benedict Wong (“Wong”) and Director Scott Derrickson.

Photo credits: Disney and Dusty from As Mom Sees It.

Make sure to keep up with all of the Doctor Strange excitement with hashtag: #DoctorStrangeEvent
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DOCTOR STRANGE opens in theatres everywhere on November 4th!