Benedict Cumberbatch 的多重人生（上）
《新世紀福爾摩斯》第三季、三部新電影和這個世界都對他寄予重望。這個男人遇過的死亡經歷，次數比他扮演的知名角色還更多，而他的事業才正要開始…
Written By Stuart McGurk31 December 2013
依照你的看法，Benedict Cumberbatch應該有五次瀕死經驗。第一次（失溫）發生在他是個嬰兒時。第二次（爆炸案）發生時，他還是個學生。第三次（脫水和飢餓）則是在他的空檔年（譯註：歐洲學生在高中進入大學或大學進入社會之間會有一段Gap year，讓他們暫時脫離學校去實習或出外旅行）。第四次，他被綁起來當成人質，丟進後車廂裡，載到不知名的地方，強迫他跪下，冰冷的槍口頂著他的後腦勺。他沒有聽到任何的槍聲，當然，就算槍響，他也不可能聽到。
到那時為止，他已是個演員，但以上沒有一件是虛構的。
然而，當人們提到到Benedict Cumberbatch這個名字，多半聯想到唯一一次他最接近死亡的經歷，其實是生命中的第五次。只是這次根本沒有發生，至少不是在Cumberbatch本人身上。那是在《新世紀福爾摩斯》第二季的劇末，這個兩個月後將在好萊塢三部電影裡出現的人，在結尾時從巴滋醫院的屋頂上跳了下去，招牌Belstaff大衣飛舞風中，看似一定墜樓身亡，當然，我們知道，這是個詐術。
跟大多數的人談BC，包括他的朋友、他的共演者、他的導演、甚至你的隔壁鄰居，他們會告訴你，夏洛克這角色改變了他的生活，讓他從只是一個頗受敬重的性格演員搖身一變為家喻戶曉的名字，並且邁向國際巨星。這是無法否認的。
但是如果跟Cumberbatch 本人談談，他同時會告訴你，儘管30幾歲才得到了世俗認定的成功，這對他的職業其實有更深刻的意義，不是讓他得以減緩腳步，片刻休息。是為了能永不停歇地在演員生涯中前進，這生涯裡已包括了14部舞台劇、17個電視劇角色、30部電影，真的，他才正開始。
在這個冬天，三部電影裡都有著他的身影。在奧斯卡奬大熱門《自由之心》，他是一個和善的奴隸主；票房大片《哈比人2：荒谷惡龍》裡，他是令人恐懼的惡龍史茅革。與梅莉史翠普(Meryl Streep)演對手戲的《八月心風暴》中，他是一個老把事情搞砸的失業青年。之前的那個夏天，他也是《星際爭霸戰：闇黑無界》裡的大反派可汗，讓所有企業號成員相形失色。《危機解密》裡，他更不可思議地詮釋了朱利安．阿桑奇(Julian Assange)。新一季的《新世紀福爾摩斯》將在下個月播映；最近還在拍攝解密者艾倫圖靈的傳記電影（譯註：訪問進行於2013年10月，12/31公開）；之後，還有哈姆雷特舞台劇；或許仍有希望參演由JJ Abrams執導的《星際大戰》。（「這當然一直有可能，JJ知道我多希望成為其中一員。」他說）。
就像和他共演《The Imitation Game》的好友馬修古德(Mattew Goode)所說的：『我記得有次他來我家，那時他正好結束了在國家劇院的演出，以及一部電影的拍攝。我太太問他「Ben，最近好嗎？」他說「嗯…..還可以，我是說，我現在失業……。」他才剛結束工作兩天啊！』
在回憶第三次瀕死的經驗後，Cumberbatch告訴我「這些巨變會讓你對死亡有不同的看法，更加嚴肅地面對這件事。你會了解不要浪費精力在微不足道的事情上，要享受當下活著的生命旅程。」
而在回憶第四次的經驗後，他更加清楚地加註「那次事件引發的後續效應就是我變得急躁，到現在還影響著我，促使我把生活的每一寸時光填滿。」
從另一方面來看，Benedcit Cumberbatch 或許是少數因創傷後壓力而致使他成為巨星的人。但如同人生真理永遠都很複雜，真相對Cumberbatch來說，多半也是複雜的。
他生命最初的記憶是仰望天空。父母都是演員，居住在倫敦金士敦區的公寓（在70年代大約以市價三千英鎊購買）。每當Benedict哭鬧的時候，他們會用嬰兒車帶他到頂樓，指著天空給他看，他會變得平靜，然後笑了，通常就這樣慢慢地睡著。至今，在他的記憶裡，那片天空的景致，依然如新。
他學會說話的第一個字是「直昇機」。「以前那是天空裡最巨大的東西啊！」他說。
在那段時光，他第一次成功騙過死神。母親前任婚姻所生下同母異父的姐姐Tracy在那年寒冬來家裡當保姆。她把哭鬧中的Benedict帶到頂樓去，讓他可以安靜一會兒。
「然後…..」Cumberbatch大笑，「她就把我忘了！我是說，這實在很妙。她那時正好和朋友們在廚房裡，突然看到雪花從窗外的天空飄了下來……。」
當她奔上頂樓，發現Benedict不哭不鬧，雖然牙齒打顫，還是笑著專注地望著天空。在父母回來之前，他一直被放到暖爐旁邊解凍。（「我那時全身都發青了！」）
他回憶起童年如同一首寫意的田園詩，甚至是八歲那年被送到寄宿學校的時候。
「我是獨子，但我非常合群，在那奇妙的五年間成長茁壯。但，是的，以八歲這年紀來說顯得有點殘酷。我不知道是否有辦法這樣對待一個八歲的孩子。」
他很早就開始登台，是學校的耶誕劇。他演出Joseph這個角色，但他把Mary推下舞台，因為這個女生忘了台詞。「實在太沒紳士風度了！」他說。
自信對他來說從來就不是問題，他沒懷疑過自己的能力。哈洛公學求學期間，他經常被選為主角。因為全校都是男生，他甚至必須在《皆大歡喜》裡反串 Rosalind。從那時起，他對表演這件事更加堅信不移。
「越深入表演，我對自己的天賦更有自信，你不得不。」
即將從哈洛畢業之際，Cumberbatch第二次與死神擦身而過。那時他在家裡房間準備進入大學的考試。突然間，公寓因爆炸聲劇烈的搖晃。玻璃窗碎裂，塵灰覆蓋了他，他的耳朵嗡嗡作響。「我一邊罵著『F*** !』一邊逃離公寓。我父母緊張地問著我『你有沒有怎樣？你有沒有怎樣？』我說『有，我好像有一隻耳朵聽不見？』」
那是1994年的汽車炸彈攻擊，一輛裝滿30磅炸藥的汽車想炸掉以色列大使館，Cumberbatch記得那震耳欲聾後的寂靜，然後只有schrrllllll、schrrllllll，那是玻璃碎落在地上的聲音。
之後他進入了曼徹斯特大學主修戲劇，瘋狂歲月裡，是否充滿了女孩、酒精、夜店和藥物呢？「我那時是曼大的學生啊！」他笑著說，等於是給了答案。「但是，嗯，這個我想保持緘默。」他很快又講過頭了。「我在第一年生了場重病，得了嚴重的腺熱，讓我不得不收斂點。這就是我身體在說，你他X的在搞什麼？」
畢業之後，他決定給自己一個空檔年，在西藏（譯註：記者誤會，正確地點應為印度大吉嶺的藏傳寺廟）的寺廟教英文。在那裡，他經歷了第三次的瀕死。有天爬山時，他和朋友迷路了。他們四個人身上只有一片餅乾和一塊起司。他記得一路爬過結冰的岩石和沿著半結冰的河流走下去。「差點就摔斷脖子了。」他們還把手戳入犛牛糞裡希望那能取暖，「根本是看我們到底能離西方文明生活有多遠！」
他記得最後他們找到森林的出路，癱跪在夏爾巴族的牧羊人家前。「我們用盡了全世界勉強能溝通的手語來乞食。」他也記得吃了碎肉混著菠菜的一餐，雖然後來馬上得了痢疾，而記憶中，那是最美味的一餐。
但是，直到了第四次與死神相遇，他才真正覺得自己面臨死亡。
訪問Benedict Cumberbatch有點像在當個鬥牛士，只是你得試著去影響（對話的）前進方向。
我們在Cumberbatch位於Hampstead（北倫敦）的家那條路底的酒吧見面，也就是在Heath荒野公園（譯註：超級大，活動，體育賽事都多)底下，他在哪兒擁有某個維多利亞式建築的最高兩層樓。他穿著深藍色的牛仔褲，白色襯衫，紫色軍裝外套和一頂漂亮的灰色軟扁帽－－在脫掉之後露出一頭黑色的短髮，俐落地從左至右旁分開來。
這並不是在說他沒禮貌，你得瞭解這點──其實他無論何時都彬彬有禮又風趣，大方付出時間而且熱情陪伴。這很單純地意指一旦他開始一個句子，你就被整個段子給堵住了，如果試圖插話，通常他只會在你說話的同時繼續講。
就像古德（他認識Cumberbatch超過十年了）會在訪問前幾天跟我說的一樣：「他會花時間告訴你想法，而且喜歡從頭到尾講一遍。但我喜歡這點。這大概對他的演技有好處──讓他可以異常清楚的從A轉換至B，還能很漂亮地收尾。」
同時我也認為，說到他覺得被媒體曲解這件事，只有在他能只講出確切的某句話和某個立場，而且沒有分心跑題時，才有希望不被誤傳。
這有部份大概是源自於去年八月，在他告訴《Radio Times》他覺得自己的權貴出身被撻伐了以後，小報間所爆出來的那一連串「爭執」。
「那些上流社會梗都來了，」他說，「實在太好預測、太瑣碎、太愚蠢了。」這回答只怕要招來更多批判。
必需聲明，Cumberbatch對他的社會地位的說明如下：「我是中上階層的孩子。我知道那會被當作是上流，但同時我也認識那些我會稱之為『上流』的人士，而我的談吐一點都不像他們。 」
而且，不，短時間內他並沒有要去美國發展的打算。
這不是Cumberbatch跟媒體有過的唯一爭執。事實上，他的剪報處處都能讀到他和採訪人之間偶爾的火爆對話。甚至在近期的《The Hollywood Reporter》封面故事－－文章上宣告了他是『新A咖成員』中的要角－－也顯得尷尬，一開始就寫了：「我訪問了Benedict Cumberbatch四十五分鐘，而且老實說，進行得不順利。」
近期在《衛報》上為《危機解密》宣傳而做的採訪裡，結尾也同時寫著，Cumberbatch 覺得自己對Chelsea (原名 Bradley) Manning被監禁事件上的關注被曲解了，而且看到他要求發表一份網路澄清聲明（《衛報》已補充），並將相同內容刊載在報章上（同上）。
「他們這麼做真的太不負責任，」他道，「這就好像，你想從我的回應裡攫取什麼？噢我懂了，你想要這樣呈現我的觀點，讓我看起來活像個老大不小的小學生（譯註：schoolboy指國中以下那種服從權威的小朋友），相信犯法的人就是活該被處罰（譯註：《衛報》用刪減回答的手段讓BC被自己的話攻擊，顯得他很愚昧）。」
所以，這發展到後來媒體拐彎去含蓄挖苦他的出身，也就不是什麼巧合了。
我們聊著，斷斷續續地──關於他對政治、告密者、恐怖主義等等許多族繁不及備載的各種議題的真正想法，可以說他的立場──就像大部份的人──不是非黑即白的：他明白告密者的現實面，以及相關政府為什麼會尋求懲治。但他內心是個自由主義者，不希望Manning因此受罰。他不是國安方面的專家，但明白要保持「公民自由權」與「保護社會大眾」這兩者平衡的複雜度。我告訴他這是很合理，而且很中肯的立場，我也是這樣。
「然而，從你這麼做的那一刻開始，你就被指控是個騎牆派。」他道。
就在拍攝第三季《新世紀福爾摩斯》的時候，Cumberbatch對著在附近徘徊的狗仔舉起一張紙，上面寫著：「去拍埃及，給這個世界看點重要的東西吧！」接著稍後，還有四張他手寫的，有關於《衛報》所提到的公民自由權以及政府企圖要讓報社消音事件。然而這次還是《衛報》──由Marina Hyde執筆對他窮追猛打，用一小塊標題再次提到他的社會階級：『Benedict Cumberbatch身負教育老百姓的重要使命。』
（譯註：一向偏左的衛報大約是要找個指標人物狂打好強化他們的立場，BC很不幸的剛好湊上火線....）
「當時發生的事真的讓我很震驚，」他說，「所以我想，如果這個文化對我這麼迷戀，那麼也許我正好可以用來提出問題。我無意要壞了那些人的興致，他們只是想瞧瞧《新世紀福爾摩斯》影集拍攝狀況。」
他嘆氣。「我想這是我最挑釁大眾媒體的一次了，而且如果我在報紙上被曲解了，或我的觀點被異動後才刊載，那麼至少這裡有清楚的原版：我正舉著這些字呢。」
至於那篇文章：「《衛報》真的是魚與熊掌兼得，他們辦公室的硬碟都被搜查了，我覺得他們真的把被消音的事件報導得很好。」
Benedict Cumberbatch憂心著許多事。我猜事實上，他有可能是擔心過頭了。
（譯者A: 還好他不住台灣 XDDDD
譯者B: 有時候反倒希望他在台灣了QwQ
譯者C: 或是台灣藝人有像他這樣的）
「我知道啊。不過我現在好多了。我記得在拍《新世紀福爾摩斯》的時候發生了某件事，然後有人就說了，『你真是太敏感了。』當下真的是覺得，『我又來了。我他X的又來了。』我是說，在我的經驗裡我確實是（挺敏感的）。但我一直在學習。說懊悔太沉重，但我正在學習。」
然而反過來說，愛操心的另一面是清楚美好的，那就是難以置信的熱情。就像他似乎擔心每件事一樣，他也對每件事感到亢奮不已。
他一直都很興奮：對我們點的咖啡（酒保被好好的拷問了一頓關於到底什麼是『flat white（澳式咖啡牛奶）』）；對於雜誌的運作模式；對於在Hampstead Heath荒野公園野外游泳；對於我們點的漢堡；甚至，在我們離開酒吧，他要徒步回家，而我正在幫單速單車開鎖時，他對於我的單車也很興奮（他認得車架的廠牌，這讓身為單車迷的我印象深刻）。
看到他對那些不重要卻意外的小事所展現的這種熱情，讓我忍不住想起兩件事。
首先，洋溢的熱情之後通常是天真，我明白《新世紀福爾摩斯》的另一位主演Martin Freeman為什麼會說他很好『唬弄』（「他親切又大方，幾乎就像個孩子。我玩牌都能占他便宜。」Martin說。），或是Simon Pegg如何能在他們拍攝《闇黑無界》的時候說服Cumberbatch得擦上一種中子霜好保護他免受輻射侵害；他順從了，甚至相信這就是他台詞一直念不順的原因（『我對不起大家，』他說，『我頭真的很痛。我想是中子害我的。』）。
但多半，和Cumberbatch一比，我就像某個過著低彩度人生的傢伙。對他來說，似乎每件事都像霓虹閃爍。那些挑釁也許會變得更尖利，但他眼裡的陽光也必然將這一切照得更亮。
（譯註：記者的意思應該是要說，和BC比，他的人生比較低調、沒有大起大落；而BC的人生裡面什麼都是高彩度的，因為他對生命充滿熱情。所以那些衝著他的攻擊雖然也會比別人的多、更尖銳，但別忘了在BC的世界裡陽光也更耀眼的：要嗎是BC更樂觀地面對這些攻擊、要嗎是BC的世界中有更棒的事情，所以這些攻擊相形之下也沒這麼有殺傷力了，看看那個權貴攻擊就知道，《衛報》根本是老調重彈，沒什麼力量）
不難想像這樣的敏感，不論是好或壞，如何豐富了他的表演。他感受到得更多、注意得更多、聽得更多。那是他的天性，他就是個人體音叉。他說過他在還小的時候，曾隨身攜帶一個錄音機，到處錄下覺得有趣的聲音，然後試著發出那種聲音，練習各種音調。那沒維持很久，因為接著他自己就成了一台錄音機。在過去這三小時中他所引用到的每句話，他都忍不住要模仿一下發話人的語調、姿態、聲音、等等一切。這真是不可思議，不只因為這份演員名單裡包含了瑪丹娜(Madonna)（「她說，『你就是那個名字很怪的傢伙。』我說，『對，我就是－瑪丹娜。』」）、梅莉史翠普（「她只是說，『嗯，我喜歡你的作品。』」）和Ted Danson（「那是在奧斯卡前的宴會上，他就只是穿過擁擠的房間尖叫著，天啊！我靠！是夏洛克！你是夏洛克福爾摩斯！我的天啊！」）。這讓我有時候感覺像在享受一場全世界最棒的單人秀。
在《Graham Norton秀》上他模仿了《星際大戰》裡的丘巴(Chewbacca)，哈里遜福特當時坐在他身邊，差點從椅子上跳起來。「他有一雙不可思議的耳朵，」《新世紀福爾摩斯》的共同編劇Steven Moffat說。「他可以在驚人的極短時間裡學會模仿別人。他能模仿我。他能模仿你。他前一陣子還因為說了一口上流社會口音惹了一身騷。但是，老實說吧，他被歸類為上流社會因為他的確是──他可是上流男孩Timothy Carlton的兒子。」
（下篇待續）
原文：
Depending on your point of view, Benedict Cumberbatch has almost died on five separate occasions. The first (hypothermia) occurred when he was a baby. The second (bomb explosion), when he was a student. The third (dehydration and starvation), when he was on his gap year. The fourth saw him taken hostage, tied up, bundled into the boot of a car, driven to an unknown location, forced to the ground on his knees and the cold muzzle of a gun trained on the back of his head. He never heard the shot of a bullet, but then, of course, he never would have.
By that point, he was an actor. But none of the above is fiction.
And yet, when people think of Benedict Cumberbatch, it's likely the only near-death experience that comes to mind is the fifth one, the one that didn't actually happen - at least, not to Cumberbatch. It's the one at the end of the second series of Sherlock, where the 37-year-old, who will be seen in no less than three Hollywood films in the next two months, leapt from the top of St Bartholomew's hospital, trademark Belstaff greatcoat flapping in the wind, and seemingly plummeted to his death - only, of course, to be seen to have cheated it.
Talk to most people - his friends, his co-stars, his directors, your next-door neighbour - and they will tell you that it was the Sherlock role that changed his life, that transformed him from a respected character actor into a household name and, from there, an international star. Which is undeniably true.
But talk to Cumberbatch himself and he will also tell you there is a deeper reason for it all - for the career that, despite mainstream success coming in his thirties, has not for one moment seen a lull, a break or slowdown of any kind; a kind of non-stop career sprint that has included 14 theatre productions, 17 TV roles, 30 films and, really, he's just getting started.
The three films he's in this winter - as a kindly slave-owner in the red-hot Oscar favourite 12 Years A Slave; as fearsome dragon Smaug in tent-pole blockbuster The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug; as an unemployed screw-up opposite Meryl Streep in August: Osage County - come after a summer in which he outshone the Enterprise crew as super-villain Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, and gave an uncanny performance as Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate. Then there's the new series of Sherlock starting next month, the biopic of code-breaker Alan Turing (The Imitation Game), which he's currently filming, Hamlet on stage and, after that, the lingering hope of the rebooted JJ Abrams-directed Star Wars ("There's a possibility, of course there is - JJ knows how much I'd love to be part of it").
As his good friend Matthew Goode, a co-star in The Imitation Game, says: "I remember him coming to our house after he'd just finished something at the National Theatre and yet another film, and my wife said, 'How are you Ben?' And he said, 'Yeah, um, I'm all right, I mean, I'm unemployed at the moment...' He'd been unemployed for two days!"
After recalling the third time he almost died, Cumberbatch will say to me: "These seismic events give you perspective on mortality, on the sacredness of it... to realise not to sweat the small stuff. And just to enjoy the ride of being alive."
After recalling the fourth time, he will put it more plainly: "The afterburn, the follow-on stuff from that experience, is impatience. And I think that might still be ongoing. About me trying to cram a lot into my life."
To put it another way: Benedict Cumberbatch might be one of the few people whose post-traumatic stress has made him a superstar. The truth - as always with life, as often with Cumberbatch - is a bit more complicated.
His first memory is of staring at the sky. His parents - both actors - lived in a top-floor flat in Kensington, London ("bought in the Seventies for something like three grand"), and when Benedict would cry, they would carry his pram up to the roof and point him skywards. Then, he would become still. He would smile. And often, he would sleep. He remembers, still, the wonder he felt at this: "A vision of sky."
His first word was helicopter. "They were the biggest things in the sky."
It was around this time that he first cheated death. His half-sister, Tracy, from his mother's first marriage, was babysitting him in the middle of winter. She put a crying Benedict on the roof to calm him for a moment or two.
"Then," says Cumberbatch, laughing, "she forgot about me! I mean, it was funny. She was in the kitchen with her friends and she suddenly saw the snow falling through the window..."
When she ran upstairs, she found Benedict serene - teeth chattering, but still smiling, still in awe. He had to be thawed out on a radiator before his parents returned home ("I had turned blue").
Still, he remembers his childhood as idyllic. Even when, at eight, he was packed off to boarding school.
"I was an only child, but I was very gregarious. I thrived; an amazing five years. But yes, eight seems a bit of a wrench. I don't know if I could do it with a kid of eight."
He started acting early. At the school nativity, he remembers, he played Joseph - and shoved Mary off the stage because she had forgotten her lines. "It was very unchivalrous."
Confidence was never a problem. Nor was a belief in his ability. By the time he went to Harrow he was cast in most of the lead roles - including, as it was an all-boys school, Rosalind in As You Like It - and from there didn't much doubt acting was for him.
"I think, going into it, I always had self-belief in my talent. You have to."
It was at the end of his time at Harrow that Cumberbatch had a run-in with mortality for the second time. He was at home, studying for his A levels in his bedroom, when all of a sudden the whole flat shook from a huge explosion. The windows shattered, a dust cloud enveloped him, his ears rang. "I just thought, 'F***!' I ran through the flat. My mum and dad were saying, 'Are you all right? Are you all right?' I said no - I couldn't hear out of one ear."
It was the 1994 attack on the Israeli Embassy, a car packed with 30lb of explosives. Cumberbatch remembers a deafening silence, then a sound - schrrlllllll, schrrlllllll. It was the sound of glass falling to earth.
When he went to Manchester University to study drama, he had a blast - girls, drinking, clubbing. Pills? "I was a student in Manchester," he says with a laugh, by way of an answer. "But, uh, I'll take the Fifth." Yet he soon overdid it: "I got very ill in my first year. I got glandular fever. I had to calm down a bit. It was my body going, 'What the f***?'"
After he graduated, he decided to take a gap year, teaching English in Tibet. And that's when he had his third near-death experience. He got lost while hiking with friends. Armed only with a biscuit and a piece of cheese between four of them, he remembers walking across outcrops lined with ice and down semi-frozen rivers, "nearly breaking our necks", poking yak droppings in the hope they were warm - "to see how far we could be from some kind of civilisation".
He remembers, finally, breaking through the tree line, falling on his knees near the home of a Sherpa shepherd and "making the universal hand-to-mouth gesture of food". He remembers getting a meal of spinach and meat, and the dysentery he got straight after eating it. He remembers it as the best meal he's ever had.
But it was the fourth of his near-misses when he really thought he was going to die.
Interviewing Benedict Cumberbatch is a bit like being a matador, but one trying to influence the direction of a train.
We meet in a pub at the end of Cumberbatch's road in Hampstead, north London, just below the Heath, where he owns the top two floors of a Victorian house. He is wearing dark-blue jeans, white T-shirt, purple pea coat and a smart grey flat cap, which, when removed, reveals a short back and sides propping up a neat quiffed wave of hair, breaking left to right.
It's not that he's rude, you understand - he's unfailingly polite, funny, generous with his time and wonderful company. It's simply that, when he begins a sentence, you're locked in for the paragraph, and if you try to interject, often he'll just keep talking while you talk.
As Goode, who has known Cumberbatch for more than a decade, will tell me a few days before the interview, "He gives his time and his thoughts, but he likes to follow a point through to the end. But I love that. And it probably stands his acting in good stead - he's able to get from point A to point B and finish it with extreme clarity."
It is also, I think, down to a feeling he has of being misrepresented by the press, and it's only by giving the exact line, his exact position, without distraction, that he can hope not to be misquoted.
Partly, perhaps, this stems from the confected "row" that erupted in the tabloids last August when he told the Radio Times that he felt "castigated" for his privileged background.
"All the posh-baiting that goes on," he said. "It's just so predictable, so domestic, so dumb." Cue more castigation.
For the record, Cumberbatch has this to say about his social standing: "I'm an upper middle-class kid. I know that's counted as posh, but then I know people who I would call posh, and I don't talk like them."
And, no, he's not leaving for the United States any time soon.
This was not the only run-in Cumberbatch has had with the press. In fact, his cuttings file is littered with occasionally tetchy exchanges with interviewers. Even a recent cover story in The Hollywood Reporter - which proclaimed him the key player of "The New A-List" - was awkward, beginning with the sentence: "I am 45 minutes into an interview with Benedict Cumberbatch, and frankly, it's not going well."
A recent interview with the Guardian to promote The Fifth Estate, meanwhile, ended with Cumberbatch feeling he'd been quoted out of context concerning Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning's incarceration, and saw him ask for a clarification to be posted online (it was), and the relevant transcript published (ditto).
"It was very irresponsible of them to do that," he says. "It's like, what are you going to gain from my opinions? Oh, I see, you're going to turn it into a piece that makes me sound like a big schoolboy who thinks that people who break the rules should be punished."
It's also probably no coincidence that this, too, circled back to a veiled dig at his social class.
We speak, on and off, about his true thoughts on politics, whistleblowers and terrorism in greater detail than could be included even in a profile of this length, but suffice to say his position is, like most people's, not black and white: he understands the reality of whistleblowers, and why the relevant governments seek to punish them. But at heart he's a liberal, and wouldn't want Manning punished. He's not a security- expert, but understands the complex balancing act between civil liberties and protecting the population. I tell him it's an utterly reasonable, balanced position to take, and one I share.
"And yet, the minute you do that, you're accused of sitting on the fence," he says.
While filming the third series of Sherlock, meanwhile, Cumberbatch held up a piece of paper to the paparazzi hovering nearby that read: "Go photograph Egypt and show the world something important". Then, later, a four-page treatise he'd written about civil liberties regarding the Guardian and the government's attempt to muffle the paper. Yet it was the Guardian once again - this time via Marina Hyde - that stuck the boot in, referencing his class with a piece headlined, "Benedict Cumberbatch's vital mission to educate the hoi polloi".
"I was really shocked with what was going on," he says, "so I just thought, if this culture is so fixated on me, I may as well use it to ask questions. I wasn't trying to trash popular culture. I don't belittle the appetites of people who just want to see shots of Sherlock."
He sighs. "I guess that's my nearest flirtation with social media, and if I get misinterpreted in print, or if the perception of me is edited in print, then this is clear: I'm holding up the words."
As for the article: "The Guardian really does have its cake and eat it. Their offices are being raided for these hard disks, and I find it extraordinary they [ran] that [piece] as well."
Benedict Cumberbatch worries a lot. I suggest, in fact, he might worry too much.
"I know. And I am getting better at that. I remember something happening during the filming of Sherlock and someone said, 'You've got a thin skin.' And it was like, 'I've done it again. I've f***ing done it again.' I mean, I do [have a thin skin] when something is said at my expense. But I'm learning. Regret is too big a word, but I'm learning."
And yet there is a clear and wonderful flip side to all this concern of his, which is unbelievable enthusiasm. As much as he seemingly worries about everything, he's excited and thrilled about everything else.
He's excited about the coffee we order (the barman gets a lengthy grilling on what exactly is a flat white); by how this magazine works; by wild swimming in Hampstead Heath; by the burgers we order; even, as we leave the pub - him to stroll home, me to unlock my single-speed racer - by my bike (he recognises the make of frame, the bike nerd in me is impressed).
Seeing all these enthusiasms - and these are just the minor, slightly unexpected ones - I can't help but think two things.
First, the follow-through of rampant enthusiasm is often naivety, and I understand why his Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman says he's easy to "screw over" ("He's sweet and generous in an almost childlike way. I could take advantage of him playing cards"), or how Simon Pegg convinced Cumberbatch while they were filming Star Trek Into Darkness in a nuclear facility that he needed to wear a special face cream to protect him from radiation; he obliged, and even became convinced it was why he kept screwing up his lines ("Guys, I'm sorry," he said. "I've got a real headache. I think the ions were getting to me").
But mostly, I feel, compared with Cumberbatch, like someone going through existence with the contrast dial turned down. To him, it seems, everything is neon bright. The barbs may sting more sharply, but his sun must shine that much brighter.
It's not hard to imagine how this sensitivity - both bad and good - feeds into his acting. He feels more, notices more, hears more. It's in his nature - he's a human tuning fork. When he was a child, he says, he used to carry around a Dictaphone wherever he went, recording anything he found of interest, trying out voices, practising sounds. It didn't last too long, but only because he became the Dictaphone. For every person he quotes during the three hours we spend together, he can't help but drop into a pitch-perfect impersonation of them, body, voice and all. It's uncanny, not least because this cast list includes Madonna ("She said, 'You're the one with the strange name.' I said, 'Yes, I am - Madonna'"), Meryl Streep ("She just said, 'Well, I love what you do'") and Ted Danson ("It was a pre-Oscar party and he just screamed across a crowded room, 'Oh my God! F***! It's Sherlock! You're Sherlock! Oh God!'"). It occasionally feels like I'm getting the best one-man show in the world.
On the Graham Norton show he did Chewbacca from Star Wars. Harrison Ford, sitting next to him, almost jumped out of his seat. "He's got a remarkable ear," says Steven Moffat, the co-creator of Sherlock. "He can pick up people seriously fast. He could do me. He could do you. When he got into trouble a short while ago for saying he was pigeon-holed as posh - he can do it all, that's all he meant. And yet he gets pigeon-holed for parts because he is, let's be honest, the son of Timothy Carlton - a posh boy."
(TBC)
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