[GQ] The Many Lives of Benedict Cumberbatch (2013.12.31) (Part 2)

Benedict Cumberbatch 的多重人生（下）

當Cumberbatch最近登上《時代週刊》雜誌封面時（「真是令人難以置信的榮耀」），封面標題寫著〈扮演天才〉。這是種刻板印象：詮釋有點奇怪但通常很聰明的人——從他二十出頭在電視傳記電影中傑出扮演史蒂芬．霍金一角而受到矚目之後，這樣的觀感就一直跟著他。接著又因為他接演梵谷（另一部電視傳記電影）、朱利安．阿桑奇、夏洛克、可汗還有即將上映的圖靈，而讓這種觀點更形穩固。

除了那些，他還演過其他多元的角色例如《Four Lions》中的人質談判專家、史匹伯導演大作《戰馬》中的上校、《贖罪》中的強暴者、《諜影行動》裡的同志間諜。「聽著，我知道現在我做的每件事都會添上一絲Sherlock的感覺。大家都想要那種陰暗複雜的反英雄（譯註：指具有反派缺點但卻做出英雄行為的角色），當然我是扮演他們，可是我也演《八月心風暴》裡的查爾斯、《自由之心》裡的福特牧師，還有《倒帶人生》裡的作家亞歷山大——他就是個很淺顯易懂的人物啊。雖然他也很聰明，但是複雜的是Stuart（由Tom Hardy飾演的流浪漢）。亞歷山大是很平易近人的，他並非超級偵探，也不會解碼或破解電腦運算程序。我把他們混合起來。」

我想，事實上你在Cumberbatch所有傑出表現中所能看見的，並不全是他都在扮演天才或聰明人這點（這悲劇性任務通常都很危險，試著『演』聰明人有點像是要試著想裝出冷漠的氣質——因為這種特質強裝不來）。不管是舞台上的科學怪人、《倒帶人生》裡的亞歷山大或是夏洛克，能把這些角色連接起來的，是更重要的本質：像奇蹟一樣的本質。


我與Cumberbatch見面那天是週一，美國上映《危機解密》後一週(譯註：美國於10月13號正式上映)，票房一蹶不振。預估花了三千萬美金（一千九百萬英鎊）打造，而全美1760間影院才進帳一百七十萬美金（一百一十萬英鎊），成了2013年度上映首週末票房最慘的主流電影。

「這個嘛，我一直覺得迪士尼和夢工廠在這種特殊議題上是很緊密的夥伴，真的。這跟《社群網戰》可以相提並論，只是臉書大家都在用，而人們對維基解密這種組織並不熟悉。」Cumberbatch又說道，「這本來就不會是很多廳播放的爆米花電影。」

現在他開始領銜主演，必須煩惱的事情中，票房收益似乎也算得上是其中一項。那天Variety發表了一篇文章，標題為〈解密慘敗是否嚴重影響Benedict Cumberbatch擔任主角？〉
「無關痛癢，」他說，「我只是很感激這部電影認為我足以擔綱演出這樣的角色。不管這部片有多賣座，我怎麼演出（阿桑奇）所得到的回應對我幫助甚鉅。你知道，這是我演過的第一個主角，而且這部片又這麼受到矚目。」

但這會不會連帶影響他拿奧斯卡的機會呢？

「我覺得有，可是話說回來，我也從來不為了這個而堅持不懈。」他也不是想成為電視巨星所以一直繼續演戲的，但這不代表他不是巨星。儘管那是暑假淡季、儘管被提前播出、儘管根本沒有什麼宣傳，在2010年七月的第一集《新世紀福爾摩斯》就獲得了九百萬觀眾。Cumberbatch才不是一夜火紅——90分鐘後他就已經紅了。

選角十分完美—Benedict已經非常善於詮釋那種飽受折磨卻傑出的獨行俠角色—就像協力創劇的Mark Gatiss曾如此表示：「在某些特定狀況下，他看起來是這麼異於常人；可換個場景，他又是出奇地英俊。」

第三季細節雖然被保護得密不透風，但Cumberbatch願意對我透露：會有一場重聚、一份（他怎麼假死的）解釋、一樁婚姻、一場演說，還有一個新惡人，『他跟Moriarty那種異世界感完全不同，因為這個惡人太真實太有可能存在，這就是令人心驚之處』。最後還會有個吊人胃口的結局（「會讓你脫口"What the f***?"」），比較少推演的獨白（「也許大家不會懷念這個，不過說歸說，第二集幾乎有一整場獨白」），還有一個新髮型。

嗯，事實上呢…

「我已經說了好一陣子，希望他會有個新髮型。我還滿喜歡我頭髮短一點，你知道，我們已經離開了兩年，讓我們把他的衣著換一換、他X的搞一搞頭髮，總之就做點不一樣的事。」
真能改嗎？「不太行，不。」

不過，雖然有了一群粉絲軍隊『康伯婊子』，而且到哪這名號都會跟著Cumberbatch，但現在還是很難想像BBC當初差點兒就沒核准讓他擔綱，因為他們覺得他不夠有魅力。

「我們一直跟BBC說我們會給你一個非常性感的夏洛克福爾摩斯，」Moffat道，「然後我記得BBC說『嗯…真的嗎？我們不覺得他很性感』，現在他是全世界最火辣的男星了。」

所以這引出了下列疑問：一整隊的女粉絲是想跟夏洛克、還是跟Cumberbatch上床呢？

「我想，就像Rita Hayworth（譯註：以《巧婦姬黛》聞名，性感女神代表）說過的，」Gatiss道：「『麻煩的是他們跟姬黛上了床，卻跟我一塊兒醒來。』」

馬修古德(Matthew Goode) 倒是有另種看法。我談及對Cumberbatch來說，如果事關女性他大概很難辨別（誰是為了什麼而瘋狂喜愛他）。「哈哈，你知道吧，我們在談的可是個男人呢，聽著，他還沒這麼老，但他已經坐三望四了，所以他也在找（一個長相廝守的伴侶）。不過假使他得歷經征戰才能找到另一半，我相信他不會介意這點。我也相信就連佳人之冠也會被他吸引，他會過得很不錯。」

至於Cumberbatch本人，他只是這麼說：「（認識女孩子）比較困難，因為大家總覺得他們比實際上更懂你，而你又不能控制他們別這麼想。你不能控制別人對你的觀感。」

不管能不能控制，至少看起來他有盡力了。


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這是Cumberbatch記憶所及的南非瀕死經驗，時值2004年，他正在拍攝迷你劇《直到世界盡頭》(To The End Of The Earth)。

他和同戲演員Danise black及Theo Landey一起。在Durban北方的KwaZulunatal區度過的一個完美潛水週末的歸途上。那是夜裡，他們行駛在莫三比克(Mozambique)邊境的高速公路上。Cumberbatch捲了一管大麻煙，一邊聽著音響傳來的電台司令《How To Disappear Completely》。一邊想著他有多幸福。車子右輪爆胎了，使得他們必須停車。一旁卡車倏忽而過，當他們正要卸下輪胎換上備胎時，六個武裝男子突然從灌木叢中現身，Cumberbatch和他的朋友被搜身，要求他們拿出錢、毒品和武器。他們的手被自己的鞋帶綁起來，接著被帶走。帶離主要幹道是他所僅知的訊息。

Cumberbatch被塞到坐在副駕駛座的Black的大腿上，緊貼著擋風玻璃，身體很彆扭地曲著，當車子顛簸時他的頭和背會撞上玻璃。他記得在一個奇特的時間點，他的屁股撞上汽車音響，把它打開了，突然傳出Thom Yorke的嗓音就像是來折磨他的：「我不在這兒，」他唱著，「這沒發生過⋯⋯」他十分不舒服，所以他們決定停下車，把他塞進後車廂。

他記得一絲血跡從頭上流下，他記得嚴重的抽筋讓他覺得下一秒就要昏倒了。他還記得他那時想著，如果他們不打算殺掉他，那他可能會變成人質。他燃起了一絲希望，他開始想像他們會如何處置他，會像電視上——像是Silent Witness犯罪劇裏，鎖在拱門下的那種嗎？但當時沒有拱門，他們被載往荒郊野外。

突然，車子停了。他記得被拖出行李廂而且被迫蜷曲成被處決的姿勢。他記得有個枕頭抵在他的後腦勺以便掩蓋槍響。他記得當時想著，「不管這輩子有多少人愛你，你仍獨自死去。」

他記得他試著說服他們，殺了他並不是個好主意，畢竟一個英國人死在他們手上是很麻煩的。不知道過了多久，說不定只有幾分鐘，但漫長地如同過了好幾個小時，他知道綁匪離開了。

他們朝向唯一可見的燈光處奔跑，茫茫然地跑了大概十分鐘或更久，他們遇到幾個在停車場推著購物車的女人，他記得那雙將他鬆綁的黝黑的雙手，他們的感激是多麼全然純粹。他記得那些女人為了同胞的犯行而哭號，她們不停地哭喊著同一句話，真丟臉，真丟臉，真丟臉⋯。

然後，他也哭了起來，無法停止。

他曾經敘述過一部份這個恐怖的遭遇，講述不同的部分、不同的細節。他沒說過的是後遺症。隔天早上他醒來，他說，他走向他們拍戲時過夜用的房子的陽台，望向大海。

「我感受到臉上的溫度，一眼望去想著，『我想在那片海裡游泳，我想橫越那片沙丘，我想加入眼前正在玩樂的那群人。我身上的每個細胞都想成為其中一份子，因為我活著。』」

他去看了心理諮詢師，諮詢師建議「或許你該把這經歷寫下，和大家分享，然後從事一些運動——讓這些成為你生命中的一片風景。」

Cumberbatch的聰穎天性如假包換，他完成了這三項——當他在路邊等待警察時，他已經寫了四頁關於這個經驗的細節，接下來幾天他去高空跳傘，重新回去工作，同時告訴所有人這件事。「我已經完成這張查核表了！」他說，「這就只是直覺。」

過了幾週，他的雙親飛來探班，他重返事發現場。「他們問『你確定你想這麼做？』我說是。你們難以想像那些微小的回憶是如何淹没我，我甚至記得當時的蟲子。」

在幾週後，他產生了唯一一次壓力後創傷症後群，當《直到世界盡頭》重新開拍。他們在遮蓋住的船的甲板下拍攝。Cumberbatch為了呼吸新鮮空氣和抽口煙想跑上去，只見他們已經開始關上主要的閘板。

「我看見陽光快被遮住了，我說『嘿，你可以停下來嗎？』它持續被關上，我就像是『求求你，不要關上！』」

他恐慌的向外跑去。「我握著拳頭對著磚牆掄了三四次。」當他回憶時就像讓他回到後車廂，他眼眶泛淚。「那是對我被喚起恐懼的憤怒，好像我最後就會往這頭想。我記得我想著：不可以讓這件事只留下這種回憶。」

我們在訪談後還持續有聯絡。他隔天打電話給我，說他和Denise Black在南非談過之後他是如何，而他有多想念她。我在電視上看到， 他為了國家劇院五十週年紀念在Rosencrantz And Guildenstem Are Dead 中做的卓越表演。我們互傳了一些簡訊。我好奇他究竟是什麼樣的人——他對這個世界不可思議的感性，對任何事都充滿活力——這僅是他的天性，而又有多少是由他極不尋常的經驗所型塑的。他傳給我一段很長的簡訊，解釋這些經驗是如何型塑他，直到他說：「我開始聽起來像個充滿幸運籤餅乾那種一句箴言的心靈成長書籍了！」

但事後當我正在思考：是否真有什麼簡單的詞語能夠形容如此錯綜複雜的事物時，他傳了一句話給我，看起來並不深奧也沒有詞藻堆砌，或是像什麼人生啟示。但對我來說，這句話如此真切就像華燈初上。

它只有一行字，說道：「如人飲水，冷暖自知。」（"You have to experience this stuff yourself."）

原文：

When Cumberbatch was featured recently on the cover of Time ("An unbelievable honour"), the cover line read: "Playing Genius". It's a cliché - playing slightly odd yet often brilliant men - that has stuck with him over the years, ever since his stunning breakout role in his twenties as Stephen Hawking in a TV biopic. And it's one that's only been solidified by playing the likes of Vincent van Gogh (another TV biopic), Assange, Sherlock, Khan and his forthcoming role as Turing. This, despite roles as varied as a hostage negotiator in Four Lions, a major in Spielberg's War Horse, a rapist in Atonement and a gay spook in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

"Look, I know that everything I do now will have flavours of Sherlock. Everyone wants those dark, complicated antiheroes, and of course I play them. But I also play Charles in August: Osage County, Ford in 12 Years A Slave and Alexander in Stuart: A Life Backwards - he's a pretty open book; smart man though he is, the complexity is all about Stuart [a homeless man played by Tom Hardy]. Alexander's an everyman; he's not super-sleuthing or cracking code or breaking algorithms. I mix it up." 

The truth, I think, that you can see in all Cumberbatch's best roles is not really that he plays genius or even intelligence exactly (one of the most slippery of thespian tasks; trying to "act" intelligence is a bit like trying to feign coolness - it doesn't work if you force it). The thing that binds them, from Frankenstein on stage and Alexander in Stuart: A Life Backwards to Sherlock, is something more fundamental: a sense of wonder. 

The day I meet Cumberbatch, it is the Monday after opening weekend in the US of The Fifth Estate, and the film has tanked. On an estimated budget of $30m (£19m), it took just $1.7m (£1.1m) from 1,769 cinemas across the country, making it the worst opening weekend for any major film released in 2013.

"Well, I always thought that Disney and Dreamworks were odd bedfellows for such a specialist topic, really. The parallel is The Social Network, but everyone uses Facebook; not everyone is au fait with WikiLeaks," says Cumberbatch, adding, "This was never going to be a popcorn multiplex film." 

Box-office gross - now he's in the market to play the leads - is seemingly one more thing he has to fret about. That morning, Variety ran a piece titled, "Does 'Fifth Estate' Bombing Hurt Benedict Cumberbatch As A Leading Man?"

"Water off a duck's back," he says. "I'm just thankful that it has positioned me as someone who is capable of doing that kind of a role. And whether the film has a big box office or not, the response to how I have performed [as Assange] has done me huge favours. You know, it's the first lead role I've had and it's caused this much attention."

Has it harmed his Oscar chances though? 

"I think so. But then I never really held out for that." He never really held out for TV superstardom either, but that doesn't mean he didn't get it. Despite it airing in the summer, despite it being brought forward on the schedule, despite minimal PR, the first episode of Sherlock, in July 2010, got nine million viewers. Cumberbatch wasn't an overnight star - he was one at the end of 90 minutes. 

It was the perfect fit - the pinnacle of the tormented, brilliant loners he'd made a specialism of; a role that would play on, as co-creator Mark Gatiss puts it, the fact that "in a certain light, his face is quite alien. And then in another, he's iconically handsome."

Details of the third series are tightly under wraps, but Cumberbatch will tell me this much: there will be a reunion, an explanation (of how he cheated death), a marriage, a speech and a new villain "who is the opposite of the otherworldly Moriarty, who is painfully real and possible - that's what's chilling". There will be another cliffhanger ending ("that makes you go, 'What the f***?'"), fewer lengthy deduction monologues ("Maybe people won't miss them; although saying that, episode two is almost one entire monologue"), and a new haircut. Well, actually...

"I've said for quite a long time I'd like him to have a different haircut. I quite like my hair being short. You know, we've been away two years, let's f*** around with his outfit, let's f*** around with his haircut, let's do something different."

Was he allowed to? "Not really, no." 

And yet, as hard as it is to imagine now - with the fan army of "Cumberbitches" that are name-checked in every Cumberbatch profile, and duly get a mention here - the BBC almost didn't go for him, because they said he wasn't attractive enough. 

"We kept saying to the BBC, we're going to give you a sexy Sherlock Holmes," says Moffat. "And I remember the BBC saying, 'Hmm, really? We don't think he is.' And now, he's the sexiest man in the world."

It begs the question: do his army of devoted female followers want to sleep with Sherlock, or with Cumberbatch?

"I suppose as Rita Hayworth used to say," says Gatiss, "'The trouble is, they go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.'" 

Matthew Goode has a different take when I suggest it must be hard for Cumberbatch to -distinguish when it comes to women. "Ha ha, you know, this is a man we're talking about! Look, he's not that old, but he's coming to the end of his thirties, so he's looking [for a long-term partner]. But if he has to have a few conquests to get the right one, I'm sure that won't bother him either. I'm sure the cream of the crop will be coming towards him. He's going to enjoy himself."

As for Cumberbatch himself, he'll simply say this: "It is harder [meeting women], because people think they know more about you than they actually do. And you can't control that. You can't control perceptions of you."

No matter how much, it seems, he tries. 

This is what Cumberbatch can remember from the time he nearly died in South Africa, while filming mini-series To The Ends Of The Earth in 2004. 

He is with co-stars Denise Black and Theo Landey. They are making their way back from an idyllic weekend of scuba-diving in the KwaZulu-Natal district, north of Durban. It is night-time. They are driving on a highway near the Mozambique border. Cumberbatch has lit a spliff, and is listening to Radiohead on the stereo - "How To Disappear Completely" - and contemplating how blissfully happy he is. Their right tyre blows, forcing them to pull over. Trucks shudder past. As they begin

to remove the wheel and replace it with a spare, six armed men emerge from the bush. Cumberbatch and his friends are frisked, asked for money, drugs and weapons. Their hands are bound with their own shoelaces and they are driven away. Off-road, is all he knows. 

Cumberbatch is bundled against the windscreen, sitting on Black's lap on the front passenger seat, awkwardly folded, his back and head hitting the glass as they go over bumps. He remembers a surreal moment when his bum hits the car stereo, turning it on, and Thom Yorke is suddenly soundtracking his ordeal: "I'm not here," he sings. "This isn't happening..." He is in some discomfort, so they stop, and decide instead to put him in the boot. 

He remembers a trickle of blood on his head. He remembers suffering bad cramps, and thinking he is going to pass out. He remembers thinking, if they aren't going to kill him, he might be taken hostage. He takes some small solace from this. He imagines where they would store him. Would it be like TV - some kind of Silent Witness-style lock-up under the arches? But there are no arches. They are being driven into the wilderness.    

Suddenly, they stop. He remembers being taken out of the boot and being forced to crouch in the execution position. He remembers the duvet that was placed over his head, to silence the shot. He remembers thinking: "No matter how loved you are in this life, you will die alone." 

He remembers trying to reason with them, saying that killing him would not be a good idea, that they don't want a dead Englishman on their hands. After an indeterminate amount of time, which may only have been minutes, but which spread out like hours, he realises the kidnappers have gone. 

They run towards the only lights they can see and, after about ten minutes of so, running in a daze, they come across women operating a cart outside a car park. He remembers the black hands that untie him. The pure gratitude he feels. And he remembers the women crying for what has been done by their countrymen. They cry the same sentence again and again. For shame, they cry. For shame. For shame... 

He remembers, then, that he too started to cry. And he remembers he couldn't stop. 

Some of this harrowing encounter, in varying parts and in varying detail, he has recounted before. What he has not spoken about are the after-effects. He woke up the next morning, he says, and went to the balcony of the house they were staying in, which looked out to the sea. 

"And I felt the heat on my face, and I looked across and thought, 'I want to swim in that sea. I want to walk across that dune, I want to be with those people I can see playing. Every atom of me wants to be part of it. Because I'm alive.'" 

He saw a counsellor, who said, "Maybe write this out, speak to people about it, and do some exercise - be part of your landscape." 

True to Cumberbatch's hyper-aware nature, he had already done all three - he had written four pages detailing the experience while waiting on the road side for the police, gone skydiving in the days following, returned to work and spoken to everyone about it. "I'd already done the check list," he says. "It was just intuitive." 

After his parents flew over the following week, he even revisited the site. "They said, 'Are you sure you want to?' I said yes. You can't imagine all the small details that came back to me. Right down to the insects." 

The only trauma he identified occurred a few weeks later, while resuming To The Ends Of The Earth's filming. They were shooting under the deck of a boat on a covered section of dock. Cumberbatch came up for air and a smoke, only to see they had started to close the main shutter entrance. 

"I saw the daylight being blocked out and I said, 'Look, can you stop that?' It kept closing, and I was like, 'Please, keep it open!'" 

He panicked, and ran outside. "I smashed my fist three or four times against the brick wall." He has tears in his eyes now as he recalls it. It had reminded him of the car boot. "It was the anger of being reminded of the fear, and where I'd gone in my imagination. And I remember thinking: 'Don't let that be the legacy of this.'" 

We keep in contact after the interview. He calls me to chat the next day, saying how he'd since spoken to Denise Black from South Africa, and how much he missed her. I watch him on TV, giving a remarkable live performance in Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead for the National Theatre's 50th birthday celebrations. We text briefly. I wonder how much of who he is - his incredible sensitivity to the world, the thing that seems to fuel everything - is simply his nature, and how much he's been shaped by his remarkable experiences. He texts me a long explanation about how those experiences have shaped him, before saying, "I'm starting to sound like a self-help book of zingy one-liners packed full of fortune-cookie wisdom!" 

But then, just when I wonder if there is an answer, if anything so simple could describe something so complex, he texts me a line that may not seem profound, or especially ornate, or like a life lesson of any kind, but, to me, feels so true it is almost neon-bright. 

It's one line. It simply says: "You have to experience this stuff yourself."  

The third series of Sherlock begins on 1 January at 9pm on BBC One.