Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning.
One of the fears of having too much work is not having time to observe. And once you get recognised, there is nowhere for you to look any more. You can’t sit on a night bus and watch it all happen.
I’ve been reading the books. It’s the origination, it’s the primary source. You should always go back to the books.
Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.
Being in front of an audience makes me feel alive. Being with friends makes me feel alive. I’ve done some crazy stuff in my time and yet I can feel infinitely alive curled up on a sofa reading a book. So, what makes me feel alive? I guess it’s realizing I am part of the world around me.
If you have an over-preoccupation with perception and trying to please people’s expectations, then you can go mad.
The number of people my age, younger now, a whole generation younger, who are fiercely bright, over-educated, under-employed and who are politicised and purposeless really upsets me. It’s soul-destroying.
I’m quite sensitive to people noticing me. There are times when I’m relaxed, then others when it does make me self-conscious.
Metaphorically speaking, it’s easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.
I thought, well, why am I giving up on my primary dream to work doubly hard, to do something as an alternative to what it really still want to?
People’s hands fascinate me. It’s tempting to look at a businessman’s left hand and see if there’s an indentation from a missing wedding ring. Or maybe there’s a tan line and the skin is pressed down where’s he’s worked a ring off his finger.
When you start getting jobs, and see your mates from drama school, you don’t really want to talk about it, because you have this innate sense of guilt that it’s not fair that others aren’t doing exactly what you’re doing. I do have that.
I have an appetite for the normal in my life, as well as the abnormal.
I think with any characterization there’s a point where you empathize, no matter how much of a deviance his or her actions may be from your understanding of humanity.
I’m always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That’s great fun, even though it’s as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.
If I’m playing someone who’s smart, suddenly every character I’ve played is smart. If I’m playing a bad guy, every character is a bad guy. I suppose it’s that thing where people want to see a through-line to understand you. I mean, you know, I have played pretty ordinary people too.
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.
The world of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and the world that we live in now is big enough to take more than one interpretation.
My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.
I am very flattered. I have also become a verb as in “I have cumberbatched the UK audience” apparently. Who knows, by the end of the year I might become a swear word too! It’s crazy and fun and very flattering.