In last week’s Man of Steel post, I didn’t just cover the new Man of Steel trailer (which looked pretty good), but I also showed you guys the teaser/viral video of General Zod speaking directly to the citizens of earth. I mentioned that I thought it was a particularly smart way to promote a film, especially when people already have such built-in feelings about Zod and about “the villain” in most superhero movies. Like, did you see The Dark Knight because you just love Batman? No, you went to see The Joker. And that’s what’s happening with Star Trek Into Darkness too – the first Star Trek was a decent-sized hit, a good origin-story/reboot for the franchise. But now is time for an iconic villain which will define the franchise. And they’ve found that villain in Benedict Cumberbatch. Behold, a teaser video of just Benedict’s exquisite voice talking about how he’s going to destroy Captain Kirk:

Good lord, I want this man to threaten my biscuit. My lady parts need a stern talking-to. They need to be threatened with Cumberdestruction. Or at the very least, a Cumberspanking. HIS VOICE. Also, to go along with this new trailer, Cumby had a new interview last week with SFX. You can read the full piece here – it’s super-long (Cumby can talk your ear off, which I love – it’s like he knows people love his voice) and we had a few quotes from this piece more than a week ago I think. Here are some highlights:

Cumby on signing on JJ Abrams’ Cult of Secrecy: “I’d already signed up – I must have drunk the Kool-aid when I first arrived. Which is a terrible metaphor. That is about being in a cult, right? [Cumby is told it’s a Jonestown reference] Yeah, exactly. And most people died. But I’m still alive and very healthy and very happy… What I mean is I don’t feel like I’m obeying orders. I feel like I’m obeying an artistic impulse to let people come to it with a little bit of mystery, and have a discovery when they’re sat in the cinema, because that’s such a rare commodity these days.”

On fan reactions to Star Trek: “There’s such an incredible knowledge and possession and pride in this world that the fans hold. But I didn’t let that try and influence me too much because they’re rather like Sherlockies – as I’m going to have to call them now, since Trekkies have such a profound collective noun – people who are fans of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock, and then Brett and Rathbone’s Sherlock… I had big boots to fill [with Sherlock], and I didn’t go into this with the same kind of confidence, but I did know I was entering a very treasured universe for its fans. But it’s about pleasing the man who’s entrusted me to do that. So if I’m crap in it it’s all JJ’s fault.”

Cumby on playing a terrorist: “He’s a homegrown terrorist. He’s someone who has an inordinate amount of skill with close-hand combat and weaponry but also as a psychological terrorist he’s someone who can plant an idea that’s as vicious as a bomb and explode loyalties and expose relationships and try and turn people against one another to do his bidding. He really disrupts the unity aboard the ship, both physically and mentally. And he’s a worthy adversary – there’s a lot of shadowplay going on with him and Kirk and Spock, Kirk primarily, but both of those characters – he knows how to manipulate them.”

On terrorism in general: “Terror can be as much about an idea as it can be an explosion. It’s about the idea of fear and what you should be fearing, who the real enemy is. And that can get very confusing for people who are fighting for a superpower. And that’s the parallel, I guess, that makes it unfortunately very relevant – the means may be disgusting and violent and destructive and abhorrent, but the intentions or at least the motivation is sort of honourable. Not that I’m condoning terrorism, but it’s a guy fighting for something that’s smaller than the thing he is fighting. And hopefully when the reasons are revealed you’ll have a certain amount of empathy for that, which makes him a little bit more than just an obstacle, just a cookie-cutter 2D villain.”

On stunt work: “I’ve done stunts and swordwork and horseriding, a cavalry charge, stagefights that I’ve done, night after night, stuntwork in Frankenstein… I’ve been quite physical all my life. I played Stephen Hawking when I was about 26… There have been elements that have been physical or stunt oriented in all my work, but this was the most intense work I’ve done. To go up from a 38 to a 42, eating 4000 calories a day and training sometimes two hours a day in that period, at least, as well as all the stunt rehearsals and fight choreography rehearsals,.. Yes, that was the most physical demand ever made of me for screen. The hardest it’s ever been was probably Frankenstein, the test of time of running that two hours, both parts, but especially the Creature. I genuinely really enjoyed it. The overeating isn’t fun at all – it’s kind of unethical apart from anything else. But it got results. I was doing it for a reason and it got results. And the exercise was terrific – I loved the oxygenated blood that was just flying around in me. And I just enjoyed having a bit more heft on me. Yeah, Sherlock’s quite lean, he doesn’t have very broad shoulders.”

Does he have a ‘geek gene’? “Not very much. I’m not very geeky. I’m quite homespun. I would say I’m more modern rustic than gadget-orientated. I like woolen things and log fires and whiskey…”

[From SFX]

“I’m quite homespun. I would say I’m more modern rustic than gadget-orientated. I like woolen things and log fires and whiskey…” OH GOD. Dear Benedict: come to me, I will pour you a whiskey and light a fire and you can put wool socks on (and nothing else) and you can talk dirty to my biscuit.

By the way, if you want to hear more of Cumby’s voice, he’s got some more voice-over Jaguar commercials which you can see here. Thanks Eve!

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.