Sigh… Year of Cumberbatch!!! Steady on, Cumberbitches, we will need to defend him for months and months to come. Benedict Cumberbatch has been giving more and more interviews to promote Star Trek Into Darkness, and aren’t you kind of amazed that he hasn’t said anything super-bitchy yet? Maybe his publicist told him to try not to piss anyone off during STID promotion. I can’t believe no one has asked him about Downton Abbey so far, although HE just brought it up in a new interview with HuffPo UK. Some highlights:

Cumby’s biggest fear: “The only thing I fear is overexposure as a human being. I’m fine at the moment. I have enough resources to keep working, though everyone has their limits, and I’ve really enjoyed the variety and volume of work over the last couple of years. It will bring a new level of scrutiny, investigation into the personal or private, which I’m getting used to. It’s not all roses, but it’s ok. It would be churlish to say I wasn’t aware of the reality of it, but there are ways of sidestepping not courting it. I’m interested in it being about the work, but I understand why people are obsessed with the personal as well.”

Losing control over his private life: “It doesn’t mean you like it. You lose control over privacy. You can’t control perceptions any more, the whole anti-Downton thing (when Cumberbatch’s jokes dissing Downton were taken out of context)… the posh thing… saying Johnny (Miller) did Elementary (the US ‘Sherlock’ project) for the money.”

Cumberbatch references his niece: “This is Emily, my niece. We were out to dinner celebrating the fact that I got nominated for a Golden Globe, she gets into a car with me, and there are 15 paps on the bonnet, spraying us with flash photography. You accept that it happens, of course it’s weird. I only have to stand next to someone at a tea party. I’m sanguine about it, you can’t explain, you can’t complain, you move on.”

On Star Trek: “It’s part of the job to mythologise the experience, and you don’t have to do that with this one. It’s as easy as breath to talk about this one. There is a sort of three dimensionality to this character, which was great fun to get teeth into, and you do get to sympathise with him, despite the fact he’s a terrorist intent on destruction, and he’s violent and despicable. But the reasons he does it are noble, in the tradition of the rebel power. Someone’s trying to fight the superpower, and in this story, that would be star fleet.”

On the habit of American films having British villains: “There have enough people who been vilified in American politics to have American villains now, but it is a very American thing, to have British villains. I think we’re still, despite being the origination of America with other Dutch French et al, there is an element to us of being outside of the culture, reminding themselves a little of what they were. There’s an echo, we carry traditions, theatre traditions, but I think it might be something to do with charm, someone who can persuade through having a degree of otherness. Intelligence always works well, something debonair and different.”

[From HuffPo UK]

I take issue with what Cumby says about American films having British villains and what that says about America. I don’t think we – as Americans – look at British people as being “outside” of our American culture, nor do I think we like British villains because of their “charm” or “intelligence”. I think we just like villains with accents, and most Americans have an easier time understanding English accents as opposed to other accents. But maybe there is something deeper – my dad (an Indian) always said that Indians and the English will always have an affinity for each other because of “the Old Empire connection” and because both societies are so class-conscious. Perhaps it’s England and America’s shared histories that make for such great collaborations. Or maybe Americans just like British villains because that’s how we became a nation – fighting for our freedom from an English villain (King George III).

Here’s Cumby’s interview on Daybreak this morning – he talks about training for the STID role and he denies the rumors that he’ll be the new Dr. Who. Watch it until the end and Benedict talks about his chin issues.

Photos courtesy of WENN.