It all seems like a fever dream at this point, but back in 2015, Benedict Cumberbatch did a short run on the London stage in Hamlet. For a few months, after every performance, Benedict would stand on stage and make a speech about refugees and the various international political crises. He encouraged people to donate to Save the Children – they kept donations buckets around the theater – and often his speeches came across as… not that helpful. One of his speeches included the phrase “f–k the politicians.” People jumped down his throat, and some wondered why posh Bendy wasn’t personally hosting any refugees if he felt so strongly about it. His answer, back in 2016, was that his second apartment was being renovated and he and Sophie just had a baby, so there was no room for him to take in refugees. Now Bendy is still talking about that “why didn’t you host refugees yourself?” criticism in a new interview with The Big Issue:
“I got very heated about it on occasions, and I do regret that. But it was a knee-jerk reaction in terms of the refugee crisis – being a new father and seeing a two-year-old child wash up on the beach not dissimilar to the ones I spent my childhood on, and will hopefully take my children to. I don’t know if it is worth bringing this up, but being conscious of the magazine I’m talking to – people were saying, ‘You’ve got a home, why don’t you house refugees?’” And we did look into it. But we had, then, a very new baby – maybe four or five months old. Maybe people had a point. I understand why some might think I should be housing people instead of complaining about a government not doing it. But I was trying to raise awareness that we can do more as a society. Because I do feel we are able to do more than just recovering bodies.”
Despite the backlash, the Sherlock star says he doesn’t regret being publicly vocal about the issue.
“I had to do something. I was in a position where I had some kind of a platform. The naysayers said, well, that is not the kind of platform to use for that kind of statement. But I’m a human being and it was a human crisis and I got over-excited and said things in a rather grand manner some nights. You stick your head above the parapet and that happens. But we raised money for children in need. So I don’t regret doing it for a second, and I will do it again, even if it does put me in the firing line.”
The problem here is that Benedict doesn’t acknowledge the problem of his tone (and his tone-deafness) back in 2015 and 2016. If it was just about raising much-needed money for charity, then do that without making a scorched-earth argument against politicians and political system in general. Don’t yell at people and badger people and shame people for not doing enough to help refugees while simultaneously acting like you can’t host refugees because it would cause you some minor inconvenience.
Here’s the trailer for The Child In Time, Bendy’s latest.
And here’s an interview he did with the BBC last week. HIS HAIR. Ugh.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Luvvy twat.
@Sensible – +1,000
He’s so annoying. Boy bye.
This straw man argument doesn’t deserve a reply, but he’s STILL talking about it!! If he knew more about the refugee crisis, he’d have a much smarter response. The solution is not to house a single family, or even a dozen single families, in someone’s home. The solution must happen on a MUCH larger scale, and calling out critics as hypocrites is just stall tactics.
+1
He really strikes me as a horse’s hind-end.
I don’t understand what baby has to do with it. We’re not talking a small apartment, or home. You mean they did everything “normal” people do with a baby? Bull puckey.
He literally could have rented apartments for refugees, and still not felt the money crunch of doing so. Furnished, with food, for a year to get them started and still not felt the money crunch.
so, whatever Cumby.
Mind you, even if he HAD offered up his home, it’s entirely likely the Home Office wouldn’t have found a refugee to put in it. The housing association that runs several houses in our village asked if we would mind having a refugee family. We all, via the Parish Council, said we’d be happy to, and several folk expended quite a bit of effort in preparation, lining up people who could interpret, possible language tutors, rights advisors and the like. A year later, the Home Office still hadn’t allocated a family for the house and so the housing association let it out to a local.
As you note, Sixer, hosting a refugee family takes commitment beyond making space available. If BC did actually look into it, I suspect it was the level of work required that put him off.
I replied later on the thread, Sixer. Thanks for your insight.
Sixer: Our Conservative government (the Liberals – get that!) wouldn’t even consider anything like that. Many people, including myself, offered to take in asylum seekers rather than having the government spending untold millions to lock them up in off-shore detention centres/concentration camps. These are still in operation, and not only are journalists, social/care workers, child welfare groups, lawyers and even most medical professionals denied access, employees are banned from talking to anyone about the goings-on there, and are only allowed old mobile phones that only support talk and text – no internet, no cameras. But I digress… Many of us offered housing, as well as support services such as English tuition, jobs, free medical services etc. No way will our government allow any humanitarian approaches, because they only need/want to “Stop the Boats”.
We’ve done the least possible for the few refugees we did take in, AnnaKist, so we genuinely have little to crow about. But I have read about the Australian detention centres and it’s not good.
@Megan
” If BC did actually look into it, I suspect it was the level of work required that put him off.”
lol, he didn’t. He wanted other people to house them, I’m sure housing them himself was never even considered.
Not true, you can only host refugees if you are present at the home for long periods and are able to actively take care of them.
I don’t blame him for not wanting to take a stranger into his home with a newborn.
I miss the blissful period of season 1 Sherlock before he busted into the big time when I could stan him in peaceful, blissful ignorance.
He’s aged poorly in looks and thought.
+1
Completely agree.
i don’t like BC (or any of the posh boys americans seem so fond of for that matter) but in britain we do need actors and celebrities speaking out about what’s happening with politics in our country.
it’s an absolute shambles, this conservative government is the devil. i hate that they’re vilifying BC for what he said, in britain there’s this idea that talking politics is ‘tacky’ but look where it got us? we have an increasingly divided and xenophobic country. he didn’t need to house refugees in his own place, as long as he donated plenty which i’m sure he did, he was doing enough.
“in britain there’s this idea that talking politics is ‘tacky’ but look where it got us? we have an increasingly divided and xenophobic country. ”
To be fair thats not different from america where speaking about politics and endorsing politicians is the norm.
it’s very different. governments come and go, and you lot in the states can change things in 4 years, make it better. with brexit though? we’re done. we don’t get to go back in 4 years, we’re gonna see this thing through and it’s gonna be ugly and messy in every sense.
“it’s an absolute shambles, this conservative government is the devil. i hate that they’re vilifying BC for what he said, in britain there’s this idea that talking politics is ‘tacky’ but look where it got us? we have an increasingly divided and xenophobic country.”
You could def. be talking about the US here.
And I know that Brexit is a very uniquely terrifying situation that is really not comparable to any other country’s current situation, but believe me when I say that four years of a Trump administration will lead to decades and decades of damage that may be irreparable.
(Sorry to bring it back to United States….)
I wish you guys so much luck with Brexit and I can understand your fears right now. *hugs* from a concerned American.
@Kitten thanks <3
and you're right; trump just like the conservatives will leave damage that will take ages to fix. but i suppose it's a hope thing, with the conservatives and trump i can hope and fight for change. it's the finality of brexit that makes it so hard to swallow, the knowledge that there's literally nothing that can be done to make it better.
Brexit is truly frightening. I have been listening to NPR, and other podcasts and some other countries in the EU will just shut the UK out and see this as an economic opportunity for them. A woman in Germany sounded gleeful and excited about punishing the Brits and watching the decline. There was an economist who said it would be dire once the population realizes what has been lost.
2 years ago the world was a very different place and now here we are victims of bigotry and xenophobia.
Why does he keep dragging his son into this? His son was the reason he was so upset about refugees and why he held theater patrons hostage each night. He’s still going on about his son being the motivation, because those of us who don’t have kids can’t be affected by the sight of a dead child? Now his son is the reason why he couldn’t take in hostages? Leave the poor child out of it. If you want to do something about refugees, do something but leave your own kid alone.
And I didn’t know Kelly McDonald was in this. Now I’ll need to watch it. She should be in everything.
I LOVE Kelly McDonald! I could take or leave cumby, but she’s fantastic in everything.
No one was being “held hostage.” The play was over; there’s literally nothing stopping people from walking out and indeed many people did walk out during or after the curtain call (which is the norm here).
It’s perfectly normal that having a baby would make sharp the feeling of empathy towards suffering children.
Nothing keeping them there except the other people in the rows not moving because they were listening to Bendy so they had to climb over people to get out. They even aired it as part of the NTLive broadcasts and people in the movie theaters sat there, making it difficult to leave. I’ve been in theaters when actors collect for Broadway Cares or other things and it is usually handled much bette. And by going on about his own kid, he made it all about himself
I swear every time Bendy talks about his children he makes it sounds like he is the first person in all of human history to experience parenthood, and/or the only one who has ever thought it necessary to actually put his kid’s needs before his own.
I missed the first version of this story, and I’m so confused. Is there no housing in the entire UK, such that refugee policy depends on individuals being willing to take on new roommates? It’s kind when people of limited means offer to share what they have, but wealthier people can do even more by donating money. As much as various Cumberbitches might want to move in with him, I’m guessing even more would want their own apartments.
Though it doesn’t seem like he did that either? So why’s he still talking about it? Especially when, while renting some family a home would have been kind, national and international policy is ultimately more important, and should have been easy to change the subject to rather than making excuses.
It’s a childish criticism levelled by the anti-immigration UK folks at anyone who dared advocate for taking more than half a dozen refugees.
It would never have been sensible for individuals to offer lodging rooms to such folk anyway – they need entire support structures to be able to make it in a new country, not someone’s spare room.
I’ve no time for Bendy, as most people here know, but this “why don’t you put one of them up” thing is a bad faith argument to invalidate the country taking ANY refugees in.
‘but this “why don’t you put one of them up” thing is a bad faith argument to invalidate the country taking ANY refugees in.’
exactly, it’s the daily mail average reader answer.
good to know, thanks Sixer
Through a friend of mine, she helped organize taking in refugees in her community, so I was able to help through her, sending what was needed.
I guess I assumed it was like that everywhere.
though there was the case of the priest, in a city near me (Hamilton, ON he was from) where he stole 500,000 meant for refugees. from donations, etc.
Thanks, Sixer. I was wondering if this whole discussion had started with the equivalent of, “Well, YOU wouldn’t want one in YOUR house, would you?” My answer to that would be I don’t want anyone from anywhere moving in with me, but that I welcome refugees to my community and my country, which is all that’s being asked of those who oppose granting asylum.
Shame on people for making the argument in the first place, and Benedict certainly isn’t helping by awkwardly defending it a year later.
Any celebrity who spoke up in favour of taking refugees got the same thing – Lily Allen is one you guys will know, but also a famous ex-footballer and TV presenter, for example.
When you think about it, accommodation is the least of it for refugees who may not even speak English, right?
Unfortunately, the height of the refugee crisis in the news coincided with the Brexit referendum, so all the idiots were out.
It just seems to me when celebrities lecture other people about what they must do, but haven’t done so themselves, it looks like “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Well, yes! There’d need to be translators, access to appropriate health care services, coordination with schools, an employer who can pay a living wage to an employee who may not speak English, an attorney for immigration issues…I’m sure the list goes one, especially since an elderly couple and a young widow with small children probably need different things.
It sounds like the sort of home your village had available would be ideal. Living in the spare bedroom of some loony actor, probably not! It’s unfortunate no one was placed where you live. (Though I suppose it’s odd I’m commenting on this at all, as the US has been incredibly cruel in its response to the refugee crisis and seems to be getting more self-centered and inward-looking by the day.)
Unfortunately the situation in the UK is pretty dire right now. Many people are reliant on food banks (food donated by the public) just to survive.
I’m very sorry to hear that – but wouldn’t donations of money to food banks be a superior response? Monetary support of programs to help needy people generally is more efficient than in kind gifts.
Would you house refugees from
Syria in your house? With all the stories of them trashing places they were staying in and the fact some are terrorists? Sure, it is easy to blame him, but I certainly wouldn’t have some young man who I know nothing, coming from a country hosting terrorists living with me and my kids.
With a new baby, I wouldn’t move anyone into my house, period, that I didn’t know. But he could have sponsored a family that was vetted and pay for a little apartment for them, help get them enrolled in English courses, so they can work eventually in their new country, or at least say he was attached to an organization who was helping in some way. It doesn’t have to be move them in his house or do nothing. George and Amal have put a young man up in a home they own and he’s attending college. But their foundation, one of their goals ihelping in the resettlement of vetted refugees in the U.S. At least, they are trying to help in some way, not just talk.
You bring up only bad stories, like a general “stories of them trashing places.” So, here, I will give you a first-person story of a man who changed because of his refugee neighbors from Syria and Afghanistan.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/man-who-hated-muslims-refugees-omaha_us_589ca5d0e4b04061313c13f0
Yeah, a friend hosted male syrian refugees and had their place trashed, among other things. I only host women and children, for this reason.
I looked into it, because we have room and to me Syria is the epitome of our failure as the west to actually live up to our so-called standards. But apparantly it’s not good for the refugees themselves who need a space of their own and professional help to deal with trauma and set up new lives. As a country we ended up having more than enough space to house the refugees we ended up taking in.
@ Barbcat – I had to google to look for the kind of stories you refer to, and just don’t see them. At least not in 2 pages of google results. What did pop up was this article from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-ban-terrorism/514361/
Its focus is the US. From the article:
“Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015. Zero.”
“As for refugees, Nowrasteh writes, Trump’s action “is a response to a phantom menace.” Over the last four decades, 20 out of 3.25 million refugees welcomed to the United States have been convicted of attempting or committing terrorism on U.S. soil…”
“[E]very jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident, New America reports. ”
I checked for news stories in the UK too. I didn’t pay attention to Daily Mail results but did see a story on the BBC about the trash left behind along the path refugees and migrants have followed through Europe. But still no reputable stories about Syrian refugees trashing the homes they’re staying in or being terrorists.
Where are you getting your information?
Yes I would. I know people who are hosting refugees. If I was not living in a studio flat I absolutely would.
And refugees who have gone through all the processes necessary to be granted refugee status and permission to stay (often after months or years in what are essentially prisons) are not “terrorists”, in fact all the ones I know are elderly women, or women with young children, but hey don’t let the facts get in the way of spreading your white supremacists Nazi nonsense.
I would consider housing a woman and/or a child but as a woman living alone, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a male refugee in my house. I’m also the type of person who doesn’t answer the doorbell (like please, if I know you then you’ll call before you come by) and has lived alone for 13 years because I don’t like people up in my space, so….yeah, I’m not about to judge others for this.
I will say though that celebrities and rich folks are in a unique situation in terms of helping refugees. Ostensibly, if they have the living quarters for them, they could host a family or two pretty easily.
To be perfectly honest I have space in my house and other property, but I have young children and don’t want strangers in their space. As for the other places, I would be paranoid something was happening to my property, and I can’t spend my life flying back and forth checking and settling people into a new situation. I also don’t know how they would feel about living with Jews.
It is a lot to ask someone to do that.
If it were orphaned children, then I would because I think I could actually help and improve their lives but my own relatives get on my nerves after two weeks, and I love them to pieces.
Maybe it sounds cold, but I am honest about my limitations.
However, I would try to get a group together to raise funds to provide adequate safe housing for families and women with children and get them connected to the services they needed.
The whole thing is moot anyway. I don’t think Muslims are in a rush to come to America anymore.
Okay, one, I don’t think that saying “f*ck the politicians” after a performance of Hamlet is as brave as he thinks it is. Two, “seeing a two-year-old child wash up on the beach not dissimilar to the ones I spent my childhood on” – not great. Won’t somebody think of the tourists!?!
Tone deaf then and tone deaf now. His heart is in the right place but he continually makes it more about himself than he does about the refugees.
He could phrase it better but IMO he was pointing out the unfairness of it, as in refugee children should also be able to have real childhoods. He’s also trying to explain why he connected to the situation emotionally, so naturally there’s going to be a lot of “I” stuff, but again, that’s where his phrasing isn’t great.
I do think his heart is in the right place though, and he has raised a lot of money for them at least. Can’t tell if he decided against housing or was told it wasn’t good a idea from this article, because really, it is not a good idea (you have to be around and available for that).
I can say that in my country there was a similar problem. Several organizations organized a strategy to receive refugees with the government’s help (I believe they created a commission just to deal with this), some even having jobs aligned for them but only a few refugees came because there was a system in place in Greece that selected the families that would go to each country and families had to agree with it (most wanted to go to Germany) among other issues. Basically, we can’t just have a home, money and a strategy in the long term to help them approved by the government, the whole process needs to go through the proper channel which is apparently slow and frustrating. This is beyond “the amount of work putting people off”.
I saw Hamlet live and nobody was “held hostage” after the performance. Benedict gave a very impassioned speech and people gave what they could, including me. He raised a substantial amount of money for Save the Children, a worthy cause on any day.
“The problem here is that Benedict doesn’t acknowledge the problem of his tone (and his tone-deafness) back in 2015 and 2016”—Um, he actually does a bit LOL. I mean, he says he doesn’t regret it overall ultimately but acknowledges he grand-standed sometimes and his approach could have been better.
It’s more than just a “minor inconvenience”—I would imagine he was not suitable because of his schedule and the infant. Agencies do not want to place refugees with people who cannot give them the attention and support they need, plus the process is a red-tape nightmare.
I don’t see the point in responding to empty criticism either but without the full interview, I can’t tell if he was asked about it or not.
Oh come ON. I read of a woman working low wage jobs who had an extra room and took in people. She had next to nothing and still gave from what little she have. But some millionaire dude of course can’t do that.
Typical limousine liberal/champagne socialist/luvvie. Incredibly privileged, incredibly arrogant, incredibly ignorant, yet feels he should tell others how to live.
This is exactly what is wrong with his image, his comments seem to say that everyone should be brought into the UK, just not in his neighbourhood so as to not to have overcrowded schools and medical services in his area. Rightly or wrongly this is what a lot of people hear when he speaks. He needs better PR training and to get his great size tens out of his gob long enough to realise how lucky he has it in life. It also leaves a bad taste in the mouth that the Letters Live thing that his company is a part of went into the camps in France and snapped a picture of a flyer for their event lying in the mud.
I, honestly, am wondering how much he screws himself by talking too much. Been trying to follow the ‘Child in Time’ stuff because I loved the book and…all I can say is wow. I have seen multiple versions (10+) of and editorial slants on quotes all taken from one press conference. It was like everyone heard what they wanted to hear, and this snippet also reads like things are missing. I know print media is bad but it was just ridiculous.
I can’t see him meeting the criteria most UK agencies have.
“Hey, Bendy, you want some good publicity for your film, right?Try resurrecting that story from like a year ago that loads of people gave you grief for. That hole’s not deep enough yet, keep digging.”
LoL, sure he did – just like Trump won the popular vote: you can say you did until you’re blue in the fact but that doesn’t change the unavoidable truth that you’re talking out of your arse to feed your own ego. He is the absolute worst.
We’ve got an industry that allows pedos, spouse abusers and sexual harassers to have lead gigs, so no, not the absolute worst by far.
(Sorry if that sounds aggressive but really he’s not anywhere near the worst examples in the acting industry and I feel like they skate by sometimes).
@ carolynn. +1 But he is posh you see and that in itself is a crime to some.
It is like the ridiculous hoohaa over Hiddleston’ s daft at a party tee shirt.
I love Cumby but I swear whenever he opens his mouth he comes off as a snobbish twat. And then when trying to clean it up he sounds like an even bigger twat.
Noticed fairly recently it’s almost only ever in printed interviews. Videos/podcasts, he comes off good.
It’s how he talks, I feel, motormouth + disorganized, which is a PR 101 fail. You are letting the paper decide what you said at that point.
Gawd he’s such a letdown from when I first started to enjoy him as an actor.
i don’t mind when actors talk politics or share their views (as is their right), as long as they walk the walk not just talk the talk. It’s so…expected that he would backflip on this. No good berating everyone when you’re not willing to do it yourself , Bendy.
I never got the buzz and adulation for him. I saw him in Sherlock and was unimpressed. I thought the doctor character did a better acting job. So meh about him.
Do things work differently in the UK? Our congregation hosted a refugee family in our town. That didn’t mean they MOVED IN with any of us. It means we collected the funds necessary for housing, legal aid, medical care, social workers to help adjust, language lessons, etc.
Surely he has enough money to spare for a single family. The 30K we raised at once was enough for their initial settlement into the apartment. Our total cost was just over 100K.
His looks have gone. Sigh.
Never found him attractive but his best look ever is as Doctor Strange, with darker hair and his face filled out because he’s carrying more weight. He looks okay for his age but would have less wrinkles if he kept weight on instead of yo-yo-ing. You can’t do that at 35/40 because your skin won’t go back, but I swear he’s noticeably lighter or heavier everytime I see him.
Well this is getting a bit boring to follow these days. I’m still hoping my prediction comes true because something is needed to spice this up.