How Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange Ended Up Calling Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man a “Douchebag”
Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange, The Imitation Game, Sherlock, Eric) on Tuesday recalled interacting, as Doctor Strange, with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony “Iron Man” Stark on the set of Avengers: Infinity War and adding a “douchebag” to one of his lines, making it memorable.
The moment came about when Iron Man asked what Strange was doing in the fight they were in.
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Annoyed, Cumberbatch recalled, he ended up replying: “Protecting your reality, douchebag,” with people on- and off-set reacting with “ooooohs.”
Cumberbatch shared the anecdote as part of the fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He also said that with his Doctor Strange character, “there is a lot more to play with,” while sharing that he had to work really “hard” not to get arrogant about his Marvel success.
What’s the star’s feeling about big film franchises, such as Marvel movies and Star Trek? “Love’em,” he said, lauding the wealth of talent in them, including Tom Holland and Downey. “How does he do it?!” he said about the latter. Tentpole releases, when done well, also carry within them elements of the zeitgeist, Cumberbatch offered. He mentioned political elements in Captain America and religious and spiritual elements in Doctor Strange, a new theme in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
About his work on Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, for which he was nominated for an Oscar just like for The Imitation Game, he said, “I had so much fun.”
Playing Alan Turing in Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, he first experienced not having to really act because he really felt the pain of the computer scientist after he was chemically castrated for being homosexual, the actor recalled. “I couldn’t stop crying because I really connected to what he must have been feeling,” Cumberbatch shared.
Looking ahead, he touted such upcoming projects as The Roses opposite Olivia Colman and Wes Anderson’s next film, with the working (or maybe final) title The Phoenician Scheme — Cumberbatch wasn’t sure.
Asked about his role as a producer, particularly as an executive producer on We Live in Time with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, the star said he connected with its universal themes and humor. Sharing that “financing and budget structure are very, very difficult to do in this climate,” Cumberbatch also said about his production work, “It’s not a vanity project factory.”
He discussed his career during a jam-packed festival appearance in the second-largest Saudi city’s old town, Al-Balad.
Asked about Sherlock, Cumberbatch said “it was Martin Freeman” and creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, plus the fact that there is “no filter with Sherlock” and that he and Freeman had great onscreen chemistry, that all helped make the show a global hit in the pre-streaming age. “It was sort of a watercooler moment made digital,” the star said. He called Freeman “one of the funniest human beings I have ever met,” adding: “He is a technician artist.”
He also got questioned about playing Stephen Hawking in the 2004 TV movie Hawking.
“He was dubious about it,” Cumberbatch said about of the famous cosmologist. “I was so overwhelmed” when they first met, he said, and he could understand Hawking’s initial reservations but ended up getting to ask him important questions.
Turning to his childhood, Cumberbatch shared, “I am an only child, so I am always looking for families.” He also mentioned that his parents were actors and initially wanted him to find a different profession. Additionally, he recalled experiencing the “conformity” of public schools in the U.K. “There was a naivete” to acting at a younger age once he gave up the idea of becoming a lawyer, he recalled. “I had phenomenal teachers.”
Cumberbatch said he has sometimes noticed that he takes elements of his characters with him into his private life. For example, his mother used to ask if he was bringing Sherlock with him, he said, quipping: “I was speaking back and generally being an arsehole.” But in general, he said, “I cherry-pick” which elements of his onscreen characters he takes into his own life.
Asked about an extended visit to Darjeeling between school and university, he said he was teaching English at a house for exiled Tibetan monks for half a year, soaking up much of their culture with “Everest in view every now and then.” That is where he learned about Buddhism and meditation. “God is without but also within you,” was one of the key takeaways for him, he explained. “The overwhelming feeling was connection” and “energy that binds everything.”
Cumberbatch still likes the stage, his first love. “I’m aching to get back to it,” he shared, but “it is time-dependent.” After his last stage experience, playing Hamlet at London’s Barbican after 96 performances, he felt really good, sharing that due to the repetition of theater work, actors must trick themselves into making themselves feel that the material and onstage experiences are new.
Cumberbatch is among a slew of big stars appearing during the fourth edition of RSIFF, including Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Viola Davis, Olivia Wilde, Emily Blunt, Eva Longoria, Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and jury president Spike Lee.
Cumberbatch left the stage to much applause and screams of, “We love youuuuuu!”
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