INTERVIEW: BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

'With his piercing blue-green eyes, set high like an otter’s, cheekbones like car bumpers, and unruly mop of chestnut hair, Cumberbatch has the kind of looks that seem to call out across alpine mountain-tops for the adjective “Byronic”. But his energy levels are more Tigger.  Offsetting the tousled, raffish, slightly boyish air is that rich Burtonesque baritone of his, last heard terrorizing the crew of the Starship enterprise in this summer’s blockbuster, Star Trek Into Darkness. Bill Condon calls it “a cello,” in which case, conversation with him can resemble a Haydn concerto, allegro con brio. The boy can talk. When I ask him a question about whether he asked Streep about the niceties of playing a real-life person, he delivers a ten-minute answer (10:32 seconds to be precise), brilliantly digressive, touching on a conversation they had about process, and music and notes, but to which actual answer, strictly speaking, is: no. “I’m sorry did I get off track?” he says blinking innocently, as if abashed by his own brilliance. He says his mother always knows he’s about to start another season of Sherlock because he starts talking double speed. “His voicemail messages are one of the great highlights of our friendship,” says Rebecca Hall who has known him since she was 13 saw him acting in a school stage production of The Taming of the shrew at harrow. “They contain whole conversations. They’re just joyous.”' — from my Vogue profile