Benedict Cumberbatch

Benedict Cumberbatch

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. His most acclaimed roles include Stephen Hawking in the BBC drama Hawking (2004); William Pitt in the historical film Amazing Grace (2006); protagonist Stephen Ezard in the miniseries thriller The Last Enemy (2008); Paul Marshall in Atonement (2007); Bernard in Small Island (2009); and Sherlock Holmes in the modern BBC adaptation series Sherlock (2010).

In February 2011, he began playing both Victor Frankenstein and his creature opposite Jonny Lee Miller in Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The play had a three-month run at the National Theatre. In late 2011, he played Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011). The film received five BAFTA nominations and six Academy Award nominations, including the Best Picture nomination in 2012. He also played Peter Guillam, one of the pivotal roles in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011), which was nominated for three Academy Awards and 11 BAFTA Awards.

He reprised the role of Sherlock Holmes in the second series of the BBC's Sherlock, which aired in the United Kingdom in January 2012 and was broadcast on PBS in the United States in May 2012. He also stars as Christopher Tietjens in the BBC/HBO co-production television miniseries Parade's End, which first aired August 2012. He will portray Smaug the Dragon through voice and motion capture and will also provide the motion capture for the Necromancer in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. He will also portray the main villain in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek into Darkness, which is scheduled to be released in May 2013.