Benedict Cumberbatch Biography

Fast Facts

• While attending an all-boys school, played the female part of Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Spent a year after high school teaching English at a Tibetan monastery
• Starred in an Almeida Theatre production of Hedda Gabler in 2005
• Played the role of Young Rumpole in a radio adaptation of John Mortimer's novel Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders on BBC Radio 4 in 2009
• Developed a life-threatening case of pneumonia while filming the first season of Sherlock
• Alternated playing both Frankenstein and the Creature with Jonny Lee Miller in a 2011 West End production of Frankenstein directed by Danny Boyle; the pair shared an Olivier Award for Best Actor for their work
• Read a poem at the reburial of Richard III in 2015; the king was discovered to be his second cousin, 16 times removed
• Appointed a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II in her 2015 Birthday Honours