2. Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976
at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in
Hammersmith, London, to actors
Timothy Carlton (real name Timothy
Carlton Cumberbatch) and Wanda
Ventham.He grew up in the Royal
Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. His
great-grandfather, Henry Arnold
Cumberbatch CMG, was the consul
general of Queen Victoria in Turkey. His
grandfather, Henry Carlton
Cumberbatch, was a decorated
submarine officer of both World Wars
and a prominent figure of London high
society.
Cumberbatch started attending boarding
schools when he was eight.

3.  He was also part of the rugby team, and
painted oil canvasses while at
Harrow.After graduating at Harrow, he
took a gap year to volunteer as an English
teacher at a Tibetan monastery in
Darjeeling, India. He then attended the
University of Manchester, where he
studied drama. After graduating, he
continued his training as an actor at the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic
Art(19 July 1976) is an English film,
television, theatre and voice actor.

4.  Cumberbatch's first West End theatre performance was for Sir
Richard Eyre's revival of Hedda Gabler as George Tesman in
2005. Since then, he has led Royal National Theatreproductions
After the Dance (2010) and Danny Boyle's Frankenstein (2011).
His first starring role on television was as the title character in
Hawking in 2004. He has portrayed Sherlock Holmes in the
television series Sherlock since 2010 and has led the ensemble
cast of Sir Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Parade's End in 2012.
His first major film role was William Pitt the Younger in
Amazing Grace in 2006. He has also appeared in the films
Atonement (2007), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and Steven
Spielberg's War Horse (2011). Since 2012, he hasportrayed the
characters of Smaug and the Necromancer through voice and
motion capture in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy. In 2013, he
starred in films Star Trek Into Darkness, 12 Years a Slave, The Fifth
Estate, and August: Osage County.


6. Since 2001, Cumberbatch has
had major roles in a dozen
classic plays at the Regent's
Park Open Air, Almeida, Royal
Court and Royal National
Theatres. He was nominated
for an Olivier Award for Best
Performance in a Supporting
Role for his performance as
Tesman in Hedda Gabler, a role
he performed at the Almeida
Theatre on 16 March 2005, as
well as at the Duke of York's
Theatre when it transferred to
the West End on 19 May 2005.
This transfer marked his first
West End appearance.

7.  In June 2010, he led the revival of Terence Rattigan's After the
Dance directed by Thea Sharrock at the Royal National Theatre.
He played 1920s aristocrat David Scott-Fowler to commercial and
critical success. The play eventually won four Olivier Awards
including Best Revival.
 Cumberbatch acted in Danny Boyle's The Children's Monologues, a
theatrical charity event at London's Old Vic Theatre on 14
November 2010. The show was produced by Dramatic Need.
 In February 2011, he began playing, on alternate nights, both
Victor Frankenstein and his creature, opposite Jonny Lee Miller, in
Danny Boyle's stage production of Mary Shelley's Frankensteinat
the Royal National Theatre.Frankenstein was broadcast to cinemas
as a part of National Theatre Live in March 2011.Cumberbatch
achieved the "Triple Crown of London Theatre" in 2011 when he
was awarded the Olivier Award, Evening Standard Award and
Critics' Circle Theatre Award for his performance in Frankenstein

9.  Cumberbatch's television roles include two separate
guest roles in Heartbeat (2000, 2004), Freddy in Tipping
the Velvet (2002), Edward Hand in Cambridge Spies
(2003) and Rory in the ITV comedy drama series
Fortysomething (2003). He was also featured in Spooks
and Silent Witness. In 2004, he starred as Stephen
Hawking in Hawking. He was nominated for the
BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor and won the Golden
Nymph for Television Films – Best Performance by an
Actor. He later provided Hawking's voice in the first
episode of the television series Curiosity. He appeared
in the BBC miniseries Dunkirk as Lieutenant Jimmy
Langley.


10. In 2005, Cumberbatch starred as the
protagonist Edmund Talbot in the miniseries
To the Ends of the Earth, based on William
Golding's trilogy; during filming he
experienced a terrifying carjacking in South
Africa, managing to escape.He made brief
appearances in the comedy sketch show
Broken News in 2005. He next starred alongside
Tom Hardy in the television adaptation of
Stuart: A Life Backwards, which aired on the
BBC in September 2007.

11. In 2006, Cumberbatch played William Pitt the
Younger in Amazing Grace. The role garnered
Cumberbatch a nomination for the London Film
Critics Circle British Breakthrough Acting Award.
Cumberbatch subsequently appeared in supporting
roles in Atonement (2007) and The Other Boleyn Girl
(2008). In 2009, he appeared in the Darwin
biographical film Creation as Darwin's friend Joseph
Hooker. In 2010, he appeared in The Whistleblower. He
played Peter Guillam, George Smiley's right-hand
man, in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré novel
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The film was directed by
Tomas Alfredson and starred Gary Oldman and
Colin Firth. Cumberbatch played Major Jamie
Stewart in Steven Spielberg's War Horse in 2011.

12.  In 2012, he provided the voice and motion-capture for both
Smaug the Dragon and the Necromancer in An Unexpected
Journey, the first installment of The Hobbit film series based
on the 1937novel by J. R. R. Tolkien.In December 2013, he
reprised his role as Smaug and The Necromancer for The
Desolation of Smaug and will again for the final film of the
series in There and Back Again in 2014. For the motion-
capture aspect of the films, he had to use a suit and facial
markers to obtain the dragon's expressions and movements.
Cumberbatch told Total Film"You just have to lose your shit
on a carpeted floor, in a place that looks a little bit like a
mundane government building. It was just me as well, with
four static cameras and all the sensors."


13. In 2013, Cumberbatch also appeared in J. J. Abrams's sequel Star Trek Into
Darkness as Khan, the antagonist of the film.
Three of the four films he starred in during the second half of 2013 premiered
at the Toronto International Film Festival: The Fifth Estate, where he played
Wiki Leaks founder Julian Assange, 12 Years a Slave, where he played William
Prince Ford, a slave owner, and August: Osage County, playing Charles Aiken.
For the film, he recorded a song titled "Can't Keep it Inside" for the official
soundtrack.

14. In January 2014, Gary Oldman confirmed that Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes and
Amanda Seyfried are on board to star in his next directorial project, Flying Horse,
about the life of English photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Cumberbatch has
also signed up for a voice role in DreamWorks Animation's feature film Penguins of
Madagascar, which is set for release in March 2015.[57] He will be seen in the
upcoming historical drama film The Imitation Game as British cryptographer Alan
Turing, set for release on 2014.

15. In September 2013, he replaced Brad Pitt as the lead in Paramount Pictures and
Plan B Entertainment's adaptation of the best-selling book The Lost City of Z about
the South American explorer Percy Fawcett. The film will be directed by James
Gray and is set to shoot in the summer of 2014. He signed up for new thriller
Blood Mountain, directed by Sergei Bodrov. Principal photography is set to begin
in April 2014 in Morocco.