Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes

I had been in the gym training for many, many years, but I definitely stepped it up when it was time to get into shape to play 'Lights'. I began trying to live the life of a boxer, and that means everything that you would expect.

Doing multiple character work is athletic in every way - vocally, physically, spiritually, and mentally. With a show like 'Passing Strange,' I usually lose about 12 pounds.

If I do a film and have to get naked, that tends to dictate how often I go to the gym. Acting in 'Richard II' on stage was a huge physical workout, so I ended up more toned than I normally am.

To play the role of a sports champion, I first needed to break my body and become supremely fit to convincingly look like a college athlete. Along with acing sporting disciplines, I also had to balance the emotional graph and light heartedness of a college drama while competing in varying sport! Combining the two drained a lot out of me.

I'm just trying to get my body in shape so that I can handle it. It's a very physically demanding thing. I've been doing it for 16 years, so I know what I'm going into now. I'm trying to stay calm and not panic.

A play that works well and is done quite a lot - I've never done the math - but it's probably more remunerative than a movie.

At the moment, my trajectory isn't to think about acting. I'm absolutely devoted to The Imaginarium, our projects and directing. And watching and enabling other actors do their thing in our studio is hugely rewarding. I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.

I've done roles before where I've wanted to be buff and sort of fit or whatever. And I like to try and be a little bit fit because there's usually one scene in a movie where you've got to run, which means you've got to run for about five hours nonstop. So, for me, it's just worthwhile being fit because doing a movie can be kind of grueling for six, seven, eight weeks. Or 12 weeks.

The more active I am, the better I feel and the longer I can stay onstage without losing my breath.

I'm always very aware of the physical challenges of work. I train much more than I did when I was in my twenties, and I've done some very physical films, and I always get properly prepared for them and get as fit as I can.

I love musicals, I started acting because I wanted to be in a musical.

I did a couple of little Off-Broadway things, but my first Broadway show was A History Of The American Film, written by Chris Durang. Swoosie Kurtz was one of the stars. It was a wonderful show. It closed in 40 performances. I think it was kind of ahead of its time.

I never had an aversion because I was active in the drama club. If I had that aversion I certainly wouldn't put myself in the position of being on stage. Of course, in the drama club you're hiding behind a character.

It's like the high school production of something you saw at Steppenwolf, with the most gifted students in drama class playing the John Malkovich and Joan Allen roles.

I'd like to continue to play until I drop dead on stage or something.

I always loved theater and acting in plays and directing, writing little plays and directing friends in plays.

On stage or in the movies I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free.

[Theater] has always been a big focus. I have been away from it for the past few years. I want to get back to it!

Theater makes working in movies or TV seem like a cake-walk.

One of the things that made me want to be an actor more than ever was seeing a Chekhov play, "The Sea Gull," when was 14 in the Bronx.

Theater is all about the rehearsal process. In fact, I think a lot of times opening night there's a mixed sadness because you're finished with a lot of people's favorite part of the process, which is finding the character and discovering it, and then you get to live it.

I'm not prepared for a zombie apocalypse. I need more bottled water, a shotgun, and stronger abs. I have plenty of canner food.

I really wanted to go back to the theater, the live theater. That was the thing I had never had a chance to do, even though I had trained to be a stage actress.

I've got these five-pound weights and a treadmill in the living room. I work out the other parts that have affected my voice: my diaphragm - doctors took mine out in surgery - and my lungs. I've got to build back my legs, too, so I can run across that stage. I've got a lot to do, but I'm going to get out, sing songs and tell the stories.

The funny thing is, because I was doing a lot of theater when I was a kid, and a lot of that was musical theater, as I got older I became more interested in acting as a separate entity and music as a separate entity, like songwriting and production and recording and playing music.