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The fine gentlemen over at GQ UK have heard your prayers, and are helping you ring in the New Year with British actor/omnipresent Tumblr entity Benedict Cumberbatch!
Cumberbatch covers GQ UK‘s January 2014 issue, in which the Sherlock star told what I think is a joke, based on its sheer absurdity: “It is harder [meeting women] because people think they know more about you than they actually do. And you can’t control that…You can’t control perceptions of you.”
Take note Cumberbitches, when you’re courting Benedict, it’s best to leave your preconceptions at the door (and while you’re at it, maybe don’t call yourself “Cumberbitch,” because Benedict finds it anti-feminist. Fight the patriarchy and call yourself a “Cumber-collector” instead!).
Cumberbatch also took the time to defend himself against allegations of being hoity-toity: “All the posh-baiting that goes on… it’s so predictable, so domestic, so dumb. I’m an upper-middle-class kid. I know that’s counted as posh, but then I know people who I would call posh, and I don’t talk like them.”
This is probably why the Fifth Estate actor and I could never date, because I assumed that he was, in fact, a very posh lad – and why wouldn’t he be, with a full name like Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch? However, much like the tagline of MTV Diary, Benedict’s credo is “You think you know, but you have no idea.”
What else do we not know about the 37-year-old actor? He’s more than just Sherlock Holmes, capable of playing a range of characters:
I know that everything I do now will have flavors of Sherlock. Everyone wants those dark, complicated anti-heroes and, of course, I play them. But I also play Charles in August: Osage County, an everyman; he’s not super-sleuthing or cracking code or breaking algorithms. I play Ford in 12 Years A Slave and Alexander in Stuart: A Life Backwards – he’s a pretty open book; smart man though he is, the complexity is all about Stuart.
So, Cumber-collectors, join me in pledging that you will never pigeonhole the actor again.
This article was originally published on December 2, 2013.