Age: 49
male
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born July 19, 1976) is an British and American actor. Known for his roles on the screen and stage, he has received various accolades throughout his career, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a British Academy Television Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award. Cumberbatch won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for Frankenstein and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for Sherlock. His performances in the dramas The Imitation Game (2014) and The Power of the Dog (2021) earned him nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award, all for Best Actor in a Leading Role. For playing the title role in five-part drama miniseries Patrick Melrose, he won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. In 2014 Time magazine included him in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015 he was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2015 Birthday Honours for services to the performing arts and to charity. A graduate of the Victoria University of Manchester, Cumberbatch continued his training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, obtaining a Master of Arts in Classical Acting. He first performed at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in Shakespearean productions and made his West End debut in Richard Eyre's revival of Hedda Gabler in 2005. Since then, he has starred in the Royal National Theatre productions After the Dance (2010) and Frankenstein (2011). In 2015, he played the title role in Hamlet at the Barbican Theatre. Cumberbatch's television work includes his performance as Stephen Hawking in the television film Hawking in 2004. He gained worldwide recognition for his performance as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock from 2010 to 2017. He has also headlined Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Parade's End (2012), The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses (2016), Patrick Melrose (2018), and Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019). In films, Cumberbatch has starred in Amazing Grace (2006) as William Pitt the Younger, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) as Khan, 12 Years a Slave (2013) as William Prince Ford, The Fifth Estate (2013) as Julian Assange, and The Imitation Game (2014) as Alan Turing. He also acted in the historical dramas The Current War (2017), 1917 (2019) and The Courier (2020), and received critical acclaim for his performance in Jane Campion's Western drama The Power of the Dog (2021). From 2012 to 2014, through voice and motion capture, he played the characters of Smaug and Sauron in The Hobbit film series. Cumberbatch portrays Dr. Stephen Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with Doctor Strange (2016), and also voiced the character in the animated series What If...? (2021).
Benedict Cumberbatch
Faustus of Wittenberg
for Faustus of Wittenberg in The Pied Piper
Suggested by darksith
This story is inspired by a novel by the Czech writer Viktor Dyk. One day, the mysterious Pied Piper appears in the Hanseatic city of Hameln to use his magic whistle to exorcise all the rats that have been plaguing the city's inhabitants. The town council offered him 100 gold pieces for this service. The Pied Piper fulfilled his task and led all the rats into the river by playing his whistle. But before that, he met a local girl, Agnes, and the two fell in love. After completing his work, he decided to stay in Hameln to live with Agnes. Moreover, he had not yet been paid. One day, the Pied Piper approaches the town council in a local pub and asks for his reward. However, they refuse to pay him because they feel he has done his job too easily. This leads to an argument between them. After a conflict with the councilors and after discovering that Agnes is pregnant with the unwanted child of her former lover Kristian, the Pied Piper decides to leave the city. But his love for Agnes is stronger than his will and forces him to return. He cannot find her anywhere, however, and when he discovers that she has killed herself by jumping into the river out of grief, he decides to use his whistle to lead the whole town to the edge of the abyss of Mount Koppel. He does so not for the money that should have been paid to him, but out of grief for his failed love. When he was alone above the abyss, he threw away his whistle and also threw himself into the abyss.
