Benedict Cumberbatch Recalls Harrowing Experience of Being Abducted and Held Captive in South Africa

Mar. 15, 2025

Benedict Cumberbatch in Toronto on Sept. 11, 2021.Photo:Emma McIntyre/Getty

Emma McIntyre/Getty

Benedict Cumberbatchis recounting a harrowing experience he had 20 years ago while working overseas.

Speaking withVarietyahead of the 2025Sundance Film Festivalpremiere of his movieThe Thing with Feathers, the 48-year-old actor spoke about how he was once abducted and held for hours in South Africa, while in the country filming the BBC miniseriesTo the Ends of the Earthin 2004.

“It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one,” Cumberbatch told the outlet. “It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience.”

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TheDoctor Strangeactor said the “near-death' experience “turbo-fueled” his desire to engage in hobbies some might deem high risk, like skydiving.

“It made me go, ‘Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment,' " he toldVariety. “I was throwing myself out of planes, taking all sorts of risks.”

“But apart from my parents, I didn’t have any real dependents at that point. Now that’s changed, and that sobers you,” continued the actor, who is now married and sharesthree sonswith his wife of nearly 10 years,Sophie Hunter.

“I’ve looked over the edge; it’s made me comfortable with what lies beneath it. And I’ve accepted that that’s the end of all our stories,” Cumberbatch added.

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The actor’s new movieThe Thing with Feathers, based on Max Porter’s bookGrief Is the Thing with Feathers, stars Cumberbatch as “a young father [who] loses his hold on reality as a seemingly malign presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons,” following “the sudden and unexpected death of his wife,” according toa synopsis.

Cumberbatch — whose own sons areKit, 9,Hal, 7, and Finn, 6 — also toldVarietyof fatherhood in his interview, “The minute you have kids this sense of time sinks in far more profoundly.”

“My youngest is turning 6 tomorrow, and I’m like, ‘I will be in my 60s when he’s 21,’ you know?” he continued of Finn. “It’s crazy. It’s gone so fast. So there’s a huge shift in priorities, and it makes you value what you do with your life in a very different way.”

“It does weigh on me,” Cumberbatch added of time passing. “When you become a parent, your thoughts turn more towards mortality.”

source: people.com