Talk about high class problems. Literally.
British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has a ghost from his past casting a shadow over his career: he was too privileged growing up. The son of actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, Cumberbatch attended the Harrow school, which now charges $47703 in admission per year. As a result of his young posh education, he says casting directors are unwilling to see him in a role beyond that of a wealthy menace.
"I was brought up in a world of privilege. It can ostracize you from normal codes of conduct in society," he told the Radio Times. "Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it. I realized from quite early on that, although I wasn't trying to make a class specialty of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals."
Cumberbatch is currently playing Sherlock Holmes in the hit BBC series "Sherlock" and is a supporting player in this winter's "War Horse" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." He played Scarlett Johansson's very unlikable husband in "The Other Boelyn Girl," and will play the evil Smaug in the two "Hobbit" films.
In an interview with The Huffington Post to promote "War Horse," his cast mate Patrick Kennedy described how Cumberbatch embodied his proud and slightly arrogant character.
"We fell into our roles very quickly as a sort of dynamic outside of the film," Kennedy said. "I was the joker, Tom [Hiddleston] was the sort of noble, sincere and heroic one, Benedict was the sort of stern, more pompous one, and we were joking with each other around that dynamic."
For more, click over to the Radio Times.