For Ellis Cashmore, author of Celebrity Culture, the main reason is more prosaic. "Before
Sherlock, Cumberbatch was barely recognizable, and Freeman was known as the geeky
character in the original version of The Office," he notes. Since Sherlock's status as a cult
hit exploded around the world, their gigs have gotten dramatically bigger and better.
"I bet both actors would work on it for free - it generates more exposure," he says.
(Thanks to the series, sales of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories have shot up too, the
Telegraph reports.)
A big part of the attraction for actors and viewers alike are the crisp, humorous scripts -
Moffat and Gatiss write an episode each - with Cumberbatch delivering such lightning-
quick, stream-of-consciousness dialogue. "Holmes is smarter than all of us," Eaton
says. "We are Watson, falling a couple of steps behind him, trying to figure it out."

猴姆独家: Say Something之《神探夏洛克》版MV

【AllforBC-字幕组】揭秘《神探夏洛克》

6: The Music
Part The Third Man, part The Ipcress File, and all enticing. If you ever meet David
Arnold or Michael Price, you’ll be sure to shake their hands, won’t you?
7: Everyone Else
You’ll notice, if you take a quick dip in the bubbling magma pit of Tumblr, that all of
the opinions, pro and anti, tend to be about script and story, rather than actors, and
this is chiefly because Sherlock is just so beautifully cast. Una Stubbs plays Mrs
Hudson as an easily shocked and frail English landlady, but as an audience, we know
she’s made of sterner stuff and the more we find out about her life, the more it
becomes clear that there is very little that she can’t deal with. And if she’s mum, Rupert
Graves as Lestrade, is dad. He doesn’t always understand what his boys are up to,
and sees more of himself in Watson than he does in Holmes, but he’s very loyal, very
proud of them, and helps them clean up their messes with as good a grace as he
can muster, in the face of intolerable teasing.
Mycroft Holmes is a far colder fish, one of the things Mark Gatiss is particularly good
at putting across. His job is to make the inhuman Sherlock look almost cuddly and he
does it beautifully.
And that’s without even mentioning Louise Brealy as the ever-crushing Molly Hooper.
She may adore Sherlock from afar but it’s a very chaste kind of love, not a physical
attraction. She’s no Irene Adler (hats off to Lara Pulver), and she’s not about to try
to be, but oh how that love aches.
8: The Heartbreak
The tragedy is that it takes Sherlock’s ‘death’ for John to say these wonderful things of
his former partner. English reserve is never more powerful than when it is defeated
by raw emotion.
9: The Mind Is A Muscle
Other franchises may attempt to update Holmes by making him more of a fighter, a true
action hero, but the glory of Sherlock is that his principal weapon is his mind, with the
sharp tongue and beady eyes as secondary armaments. That’s it. There’s some
running, a bit of jostling and punching, some guns, even, but all Sherlock Holmes
really needs is the chance to observe and the space to think (two words: mind palace).
And then an arena in which to show off afterwards.
10: The Fans
Having John Watson as a celebrity blogger is a great way to involve reality in the work
in which Sherlock operates. Mr Holmes is famous enough to have a trademark hat.
Who else in the modern age can truly say that apart from Matt Smith’s Doctor in
Doctor Who, and he doesn’t even wear it all the time. So there are fans in their
universe and there are fans in ours and Steven Moffat’s job is to acknowledge both
communities while still creating a drama that feels true to itself. Of course, fans being
fans, there’s a certain amount (total) of debate as to how well he has succeeded.
Which is, in a way, its own proof of success.

I've been very lucky at what's happened in my career to date, but playing something as
far from me as possible is an ambition of mine - anything from a mutated baddy in a
comic book action thriller, to a detective. If anything, I'd like Gary Oldman's career:
he's the perfect example of it. I've love to have a really broad sweep of characters -
to be able to do something edgy, surprising and unfashionable. (May 2005)
[on Martin Freeman playing Bilbo Baggins] It was great. I got to hang out with him, and
I kept a straight face for a bit and then I started giggling because I know Martin, I don't
know Bilbo. For Martin to be sitting there playing Bilbo is amazing. He's going to be
amazing, he's going to be fantastic in this film.
[on Sherlock (2010) fan-fiction] I suppose my bodily proportions are quite flattering. I'm
ripped, doing something I wouldn't normally do with my body, or having done to it,
involving Watson. So that's as far as I'll hit about that one, but it's all there on the Web
if you want to find it. I was amazed at the level of artistry; people have spent hours
doing it. And there's some really weird cross breeding stuff that goes on. The news got
out that I was playing Smaug in "Hobbit" and suddenly there were lots of dragons with
purple scarves flying around so it's crazy, it's crazy.
[on declining to reprise his much-acclaimed role in "After the Dance" on Broadway] I've
never really made a head-over-heart decision like that before but there's a bit of
momentum and I'd like to keep myself available for films. (September 2011)
I've seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should it all end
tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I am very lucky, and I know it.
I really have lived 5,000 times over. (May 2013)

[on his role in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)] I don't really believe in good and evil. I
don't really believe in heroes and villains. His reasons for what he does are quite
profoundly persuasive. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and the
fact that he's a shadow self of Kirk - same coin, different sides - is what makes him
interesting to play.
[re advice from co-star Meryl Streep] I asked her how she approached the multiple
layers of her part. And she said, "I don't know. I don't have a process. It changes with
every job, doesn't it?" And I thought, "Oh, thank God, to hear her say it. This whole thing
about technique or method? It's bullshit." People say, "Oh, you're so precise." But within
that I work very hard to give every part a heartbeat. I learned a lot from just watching
Meryl in repose. It was a bit like a Sherlock deduction actually.
[re would-be response to Julian Assange about movie portrayal of him] Well, somebody
is going to do it, wouldn't you rather it's someone who has your ear, who could steer the
film to a place that's more accurate or balanced? The tabloid image of him, what he
fears is going to be promoted - that weird, white-haired guy wanted for rape - is so far from what we did.
[re his Hobbit character] It was publicized that I 'voice' Smaug, and I thought, "Fucking
hell. My voice, my motions - I worked my arse off to create that dragon!".
I can tell you I'm a huge fan of Downton Abbey (2010) and what I said was quite,
quite clearly - to most intelligent New York Times readers - a joke. [on the comments
he made about Downton Abbey (2010) on the New York Times]
Sometimes as an actor you're looking for the infinite. If you can hold that, if you can
remember that in the chaos, [it will] anchor you and give you grace and ease.

Worst thing about my profession? The press, obviously. Don't write that, eh?
[on Downton Abbey (2010), interviewed on "Reader's digest", 16 August 2012] We're
remembering that there was a world before the First World War. We're living in a culture
now that's revering, or having a nostalgia trip with, the beginning of the 1900s. Although
Downton traded a lot on the sentiment in the last series... but we won't talk about that
series because it was, in my opinion, f***ing atrocious.
[on being abducted in South Africa in 2005] It taught me that you come into this world
as you leave it, on your own. It's made me want to live a life slightly less ordinary.
I don't live beyond my means. I enjoy luxury and I enjoy the privilege of it, when I can
afford it, and I'm in the situation where it's been given to me, but I'm very conscious of
what is wasteful.
I've always had an eye on longevity; I've got loads more goals to achieve. It's not like I've
completely conquered the whole thing. That's a lifetime's objective, not an overnight
thing.
[on delivering a successful performance] It's rather like a sportsman, where you hit a
sweet spot and think, "Oh, that felt good." You don't necessarily know why it is. It's
pretty fleeting, and I guess that's how it should be, because the minute you try to hold
on to it, it's too precious, and you start to try to reinvigorate the ghost of what you've
done rather than keep evolving it.
Every time I'm seen at a bar with a girl, I get photographed. Anyone who has a computer
knows my entire dating history. I get it. Paparazzi is an inescapable, immovable obstacle.

The rule of law is being overrun so fast, eroding our civil liberties in a way that
fundamentalists could possibly cherish. Yet there is a very real threat, for the other
liberty that we could have taken away is our life, at any point, through the act of terrorism.
I think intelligence services have really struggled post-Iraq with credibility, and I feel for
them to a certain degree. They are trying to protect our right to exist.
I've never been an activist, but I've always been politically aware. I protested against
budget cuts and cuts to education. I marched against the Iraq war. All that protesting
was just swept aside to pave the way for an illegal war, and the results of that war were
made very, very plain by those leaked war logs.
[on The Hobbit] Growing up, my dad read it to me, and it was a real treat, a feast for a
child's imagination. He did an amazing Smaug, and hobbits, and Gandalf as well - it's
the audiobook that will never exist.
The only thing that may unite all forms of acting in a sense is no matter what
preparation you do, no matter what transformative process you go through, you are
always yourself. You are always inside your own skin - you are who you are no matter
what the actions of the movement or the effect. You have to have an essential element
of you, and that is also what is in the present. Once you're in the present and you're
not worried about the wig, or the special-effects suit, or the dialogue, or the accent,
or the moral responsibility, when you are lost in the moment and you're in the present
is when the stuff that's really good comes on screen. Until that point, you've put in a lot
of hard work to then let go, and all of us experience moments - and they're rare in
every job I find - where you feel free of any kind of self-consciousness.

神夏的台词真是精妙，看了N遍才理解麦哥对小夏说的这句：
The promise of love.
The pain of loss.
The joy of redemption.
And give him a puzzle, watch him dance.

本来以为自己只喜欢老吴这样的轻柔的声音。
这阵子神夏看多了，没想到渐渐地也爱上了小夏同学的醇厚的嗓音。

Bitterness is a paralytic.
Love is a much more vicious motivator.
想想还真挺对的。

转自Daily Mail
His success comes as a great, if poignant, vindication of the support of his parents,
both of whom are actors but have enjoyed far less stellar careers.
His father, Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch, acts under the name Timothy Carlton. He
has been in the TV comedies Executive Stress and Next Of Kin.
His mother, Wanda Ventham, is best known for playing Colonel Virginia Lake in the
Seventies sci-fi series UFO and Cassandra’s mother, Pamela, in Only Fools And Horses.
Cumberbatch said in an interview that his mother took on commercial theatre roles
when he was younger to keep the family finances afloat.
Benedict, their only child, was always at home on the stage. One family joke is that
when he was playing Joseph in a Nativity play he shoved the girl playing Mary out of
the way because he felt she was too slow in saying her lines. He was three at the
time.
At Harrow, he had been thinking of a future in the law, which his parents approved of
more than acting; but then — against parental advice — went on to study drama at
Manchester University.
He said: ‘They just saw the pitfalls of it every day. You don’t know where your next job
is coming from, and it’s unstable, and you want stability for your children.
‘Everything that was bad about it for them, they wanted me to be free of. But I just
kept on doing it.’
Eventually his father came to see him playing Salieri in a university production of
Amadeus, Peter Schaffer’s play about Mozart.
Benedict recalls: ‘In a car park afterwards, we were saying goodbye and my father
said: “You are better than I was, or ever will be. You will have a really good time doing
this for a living.”
‘And I cried. And from that moment I thought: “OK, if I’ve got his blessing, then I’m going
to do it.”’
It’s clear, then, that family is very important to Benedict Cumberbatch — even if he
doesn’t like to shout about all of them.

2月4号Sherlock剧组在Apple Store Covent Garden的访谈
油管上的：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnbxrjlTVEI

小夏的这张脸，我觉得麦哥说的极是：
"in a certain light, his face is quite alien. And then in another, he's iconically handsome."