Benedict Cumberbatch looks set to star in an upcoming TV series about a group of thieves stealing from the Vatican, but how much do you know about him?
There has been something of a bidding war for the option rights to Nick Brucker’s upcoming novel White Smoke. A24 UK appears to have been victorious and they have plans to adapt the novel into a TV series, with Benedict Cumberbatch set to star in it, as well as take a production role through his SunnyMarch production company, according to Deadline.
White Smoke – which isn’t set to be published until next year – tells the story of a group of thieves who try to steal the treasures of the Vatican during a papal conclave.
The book is set to be the first in a series, so it was felt that TV was the best route, and A24 and SunnyMarch made the best offer.
This will mark a return to TV for Benedict, who, apart from Netflix show Eric, has focused on film work in recent times. But how much do you know about Benedict Cumberbatch? Here are some facts you might not know.
He’s related to royalty
While Benedict’s recent family have been involved in acting – both his parents are – his family does crop up in history. For instance, it has been calculated that Benefit is third cousin 16 times removed of King Richard III, who was King of England from 1483-85.
Richard III famously died at the Battle of Bosworth. His remains were lost for centuries before being rediscovered under a car park in Leicester in 2012. When his remains were reburied in 2015, Benedict attended the ceremony and read a poem.
Benedict also played Richard III in The Hollow Crown, a British TV series that ran from 2012-16 and was adapted from plays by William Shakespeare.
Benedict survived a kidnapping
In 2005, Benedict was travelling with two friends in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where he was filming To The Ends of The Earth, when they were abducted at gunpoint by locals after their vehicle burst a tyre. Fortunately, their captors drove them to unsettled territory and released them unharmed, and with no explanation.
Of the experience, Benedict said it made him want to live a life less ordinary.
Benedict has lived with Tibetan monks
After finishing his secondary education, and before starting a university course, Benedict took a year out, where he volunteered as an English teacher at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Darjeeling, India
He officiated at a friend’s wedding
Back in 2013 Benedict got himself ordained so he could legally carry out wedding ceremonies.
That year, Benedict performed the marriage ceremony for his good friend Robert Rinder – best known for his Judge Rinder show in the UK – to Seth Cummings in Ibiza.
Benedict and Robert had been good friends since they met at Manchester University where both were studying.
Robert later was one of Benedict’s best men at his own wedding two years later to Sophie Hunter.
Benedict has his own group of fans
Benedict is well loved for his acting, but his looks are also appreciated, and he has legions of female fans, and there is a collective term for them. They were originally called ‘Cumberbitches’ but are now referred to as ‘CumberCollective’ or ‘Cumberpeople’ as Benedict was uncomfortable with the original term as he felt it was non-inclusive and pejorative.
He has a genetic eye mutation
Benedict has central heterochromia, a harmless genetic mutation that means his eyes have multiple colours – in his case a combination of blue, green and gold. It means his eyes have distinct inner and outer rings of colour. The condition is reckoned to affect less than 1% of the population.
