Urgent:Benedict Cumberbatch Rushed to the hospital in a critical condition today
Benedict Cumberbatch is talking about a terrifying event that happened to him while he was working abroad 20 years ago. Ahead of his film The Thing with Feathers’ 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere, the 48-year-old actor talked to Variety about how, in 2004, while filming the BBC drama To the Ends of the Earth in South Africa, he was kidnapped and held captive for hours.
Cumberbatch told the newspaper, “It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a positive one.” “Living an unconventional life made me irritable, and I am still coping with that impatience.”
Variety claims that after going diving with his pals, Cumberbatch had a tire blowout on the way back. Six men kidnapped them when they were stuck, looted them, made them drive around for hours, tied them up outside, and then ran away. To keep informed about the best that PEOPLE has to offer, from captivating human-interest stories to celebrity news, subscribe to their free daily newsletter.
“It made me realize that I could die at any time,” he said to Variety. “I was taking all kinds of risks, including throwing myself off of planes.” “But at that time, I did not really have any dependents other than my parents. The actor, who is now married and has three sons with his wife of over ten years, Sophie Hunter, added, “Now that is altered, and it sobers you.”
In his latest film, The Thing with Feathers, Cumberbatch plays “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,” after “the sudden and unexpected death of his wife,” according to a synopsis. The film is based on Max Porter’s book Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.
