After Benedict Cumberbatch Was Abducted While Filming In South Africa, He Revealed How The Near-Death Experience Completely Changed How He Perceives Time

Benedict Cumberbatch revealed a harrowing near-death experience while filming abroad that completely changed how he experiences life.

In an interview with Variety, the Doctor Strange actor opened up about the future of his Marvel Cinematic Universe character, his new film at the Sundance Film Festival, and what sets him apart from being the "typical movie star."

The Sundance film is The Thing with Feathers, a drama based on the 2015 novella Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter. Benedict portrays "a man who is collapsing under the weight of despair and becoming increasingly untethered" to the point where he believes a magically realistic crow is terrorizing him and his children.

The Sherlock actor explained what it takes to access those emotions to become such a dramatic character on screen, discussing the value of time and mortality, especially once he became a father.

"The minute you have kids this sense of time sinks in far more profoundly," Benedict said.

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

Benedict has three children: Christopher, 9; Hal, 7; and Finn, 6, whom he shares with his wife, Sophie Hunter.

"When you become a parent, your thoughts turn more towards mortality," he added.

But, there was a moment before Benedict became a father that opened his eyes to the "fragile nature of life," as Variety's Brent Lang described.

In 2004, while filming the BBC miniseries To the Ends of the Earth in South Africa, Benedict was on a diving excursion with friends when his tire blew out on the way home. Once they pulled over to the side of the road they were robbed and abducted by six men.

BBC

According to the interview, Benedict and the others were forced into a car, driven around for hours, and were let out on the side of the road, sitting in "execution-style" before the thieves eventually fled.

"[The abduction] gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one," he says, shifting in his seat. "It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I'm still dealing with that impatience."

That near-death experience switched him into a thrill-seeker constantly searching for a way to get his adrenaline going. "The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that," Cumberbatch says. "It made me go, 'Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment.' 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. 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."

Read the full interview here.