Does this ^^ promotional image kill your Cumberboner? It should. It almost killed mine and I’m a ride-or-die Cumberbitch. I would still hit it even if it was wearing the Assange wiglet, but seeing Benedict look THAT pale and albino-ish is really disturbing. Which is fine, because some of the on-the-fence Cumberfans will back off of my man. This photo comes from The Fifth Estate Twitter, which is really good at baiting Cumberbitches. They also posted a scan of Benedict’s Vanity Fair thing – go here to see. It’s just a tiny little feature and he’s said all those quotes before.

Benedict has a new interview in The Independent, but these days The Independent is subscription only for online readers, so if you have a subscription, go here to read the piece. Here are some highlights from a secondary source:

Benedict Cumberbatch is ”thrilled” with ‘The Fifth Estate’. The 37-year-old actor plays real-life WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the upcoming thriller and he admitted while he enjoyed the role, he was ”terrified” before he watched the finished movie for the first time.

He told the Independent Radar magazine: ”I’m thrilled with it. I’d seen it in the States and I was terrified. I cannot watch myself for the first time, especially playing someone who is so removed from me – because of everything, the appearance, the accent. Everything about him is different.”

And despite the film being criticised by Julian – who himself actually wrote to the ‘Sherlock’ star in an attempt to persuade him not to accept the role – Benedict has defended it against claims it is a character assassination.

He argued: ”I think [director Bill Condon] has made a beautiful film – it’s incredibly balanced. It’s entertaining as well as intriguing. ‘And what it should do is ignite a debate – that’s exactly what should happen. And hopefully it will do that.”

Whereas that movie had its own challenges, Benedict also acknowledged the difficulties of playing dragon Smaug in ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy after he filmed with the motion capture technology used by his co-star Andy Serkis’ role as Gollum.

He explained: ”A serpent with cold blood and a backbone – who is twice the size of the Empire State Building, breathes fire, is 400 years old and lives on a pile of gold in the middle of a mountain – is a little bit difficult to bring any reality to.”

[From Contact Music]

It seems like Benedict is taking a page out of Company Man Tom Hiddleston’s book – don’t be afraid to shill. Don’t be afraid to promote your film exhaustively if need be. A few months ago, people thought The Fifth Estate could possibly earn Benedict an Oscar nomination. But critics saw it during TIFF and while they didn’t hate it, by and large they all agreed that the film (and Benedict’s performance) wasn’t all that award-worthy. So Benedict is in that awkward position of promoting a film which has already been largely dismissed, and no one is really expecting much from the box office either. I like him more for being willing to shill. So professional. It’s been a while since he’s given a bitchy interview too, which is a shame. A good Downton Abbey smackdown would really liven up this promotional tour.

In other Cumby news, Martin Freeman (Dr. Watson to his Sherlock) did a Q&A with college students over the weekend and he spoke about Benedict. Because of course he did. Martin said: “Benedict and I do have this chemistry on set, you know, that doesn’t even particularly have anything to do with good acting – even though, obviously, he’s a brilliant actor – but there’s something more personal about it, you know, it’s like love… Oh God, why did I phrase it that way?” Martin loves Benedict. Sherlock loves Watson. It’s all good. All is right with the world.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and Twitter.