Benedict Cumberbatch recalls getting abducted, held captive in South Africa in 2004
Benedict Cumberbatch looked back at the time he got abducted and held captive for hours while he was filming a project in South Africa.
In an interview with Variety, the 48-year-old actor shared that he and his friends were robbed and got taken by six men while driving home after finishingv the BBC miniseries To the Ends of the Earth in 2004.
Cumberbatch, who was in his late 20s at the time, was forced into the car with his companions and driven around for hours until they were eventually let out. However, instead of releasing them peacefully, the men tied them up and forced them to sit execution-style before leaving.
The harrowing experience gave the actor a "sense of time, but not necessarily a good one."
"It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience," he said.
As a result of the abduction, the Doctor Strange star led a life filled with adrenaline and would often do extreme sports and skydive as a way to cope with what happened.
"The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that. 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," Cumberbatch said.
"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," he added.
Cumberbatch's realizations about time has also impacted how he sees his family. He is currently married to his wife of nearly 10 years, Sophie Hunter, with whom he shares three sons: Kit, 9, Hal, 7, and Finn, 6.
"The minute you have kids, this sense of time sinks in far more profoundly. My youngest is turning six 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 said.
"There’s a huge shift in priorities, and it makes you value what you do with your life in a very different way," he continued. "It does weigh on me. When you become a parent, your thoughts turn more towards mortality."
Cumberbatch is set to star in the drama film The Thing with Feathers, which centers around a father and his two sons as they struggle to cope with the sudden loss of his wife, their mother.
