Benedict Cumberbatch first played Stephen Strange in 2016's Doctor Strange. It was a major change of pace for the British actor as he found himself getting used to green screens, on-set rewrites, and the Marvel Studios method of telling stories.
Reflecting on that in an interview with Variety, the actor acknowledges that he was "a bit stiff" as the now-former Sorcerer Supreme during his first outing. However, watching Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland's interactions in Spider-Man: Homecoming was a game-changer in terms of how he approached the role.
"I learned a lot by seeing how at ease and improvisatory they are," he explained. "It’s hard because you have this huge apparatus around you, but it’s so important."
Cumberbatch remembers Downey's playful ribbing on the set of the Avengers movies where he'd call the actor "Mr. Shakespeare." However, they soon bonded over their shared history of playing two very different versions of Sherlock Holmes.
"We had a gas about being the two Sherlocks on set," he recalled. "But there was some line of dialogue where someone turns to us and says, 'No shit, Sherlock.' Well, we took out all that meta stuff. We just said, 'No, no, no. Better to leave that for the fan fiction.'"
While it's true that Cumberbatch is no stranger to Shakespeare, he was quick to defend the MCU in this interview, praising Marvel Studios for transporting audiences to different worlds over the course of 34 movies.
"It’s the modern myths of our times," Cumberbatch said of the superhero genre. "Yes, it’s huge and unwieldy, but Marvel is so committed to getting it right. Even when we make one of these Avengers films and it gets exponentially huger, we’re still just kids playing in the sand pit. We’re still just making shit up and having fun with it."
Understandably, he didn't expect to share the screen with Downey again (at least not in the MCU). It wasn't until he watched live coverage of Marvel Studios' San Diego Comic-Con presentation last July that he learned his Avengers: Endgame co-star would return as Doctor Doom.
After explaining that he immediately grabbed his phone to message Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, he revealed, "I texted, 'What the f***?' and then quickly added, 'Good what-the-f***. I mean, good what-the-f***.'"
Cumberbatch has also confirmed he won't return as Doctor Strange in Avengers: Doomsday. You can read more about that here.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released in May 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars scheduled to arrive in May 2027.