Benedict Cumberbatch News

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

If hashtags would help....if he's paying attention....no time like the present to start.

[sfmpco]

A gentle campaign to show that his fans care and want him to stop.

[by the sea]

You could tell he's a smoker by the way he smokes.  Non-smokers smoking for a role look strange with a cigarette in their hands ... they don't know how to hold it or where to blow the smoke.  Mr. Cumberbatch looked quite comfortable with his smoking at the parents' house in HLV.   Used to smoke two packs a day myself, so it's easy to tell.   Quit cold turkey quite a while ago now ... moved onto sanctimonious  .

 

Debbie

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Someone tell me how to do hashtags and I'm not shy.

[besleybean]

You lot thinking about a Twitter campaign?

Sorry if this makes me seem a  hypocrite, but I wouldn't be comfortable with that...

[Arcadia]

No, no, no, you're going about it all wrong. This is where we need a Magnussen.

 

The thing to do is find out who his girlfriend is (or get him one :-) and put the pressure on HER to get him to stop. Unless she's a smoker too, in which case we're sunk.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Oh blackmail don't work....look what happened to Magnussen in the end....no thank you very much.  I've never had the habit so there is no hypocrisy. I just lost my Anam Cara to cancer. She was a chain smoker for years.

[by the sea]

Honestly, speaking as a "reformed" smoker ... or recovering or whatever you want to call it ... outside forces don't do it ... well, maybe the girlfriend idea might work, but one assumes she wouldn't be his girlfriend now if she was completely against his smoking ... of course, there would be other compensatory factors for her   .  Personally, if I were him, I'd find a big public campaign pretty annoying and intrusive.  You have to be there on your own.  He seems pretty level-headed from what I've seen of him, so he'll no doubt reach the conclusion about the need to quit all by himself.  Here's hoping he makes it on his first attempt.  (It took me three !)

 

Debbie

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Yeah you have a point, I suppose. Just have to send good vibs his way and hope it works.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Read a bit of good news that goes along with this smoking topic. Since 2007 there has been a smoking ban in Wales as far as actors and actresses go while on location. At least they can't light up real cigarette's. They have to use herbals. So when CB is in Wales filming....there are no tobacco based cigarettes while he is in front of the cameras.

[Carol the Dabbler]

That's really wonderful news for actors who don't smoke in real life!  I can't imagine having a job where I might be required to smoke through an entire scene -- for 24 takes -- though I must say, I'm not sure that herbal cigarettes would be much of an improvement!

 

[besleybean]

Yeah we know that, doesn't stop him smoking real ones in His Last Vow!

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

If that was filmed in Wales then they couldn't have been tobacco. The herbals are most likely made up to look exactly like a regular cigarette.

[besleybean]

Sigh.  

it's only on the studio set that smoking is illegal.

It is illegal to smoke anyway in the UK, in an enclosed public space.

When Sherlock is smoking with Mycroft it is outside and is legal.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

That's not how the article read through. They were filming. So technically they would be considered on set as they were on camera, wouldn't they?

[besleybean]

No. 

Benedict chose not to smoke while he was filming the 1st series.

He was spotted(and photographed) smoking on breaks from filming at Gower St, series 2.

I think you can obviously see that Russell is smoking a herbal cigarette in HOUND.

But I think Benedict's and Mark's cigarettes are real.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Russell's looked hand rolled, at least to me. My dad made his being cheaper then brand bought. I can see actors catching a quick smoke on the side. People do it here at work though there are no smoking signs. But I can't see the BBC letting actors getting away with it on set during filming even if they're out side. They weren't at home in their private back garden. Will have to research to see what the herbal cigarettes look like.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Okay....this is what herbal cigarettes look like. Not your garden variety hand rolled. So it would be difficult to tell the difference between a tobacco based product and these. I suppose a screen cap might tell more of the story.

 

                    

[Caya]

Ariane to the rescue:

 

(During the scene in the corridor outside the morgue)
Sue: “It’s beautifully shot, I think – well, it’s beautifully acted as well.”
Mark: “Thank you. It’s a lovely scene, this one.”
Lara: “Yeah. The whole profile shot of the two of you ...”
Mark: “It’s on all the stamps.”
Sue: “Shot in Bristol ’cause you still can’t smoke inside in Wales.”
Mark: “We had to go back to England to have a cigarette.”
Benedict (as Sherlock exhales his first lungful of smoke): “Oh, look at the enjoyment. That was enjoyable for the first take.”
Sue: “Yeah, and by take twenty ...”
Benedict: “I had nicotine poisoning and I didn’t sleep properly that night and I had a huge scene to do the next morning. Kids, don’t do it. It screws you up, smoking – it’s not fun.”

 

This is from the commentary on Scandal. So for this episode at least, they circumvented the Welsh ban by filming in England.

[sfmpco]

This is a couple years old but worth a look:

 

 

For this one, the camera is on BC's bike:

 

 

 

 

[sfmpco]

here's another:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ouqwfBTJI

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

At least he knows it's really bad and no fun so maybe he's in the long process of trying to quite. Let`s hope anyway.

[sfmpco]

Indeed, let's hope so.  

[Convict13]

Quick - Ben needs your help.  

 

Well perhaps that was overstating it a little, but it would seem that Ricky Gervais (who I really like, is a funny funny man and an incredible advocate for animals) might actually beat Ben in:  

 

http://www.radiotimes.com/tvchampion

 

 

PS: I love that my spell check knows how to spell Gervais correctly.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for the heads-up, Convict13!  The Cumberbatch vote now stands at 54.71% -- thanks in part to your post, I suspect.  I like Ricky Gervais too, especially the way he can speak out for the animals in a funny way, so that more people are likely to listen.

 

Still, it's too bad that I didn't know about this contest soon enough to vote for Martin Freeman over Gervais in the quarter-finals.  Of course, then it could have been Freeman versus Cumberbatch in the semi's, and I would have been forced to vote against Cumberbatch.