Benedict Cumberbatch has done it all, at this point. Marvel, Middle-earth, Mr. Sherlock Holmes… And, most recently, he’s entered the world of Roald Dahl adaptations with his starring role in Wes Anderson’s Netflix short film, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. And yet there are a couple of major franchises that Cumberbatch has yet to tick off, not that the opportunities haven’t presented themselves.
You may already know the Doctor Strange actor turned his nose up at playing an iconic Star Wars villain, but long before that the star refused to become the next Doctor Who. That’s despite his good friend, David Tennant, giving him free rein to claim the coveted part of the time-traveling Time Lord as his own. And the reason why he passed the gig is certainly ironic given his eventual MCU career.
Doctor Strange turned down the chance to be Doctor Who
A long time ago, in this galaxy, Cumberbatch appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show in September 2011 and was asked about the fact he turned down the chance to audition to be the Eleventh Doctor before Matt Smith landed the role. Cumberbatch dropped the bombshell that Tennant invited him to try out for the part, but he didn’t take him up on the offer:
“No. David [Tennant] is a friend of mine and he said ‘Go up for my old job’, and I said ‘I don’t think so’. They’re huge shoes to fill and I think I’m more similar to David than I am to Matt [Smith].”
So why did Cumberbatch have no interest in wielding the sonic screwdriver? It turns out he had zero ambitions to play a character who ends up on “the school lunch box.”
“One of the reasons the Doctor Who job is so hard is because you are on the flask, you are on the school lunch box, you have to sometimes go on the school bus as Doctor Who on promotional tours. I like to keep the work on the set!”
Well, clearly Benny C evolved his opinion on this over time as these days he’s most recognizable as Stephen Strange, a Marvel superhero — pretty much the definition of a character who appears on kids’ lunchboxes. Speaking of twists of fate that we couldn’t have foreseen, you know that David Tennant? Now he’s playing the Doctor again himself, in Doctor Who‘s upcoming 60th anniversary specials, which mark the beginning of a landmark partnership between the BBC and Disney.
