If you’ve been following our Movie News, you already know Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing two villains in Peter Jackson’s film adaptions of ‘The Hobbit’: Smaug the dragon and the Necromancer. Consider yourself a true Cumberbatch fan? Then you also know he is currently filming ‘Star Trek 2’ as the film’s villain. While his villain name is still unknown, several images from the movie set hit the web this week, giving Trekkies their first juicy glimpse of the film’s new bad ass receiving some proper Spock treatment.
Benedict Cumberbatch (left) and Zachary Quinto/Spock (right) on the set of 'Star Trek 2'
When asked about his role on ‘Star Trek 2’, Cumberbatch replied, “In a weird way, it’s a very easy thing to get up to speed with, because everybody is so welcoming and gets along with one another. It’s great to work with Chris. He’s very professional. So is Zach, who I’ve been working a lot with; I adore him, he’s a brilliant, brilliant guy.”
And now, there are rumors floating around that Benedict Cumberbatch might also be making an appearance on BBC’s popular ‘Doctor Who‘ TV series as “The Master”, the Doctor’s arch nemesis. Cumberbatch has been linked to ‘Doctor Who’ in the past with rumors he would play the 11th Doctor, however, that role fell to the current Doctor, Matt Smith. Should the rumors of Cumberbatch be true, we think he would make a perfect villain in celebration of the show’s 50th anniversary, sure to be filled will all kinds of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey things.
Matt Smith/ The 11th Doctor (left) and Benedict Cumberbatch (right)
And what of Benedict’s role as Smaug? It goes much deeper than just giving the dragon a voice. Cumberbatch will also be taking on the role physically, through the use of motion capture technology.
“Preparation for something like that is quite unique.” says Cumberbatch, when asked about his role as Smaug. “I think it will be partly to go with going back to the book, but I sort of want to look at real life serpents and creatures of that ilk, dragons. He’s a reptile, obviously, so it’s not like Andy Serkis’ work with Gollum. I’m going to be on my belly, so that’s going to take a bit of practicing.”
He went on to say, “He’s an exceptionally beautiful, vain, devilish and also, in a lightly weird way, an innocent character. He’s fooled by an invisible midget, it’s quite frustrating. There’s something quite exceptional about the power he has over people and the imagination of that world that is unlocked in this story.”
If you’re excited to see Benedict as Smaug, you might have to wait for quite a while. The current scuttlebutt is that Smaug won’t be making an appearance in ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ come this Decemeber 14th, which means you’ll have to wait until the following year when ‘The Hobbit: There and Back Again’ hits theaters Decemeber 13, 2013.
And what of his role as the Necromancer, aka the Dark Lord Sauron? During an interview with Empire Magazine, Cumberbatch stated, “I’ll be doing bits on The Hobbit in 2012… I’m playing Smaug through motion-capture and voicing the Necromancer, which is a character in the Five Legions War or something which I’m meant to understand. (Laughs) He’s not actually in the original Hobbit. It’s something [Peter Jackson’s] taken from Lord Of The Rings that he wants to put in there.”
With all these villain roles, it seems Benedict Cumberbatch really enjoys playing the bad boy. And we think he’s quite good at it, don’t you?
3 Comments