#cumberquotes

"A woman who knows that she doesn't have to get all decked out to look good is sexy. A woman who can make you feel smart with her conversation skills is also sexy. I believe the sense of humour is important."

"I'll always do 'Sherlock' - it's something I'm not going to give up on."

"I love theatre, and you learn too much as an actor and enjoy too much of it not to want to go back a lot."

"I was the boy that turned a girlfriend into the most celebrated lesbian on television. I got so much stick for that."

The Belstaff

"The coat was interesting, because there is so much about Sherlock in the original Conan Doyle books, that is modern, so the hardest thing to get right were the clothes and how to dress him for a contemporary audience and what should the silhouette be.

"The coat was Ray Holman's, the costume designer's idea. Sherlock's suits have a clean, linear, perfunctory beauty about them, there's nothing showy or flamboyant. They're very well cut, functional but still very stylish and I think that sums up Sherlock perfectly."

Cumberbatch's every move is now monitored, but do any of his fans really know him?

"They know you from the trail you leave with your work," he replies, the slightest edge of frustration in his voice. "They assume things about you because of who you play and how you play them, and the other scraps floating around in the ether. People try to sew together a narrative out of scant fact."

Not that Cumberbatch would, in any case, ever be so blithe or inelegant as to carp about the attention he gets.

"I have been around for ten years. I don't want to complain or explain. It's a thing that will pass. It's part of a predictable pattern."

Frankenstein | 2011

"It was 12 o'clock, I was tired and I was saying (to the people waiting outside) I've really got to get home, but there are people going, 'We've travelled all the way from South Korea.' It was incredible."