We’ll make this brief because we’re not emotionally robust enough to dwell for too long on the bleak alternate universe we’d inhabit if Benedict Cumberbatch had shied away from becoming a household name and left us all unaware of his sweet sweet existence.
The 39-year-old actor, who is currently starring in a controversial production of Hamlet in London’s Barbican, said that he’d been “wary” (WHY, BENEDICT, WHY?) about playing the iconic detective in the BBC’s hit series and being consequently thrust into the public eye.
He said: “I was very wary having done roles which were challenging and terrific and, you know kept a good career going.
“I was very wary about stepping into the limelight and the populist role like Sherlock Holmes but the minute I saw who was involved and read the script and the quality of it I thought I’ve got to do this.”
Well, thank goodness for that is all we can say. And we're equally grateful that Benedict is apparently still managing to see humour in the crazed attention he gets from the Cumberbitches, instead of understandably cracking and buying a one-way ticket to a remote town in Siberia where he could legitimately don a character-disguising hood and balaclava for the rest of time.
He said: “I still giggle when people sort of fall about if they meet me in the streets or something. I find it funny.
“I’ve had the same face for however long I’ve been doing it, over 10 years now and it’s only recently it’s that face that’s garnered more attention or whatever, obsession.
“I genuinely still find it quite amusing. So long that may continue because it keeps you a bit grounded.”