He began acting in Shakespearean theatre productions before making his West End debut in Richard Eyre's revival of Hedda Gabler in 2005.

In films, Cumberbatch received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Alan Turing in The Imitation Game (2014) and a volatile rancher in The Power of the Dog (2021).

He has acted in several period dramas, including Amazing Grace (2006), Atonement (2007), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), The Current War (2017), 1917 (2019) and The Courier (2020).

[10] He was involved in numerous Shakespearean works at school and made his acting debut as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in A Midsummer Night's Dream when he was 12.

[11] His first leading role was as Eliza Doolittle in Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, in a production by the Head of Classics, James Morwood, who observed that Cumberbatch "acted everyone else off the stage".

[40] In June 2010, Cumberbatch led the revival of Sir Terence Rattigan's After the Dance directed by Thea Sharrock at the Royal National Theatre.

[43] He acted in Danny Boyle's The Children's Monologues, a theatrical charity event at London's Old Vic Theatre on 14 November 2010 which was produced by Dramatic Need.

[49] The show was directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner and was broadcast on BBC Two and in cinemas worldwide as a part of National Theatre Live.

[57] In 2005, Cumberbatch portrayed protagonist Edmund Talbot in the miniseries To the Ends of the Earth, based on Sir William Golding's trilogy; during filming he said he experienced a carjacking in South Africa, managing to escape.

[58] He made brief appearances in the comedy sketch show Broken News and the Channel 4 sitcom Nathan Barley in 2005 and featured alongside Tom Hardy in the television adaptation of Stuart: A Life Backwards, which aired on the BBC in September 2007.

The play depicted an October 1938 meeting between Soviet spy Guy Burgess, then a young man working for the BBC, and Winston Churchill.

Cumberbatch won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for the third episode of the third series of the show entitled His Last Vow.

[78] In 2016, Cumberbatch portrayed Richard III in Shakespeare's play of the same name, as part of the second series of films for The Hollow Crown, which aired in both Britain and the United States.

[80][81] Cumberbatch starred in Patrick Melrose, a miniseries adaptation of the Edward St Aubyn novels, which began airing on Showtime on 12 May 2018.

[87] In Atonement (2007), Cumberbatch played what The Guardian called one of his "small parts in big films", and came to the attention of Sue Vertue and Stephen Moffat, who would later cast him in Sherlock.

He portrayed Peter Guillam, George Smiley's right-hand man, in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

[89]In 2012, Cumberbatch provided the voice and motion-capture for both Smaug the Dragon and the Necromancer in An Unexpected Journey, the first instalment of The Hobbit series based on the novel of the same name by J. R. R.

Between 2008 and 2014, he played Captain Martin Crieff in the BBC Radio 4's sitcom Cabin Pressure, alongside Stephanie Cole, John Finnemore, and Roger Allam.

He has also read for several audiobooks, including Casanova, The Tempest, The Making of Music, Death in a White Tie, Artists in Crime, Tom and Viv, and Sherlock Holmes: The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries and Other Stories.

[123] He made appearances for two Cheltenham Festivals, in July 2012 for Music when he read World War I poetry and prose accompanied by piano pieces[124] and in October 2012 for Literature when he discussed Sherlock and Parade's End at The Centaur.

[125] In 2012, he lent his voice to a four-part, spoken-word track titled "Flat of Angles" for Late Night Tales based on a story written by author and poet Simon Cleary, the final instalment of which was released on 9 May 2014.

[134] On 28 September 2016, Cumberbatch appeared on stage with Pink Floyd member David Gilmour during one of the musician's shows in London held at the Royal Albert Hall.

He sang lead vocals on the song "Comfortably Numb", singing the verse sections originally sung by Roger Waters.

[154] In May 2014, he joined Prince William and Ralph Lauren at Windsor Castle for a cancer awareness and fundraising gala for the benefit of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

[157] Cumberbatch posed for photographer Jason Bell for an exhibition at Pall Mall, London from 16 to 20 September 2014 to mark 10 years of the "Give Up Clothes For Good" charity campaign, which has raised £17 million for Cancer Research UK.

[165][166] In September 2015, Cumberbatch condemned the UK government's response to the migrant crisis in a speech to theatregoers during a curtain call at a performance of Hamlet, for which he stars.

[168] He faced criticism for not taking in refugees himself, responding "I do have a house, but it's empty, it's gutted, there's no electricity or water, so that wouldn't work, and I have a baby in my flat, there are no spare rooms".

The audio-visual readings were published by Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi in aid of the global-non profit charity Partners In Health, co-founded by Dahl's daughter Ophelia, which had been fighting COVID-19 in vulnerable areas.

[180] In 2016, Cumberbatch was one of over 280 figures from the arts world who backed a vote for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union with regard to the June 2016 referendum on that issue.

[211] While in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in 2005, Cumberbatch and two friends (Theo and Denise Black)[141] were abducted, after bursting a tyre, and held at gunpoint by a group of locals.