When I attended the Doctor Strange Press Junket last week, I was one of 25 bloggers there for Walt Disney Studios (Disclosure: All-Expenses Paid), the first person that we interviewed was the Sorcerer Supreme himself, Benedict Cumberbatch. Talk about a guy who lights up a room. When he came in and sat down he commented on the toys laid out in front of him. One of them being my Doctor Strange Funko Pop!. Benedict certainly had charm and he had everyone at the table enthralled, myself included, in his stories. While we only had him with us for 20 minutes he was completely present during that time and answered each of our questions and then took some photos with us. I don’t know how it worked out this time around but I was actually near the person we were interviewing in almost every photo. I’m standing there right behind Benedict in the photo above. And here he is with those toys I was talking about.

When Benedict saw the toys this is what he said about them. His fascination with the toys definitely added to the boyish charm that he had in this interview.

“Wow. Toys R Us. Look at that. It is indeed. I love these Pop! toys. Oh no…I don’t do that in the film. That’s a stunt I don’t do in the film. Yeah, top heavy, definitely. Cloak heavy. There were some cloak heavy moments, definitely cloak heavy moments. Morning everybody.“

Then we got right into it with the questions. Everyone wanted to ask him a question. We let Benedict know that we saw the movie in 3D the night before. He had not seen the movie at that time. He was waiting for the movie to be completely ready for IMAX. That version was not ready at the time when we screened it, but you better believe that the next time I see it will be in IMAX!

Question: How was it working on a set that was, at times, virtual?

Benedict Cumberbatch : Well, the thing about the set it’s a huge mixture. Sometimes on Marvel you have rooms as complete as this one so you can get camera 360 frames you can use within the film. And then other days you are literally in a room – I mean not that many, I have to say – where the walls, the floors, everything but the ceiling is diffused light, it’s green or blue. And then you don’t know what time it is, you can’t get horizons or space right. It’s very confusing, but, you know, you have this incredibly complex previs which is, you know, cartoon format. It’s sort of story boarding. And so you know exactly where you are, exactly what elements or environments are gonna be moving around you, and then it’s the same old game of acting. You just turn up to eleven.

I wanted to ask Benedict if it was difficult making the movements of Doctor Strange feel natural and second nature. He answered that question while answering the first question and he said, “The hardest stuff is sometimes doing the movement, or the spells, or anything to do with what are his powers involved or the weapons he used. So it’s just magic stuff out of the air, literally, to fight with at times.”

Question: And what did you feel the first time you saw yourself with everything? (Meaning the entire costume)

Benedict Cumberbatch : Oh, well I felt like a kid. I mean it was just amazing. It was the first proper moment when I thought, oh my God, I’m actually playing a superhero. There’s nothing like it and, it was very giddy. It was really, really giddy.

I didn’t ever think one day I’ll be a superhero. Or I’d like to try that. As a kid and as an audience member of Marvel’s cinematic universe, I just enjoyed being a part of watching it. I never thought I’d fancy a go at that. But the minute I heard I was let’s get down to business. The other moment that was a really pinch yourself superhero moment I guess was running down Fifth Avenue with the silhouette of the Empire State Building at one end, going that’s the building that people crafted storyboards and built these comics on paper at the very beginning of all of this. And I’m running along in red and blue, jumping, pretending to take off Fifth Avenue. It was amazing. It was amazing.

When asked about his moments wearing the Doctor Strange costume around NEw York and going into a cafes and a comic book stores Benedict told us about those adventures. When talking about going to the cafe he said, “There was this New York moment which was just out of Ghostbusters, you know, when Rick Moranis is banging on the window going, please help me! Help me! And the dogs are chasing him. And they all turn around and say look at him. And then, you know, he goes…squeaking down the glass. And then they all go, ‘anyway, as I was saying…’. Everything goes back to normal in like five minutes in New York.” And later when talking about the comic book shop. They were filming on set and while running from the destruction of Kaecilius someone told him to look to his left and there was this comic book store. “I thought it would- I thought it’d be funny for them to see one of the guys off the shelf come in and say hello. It was very funny. But again, like New Yorkers, they’re like okay, cool, nice to see you. I said, look if it doesn’t- if the movie doesn’t work out can I come and stack shelves for you?”

When asked about the audition process Benedict talked about his concerns that the character was so arrogant and how would people relate to him. He had a few meetings and learned more about the vision for the origin of this character and how to make him more human in this journey that he undergoes and how comedy would be key to that as well as bewilderment. Then they told him that they wanted to make the movie right away but Benedict was committed to doing Hamlet in a theater and the project went away but it came bacK. Benedict stated, “.. and so, I couldn’t. It went away for a bit and I was heartbroken. And then they came out and said we can’t not make this film with you. We really need it to be you. For the first time ever in Marvel’s history, they postponed the schedule of the making and the release of the film. Which was amazing. And that, from the ultimate fan boy, in Kevin (Feige), was- was a particularly amazing thing. It meant I had a huge amount of responsibility to live up to their faith in me, but that was a great motivation.”

Question: Did you have to go through special classes? How did you prepare?

Benedict Cumberbatch : Yes. So the- well, for the specifics of the spell casting, yes, there was this- this fantastic guy called Julian who’s a world class tutter, uh, which is this hand movement thing. It’s very specific to the fingers. I can’t recommend looking at some of it highly enough. It’s astonishing. I mean it’s really impressive. Yeah, it’s like- it’s break dancing from the wrists up.

Benedict then talked about the evolution of Doctor Strange’s fighting style and what went into creating that. There was Tai Chi and Kung Fu as well as gymnastics and wire work. This all went into creating amazing stunt scenes where room and buildings were being reconfigured all around him. He said, “And I was training every day, or every other day, just to get my body in shape and to be fit enough to do it. Then yoga to make sure the body wa supple enough. Then doing martial arts. Then doing stunt choreography for specific fight scenes. And then doing wire work and other sort of specific sort of stunts, um, stand alone moments like the moments where the room’s tipping, or the wall becomes- the floor becomes the wall, and the end of the corridor something becomes the ceiling. All that stuff was on wires. That was me doing it and, yeah. Great fun.”

Great fun is right. Benedict Cumberbatch was so engaging and interesting. We only had him for a quick 15 minutes but they were packed with awesome stories. So, do yourself a favor and enjoy some great fun when Doctor Strange arrives in theaters on November 4, 2016.

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DOCTOR STRANGE opens in theatres everywhere on November 4th!

I also wanted to direct you to a brand-new website MarvelStudiosHeroActs.com. Fans will be able to visit the site to upload their photo and choose from a selection of custom Marvel-themed overlays. They will then be able to post their photo directly to the Hero Acts gallery and to their other social channels using the hashtags #marvelstudios #heroacts.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Marvel Studios Invite Fans to Help Launch “Hero Acts” and Raise Funds for Save the Children

Marvel Studios to donate up to $1 million in recognition of new charitable initiative