Benedict Cumberbatch recalls terrifying two-hour kidnapping ordeal: ‘Like sitting ducks’ | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV
Benedict Cumberbatch, who turns 46 today, is known for his roles as the Sorcerer Supreme in Marvel and Sherlock Holmes for the BBC. However, years before either character, he had a death-defying ordeal in his own life.
By 2005, Cumberbatch had established his presence as a stage actor, and found himself in South Africa filming To The Ends of the Earth, a BBC miniseries based on the book by William Golding.
Cumberbatch and two friends had a weekend off and decided to use the time to learn scuba diving.
After their weekend adventures, the friends headed back to set late at night, driving through the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
Suddenly, the front right tyre blew, requiring the three men to head out in the dark to change it.
Cumberbatch shared the harrowing experience with The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, noting he was already concerned about the area they were in saying: “That’s a notoriously dangerous place to drive”.
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To get to the spare tyre the friends had to first unload their luggage from the car, with Cumberbatch adding “we were like sitting ducks”.
While the trio set to work on the tyre, six armed figures allegedly emerged from the darkness on the side of the road.
The figures commanded the friends to put their hands on their heads and look down before frisking each of them while asking “Where’s your money? Where’s your drugs? Where’s your weapons?”.
Cumberbatch admitted in the interview the friends “had smoked a bit of weed” at the time, but with nothing obvious of value on them he recalled thinking: “We’re f****d!”.
The trio were bound and bundled back into the car and driven off by the criminals.
Cumberbatch complained that the restraints, which were made of his own shoelaces, were causing him to lose feeling, which promptly saw him being thrown into the boot of the car.
He pleaded with the assailants, feigning claustrophobia that meant he could not be put in the boot to no avail.
The car at last stopped and the trio were thrown onto the side of the road in the middle of the night.
With terrifying thoughts running through his head, Cumberbatch confessed he was “really scared” that the men would do “some act of control and savagery”.
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The friends handed over the cards and cash they had on hand and were eventually let go.
The whole incident lasted over two hours, and the actor noted it may have been over far sooner if they had more cash on hand instead of mostly bank cards.
In 2021, Cumberbatch would go on to tell Marc Maron on his WTF podcast that once the criminals had left, the three friends walked up the road and found two women selling beaded bowls and wooden carvings on the roadside.
They stayed by the women and called for help from their security and production company.
On the podcast, Cumberbatch comically added: “The cavalry came and picked us up.”
He also explained the sheer danger the trio were in as the next morning a shocking newspaper article was revealed.
The article noted that the night before a man had been killed in his car on the side of the road, with only two South African Rands (£0.049) and a lighter left in his car.
Cumberbatch has often credited that moment with giving him a new outlook on life, noting “it really, really enriches your values in life”.
