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Why Benedict says his son's the real star of Doctor Strange

He’s played a range of quirky characters, from an enigmatic mathematician in The Imitation Game to the eccentric Sherlock Holmes in TV’s Sherlock.

But none of Benedict Cumberbatch's characters have been as bizarre and physically taxing as his latest role as the arrogant neurosurgeon-turned-superhero Dr Stephen Strange in Marvel’s Doctor Strange.

Be was on hand to get all the goss about the upcoming superhero epic straight from Benedict’s mouth at the Hong Kong Doctor Strange press conference.

The 40-year-old Oscar-nominated actor, who has one-year-old, Christopher, with his wife Sophie Hunter, revealed their then newborn was quite the star of the set.

“My baby was a great distraction,” Benedict says in the clip above from the conference. “He was a soothing influence of the day…all these people running off four hours sleep and lots of caffeine suddenly [stopped and stared], he has that effect.”

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He added: “There were different demands for me doing a film of this scale. Whether it be the hours or the amount of live action involved.

“The physical side of things was a step up for me. But I think like a lot of actors, when you’re in a big film, you can’t think about that, you can’t think about what the preconceptions are going to be, you just try to problem solve moment by moment, day by day.”

“So [it’s] no different from any other role except more running around and physicality I suppose.”

Benedict as Doctor Strange. Source: Marvel
Benedict as Doctor Strange. Source: Marvel

So were there any shenanigans that went down on set?

“We just had a laugh,” Tilda said, before Benedict dobbed her in over her Words With Friends addiction. We're with you on that one, Tilda!

Doctor Strange. Source: Marvel
Doctor Strange. Source: Marvel

Meanwhile, director Scott Derrickson told Be at the press conference that the biggest obstacle of translating a comic world of such a grand scale to the screen had to do mostly with paying homage to the visuals of the original books in which Doctor Strange is based on.

Scott said: “My love for Doctor Strange was really always rooted in two things, my love for the origin story…and the psychadelic imagery – that late ‘60s, crazy visual splendour of those comics.

“The starting point for us was not just to be loyal to those but to be loyal to the attitude of those comics – which was not just about mass destruction, they were about mind-bending alternate realities – and we really stuck to that in this movie, we think.

Scott Derrickson speaks to Be at the Hong Kong press conference for Doctor Strange.
Scott Derrickson speaks to Be at the Hong Kong press conference for Doctor Strange.

“Every set piece in this movie was an attempt to do something new, to do something that audiences haven’t seen, for the movie to be truly mind-expanding in the way that the comic was mind-expanding – and that was a challenge.

He added: “ I remember a breakthrough period, where we decided, ‘Let’s go all the way, let’s just go crazy, let’s go whatever crazy things we can imagine.’

“So once we started to go well beyond what other movies have done in the past, that’s when we started to get into territory that was very exciting and that’s where the set pieces came from.”

Executive producer Kevin Feige added to Be.“The biggest obstacle in translating [the comic to the screen] was really doing justice to the amazing visuals of the artist Steve Ditko who did the original Doctor Strange books,” “And figuring out how to bring that, and translate it, to the big screen was the biggest challenge.”

Doctor Strange is in cinemas on October 27, 2016.

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