Benedict Cumberbatch “taking a bit of a break” after Doctor Strange 2

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is right around the corner, marking Benedict Cumberbatch’s second solo outing as the titular hero.

A Marvel production is a huge undertaking, particularly if it’s about the multiverse and you’re playing several variations on your character from around the cosmos. Speaking to IGN at the premiere for the movie, Cumberbatch said that between work and fatherhood, he’s ready to slow down, at least for a while.

“It gets very multiversal in real life as well,” Cumberbatch quipped when IGN asked him which variant of himself he’d like to play. “I guess one that’s less busy, maybe… I might be that variant very soon, which is nice – taking a bit of a break.”

Now, mind you, that doesn’t mean Doctor Strange is gone, just that it might be a minute before we catch up with him again; after all, Kevin Feige did call Strange the “anchor” of the MCU. Between Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Marvels, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we’ll have plenty of Marvel to enjoy in the meantime.

Benedict Cumberbatch explains why Doctor Strange helped Peter Parker

Maybe one of the reasons Cumberbatch is looking forward to a break is so he doesn’t have to answer quite so many questions about why Doctor Strange would help out Peter Parker the way he did in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The spell he cast ended up causing a ton of trouble, and fans have wondered why the responsible Strange would do something that foolhardy.

“He’s a human being, and I think it was a very human error,” Cumberbatch explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “He saw Peter as a fellow foot soldier and then as a teenager going through a very formative experience of not being able to be his true self because of being exposed, and having lost a mentor, [Strange] decided to step in with a gesture of pretty good intention.

"But people seemed to think, “Well, it’s a very cavalier thing to do.” I think the spell, on its own, might have been all right. Everyone forgets that Peter interrupts the spell so many times, and that’s what corrupted it. That’s what lets it in. Peter, through the ability he has with his powers, affects the spell with his words. It’s not really Strange’s mistake. He’s right to want to help Peter. What kind of superhero would he be if he didn’t want to help another superhero? That’s kind of questionable. That avuncular love, that genuine love, which, by the end, is another cause for a near mistake, but he rights the correction there in accepting Peter’s idea of channeling the forgetfulness into the identification of him as Peter Parker so that everyone forgets who Peter Parker is. And it’s costly to [Strange] because he cares for the guy. He says, “We. Everyone who loves you. We [would have no memory of you],” and in the use of that pronoun, which was my idea to put in, he allies himself with MJ [Zendaya] and everyone in that universe who loves Peter."

Clearly, Cumberbatch has thought about this. “I think somebody who cares about somebody can be forgiven for doing something that has consequences,” he continued. “But in that moment, it takes a teenager to adjust him to doing the thing for the greater good rather than the selfish thing, which would be to not do that spell so he can carry on a friendship with the guy that he cares about. So, I empathize very much with the idea that a superhero can make a mistake because of their humanity, and I’m glad that I’m playing one that does.”

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens on May 6.

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