Benedict Cumberbatch Says He's A Shakespeare Expert 

Benedict Cumberbatch Says He's A Shakespeare Expert

Peter Black , Design & Trend Staff Writer

(Photo : Getty Images - Stuart C. Wilson) Benedict Cumberbatch at the World Premiere of \'The Hobbit: The Battle OF The Five Armies\' on December 1, 2014 in London, England.

Benedict Cumberbatch says that he can read Shakespeare "like prose."

The 38-year-old actor, who attended the prestigious Brambletye School in Sussex, credits his "first ever teacher" for his Shakespearean sensibilities.

"My first-ever teacher taught me extraordinary truth by literally line-reading Shakespeare at me, so I can read it like prose," Cumberbatch told the Hollywood Reporter. "My modern drama teacher opened the doors of American theater to me and the wonders of Mamet and Miller and Tennessee Williams; the whole raft of it. And then, beyond that, you get incredible nuggets of wisdom - about being present, about grounding a truth from within. I grew up doing a lot of stuff at school. I went from playing Titania, queen of the fairies, [in \'A Midsummer Night\'s Dream\'] and Rosalind in \'As You Like It\' to playing Willy Loman [in \'Death of a Salesman\'] at age 17. So I had this huge kind of showing-off period."

Cumberbatch\'s early training has treated him well; the "Sherlock" lead is now an international movie star, having most recently garnered critical acclaim for his turn as English codebreaker Alan Turing in "The Imitation Game."

Being ridiculously famous apparently doesn\'t faze Cumberbatch, who says he tries to "have fun" with it.

"The more work you do, the more attention there is. You try to escape by dissolving into work, and it keeps catching up with you every time you stop because it\'s part of the process of work now, to publicize it," he said. "But I feel it\'s just [about] getting used to it, and knowing how to play with that and have fun, which I do. I really do."

Cumberbatch doesn\'t mind being adored by millions of women, for example. "I flirt with it. I have fun with it," he recently toldVulture of being a sex symbol. "I think if you take it too seriously, you\'re dead in the water, and if you ignore it, then it\'s kind of an insult because it\'s a reality... It does make me twinkle."

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