Benedict Cumberbatch Talks Playing Outsiders on ‘Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge’ (VIDEO)
When better to go deep than while testing your survival skills in the wild? That’s what happens with Benedict Cumberbatch in TV Insider’s exclusive sneak peek of the July 16 episode of Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge.
Host Bear Grylls brings up the fact that Cumberbatch often plays outsiders (such as in The Imitation Game and Doctor Strange). “Is there something that you love about that?” he asks.
“I think outsiders tend to have, I don’t know, just a slightly more offbeat, interesting thing to explore, but maybe it’s because I felt that myself a little bit as an only child, not really knowing how to fit in early on I found socializing quite tricky,” Cumberbatch admits.
Grylls then asks about the values the actor is trying to raise his three boys with, and Cumberbatch says, “Be kind and respectful. Those are the key, core values I want them to have.” He also says that in this world, “be resilient, be able to fend for yourself.”
Watch the clip above for more from Cumberbatch and Grylls about raising kids and taking risks.
In this next episode of Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge, Grylls takes the Marvel superstar and venerated actor on an adventure across the Isle of Skye in Scotland. They descend massive sea cliffs and brave freezing waterfalls. Grylls teaches Cumberbatch unique survival skills and surprises him by connecting him to a part of his past with a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“It’s always a pleasure to do these journeys with a fellow Brit — we laughed a lot. Northern Scotland in winter was brutal, [but the show] was on his bucket list, and he was super impressive throughout,” Grylls told TV Insider of the episode. “I asked a favor of the Royal Navy, and they sent a nuclear submarine to meet us off the coast for our extraction. Benedict’s grandfather had been a submariner during the war; there was a lot of emotion for him.”
Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge, Sundays, 9/8c, National Geographic