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Cumberfans, prepare yourself for a flurry of Benedict-shaped stories over the next few days: the actor hit the road yesterday to start promoting his new Marvel movie 'Doctor Strange' and if past experience is anything to go by, we'll be hearing an awful lot from the 'Sherlock' star in the run-up to the film's release on Tuesday October 25.
First up is a cover interview with the actor in the American magazine Vanity Fair in which Cumberbatch says he fails to understand the hype that's surrounded him ever since 'Sherlock' became a global hit.
'It makes me giggle,' he tells a journalist who brings up some of the madder stuff that people gush about him on social media. 'I don’t look at myself in the mirror and go, "Yeah, absolutely! I see what they’re saying!" I see all my faults and everything that I've always seen as my faults.'
Cumberbatch also has a theory as to why his fans are so dedicated – citing as an example some fans who 'believe that my wife is a PR stunt and my child is a PR stunt'.
'I think really it’s to do with the idea that the "Internet’s boyfriend" can’t actually belong to anyone else but the Internet. It’s impossible he belongs to anyone but me. And that’s what stalking is. That’s what obsessive, deluded, really scary behaviour is.'
So, Cumberfans, you've heard it from the man himself. Having fans is great – but he's not your boyfriend or the Internet's boyfriend. He's married and he's a little bit freaked out by it all. And it sounds like he might even be ready to publish a PhD on the phenomenon of celebrity fandom in the age of social media at some point in the near future.
'Doctor Strange' opens in cinemas on Tuesday October 25. Read our last interview with Benedict Cumberbatch.