In the peculiar-looking, former cross-dressing Shakespearean actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Hollywood has found an unlikely leading man.
本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇(Benedict Cumberbatch)，这个长相奇特，年少时男扮女装出演莎剧的演员，出人意料地成了好莱坞的一线男星。
Benedict Cumberbatch was in mid-monologue, holding forth on the dangers of the surveillance society, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was meant to be promoting his latest movie, whatever that was (he has been in a lot of them lately). He talks superfast, so that when he paused, the effect was of a train driver slamming on the emergency brakes. "Why does anyone want to know my opinions?" he asked. "I'm not interested in reading my opinions."
本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇正谈论着政府监控的危害。慷慨激昂之间，他突然意识到自己接受采访的目的是推荐他最近出演的电影——我们且不管那是什么，因为这段时间来他出现在不少电影中。他说话语速极快，所以当他停顿时，那效果就好像一位火车司机猛踩紧急煞车。“为什么会有人想要知道我的想法？”他问道：“我可不想在报纸上读到自己的观点。”
He has no idea. There are people out there these days who so love to hear Cumberbatch talk — who so love to watch Cumberbatch exist — that they do not care what he does, as long as they get to observe him doing it. Somehow, along a career consisting of highly interest-ing but generally non-megastar-making roles (most recently, the lead in the BBC series "Sherlock"; Khan, the wrathful villain in the movie "Star Trek Into Darkness"; the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, in "The Fifth Estate" and the voice of Smaug, the very bad-tempered dragon in the latest "Hobbit" movie), Cumberbatch has progressed from being everyone's favorite secret crush to one of the most talked-about actors in Hollywood.
他可是有所不知。近来这段时间，康伯巴奇的一言一行让一些粉丝如此痴狂——他们不管他到底说了做了什么，只要能有机会听到看到他就好。在康伯巴奇的职业生涯中，他出演了一些非常有趣，但一般而言却很难让演员本人成为巨星的角色（最近几年来他出演了BBC电视剧《神探夏洛克》[Sherlock]中的主角；《星际迷航：黑暗无边》[Star Trek Into Darkness]中的狂暴反派可汗[Khan]；《危机解密》[Fifth Estate]中“维基解密[Wikileaks]的创始人朱利安·阿桑奇[Julian Assange]；在最新一部《霍比特人》[The Hobbit]中，他给史矛革[Smaug]这条坏脾气的恶龙配了音。），但不知怎么的，康伯巴奇从所有人最喜欢的秘密暗恋对象变成了好莱坞被谈论最多的演员之一。

His celebrity manifests itself in unexpected ways. When Cumberbatch, who is 37, appeared on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," Fallon noted that more people were waiting in the standby line than for any other guest that year. He was reportedly tweeted about 700,000 times in 2013.
他的知名度带来了让人意想不到的效应。当这位37岁的演员出现在《吉米·法伦晚间秀》(Late Night With Jimmy Fallon)的现场时，法伦透露说康伯巴奇是本年度吸引到最多等候排位观众的嘉宾。据报道，在2013年，康伯巴奇在推特上被提到70万次。
Last fall, he appeared on the cover of Time's international edition. Although he has not been a romantic lead in any big films, and although he says he looks like "Sid from ‘Ice Age' " and although he once declared that "I always seem to be cast as slightly wan, ethereal, troubled intellectuals or physically ambivalent bad lovers," there are numerous websites devoted to the subject of his romantic prowess, e.g., "Benedict Cumberbatch — Fantastic Lover," a compendium of clips set to Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On," that has been viewed more than 490,000 times on YouTube. (These are mostly posted by his army of female fans, who call themselves "Cumberbitches" and who use the hashtag "Cumberwatch" when they tweet about his activities.)
去年秋天，他上了《时代》杂志国际版的封面。虽然他并没有主演过任何爱情大片，虽然他说自己长得像《冰河世纪》(Ice Age)里的树懒希德，虽然他说过“我好像总是被挑中演一些苍白病态，不食人间烟火，麻烦缠身的知识分子，或是身体机能有问题，让人失望的爱人，”但是还是有人在无数的网站上专门意淫他的情爱技能。比如《本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇——完美情人》(Benedict Cumberbatch — Fantastic Lover)。这是一个视频辑成，配的背景音乐是马文·盖伊(Marvin Gaye)的《开始吧》(Let's Get It On)。这个视频在YouTube上被点击了49万次。这些帖子很多都是他为数众多的女粉丝上传的。她们自称“康巴婊”(Cumberbitches)。在社交媒体上报道他的动向时，她们用的主题标签是“康伯巴奇观察”(Cumberwatch)。
His appeal is manifest, yet hard to pin down. His name is odd, Hogwartsian, suggesting both an Elizabethan actor and a baker whose products are made with rustic ingredients no one has heard of. Tall and lean, he has an other-century look about him, with his long, narrow face, his mop of crazy hair (he keeps it shorter off-duty) and bright, far-apart, almond-shaped blue eyes that on-screen can play intelligent, ardent, manic or insane, depending on the job. In "Sherlock," he looks like the sort of person who has a stratospheric I.Q. and an abysmal E.Q. but is dead sexy with it; at the same time, if you were to remark on his resemblance to an otter, you would not be the only one.
康伯巴奇的魅力显而易见，但是要解释这到底是一种什么样的魅力却不是那么容易。他有一个奇怪的名字，像是《哈利·波特》中霍格沃茨魔法学校中某个人物的名字。这名字让人想到一位伊丽莎白时代的演员，或是一位使用名不见经传的农家原料做面包的面包师傅（Cumberbatch中的batch有“一批烤面包”的意思——译注）。他身材修长消瘦，相貌古典。狭长的脸孔上顶着一头浓密的乱发（不演戏的时候，他留着短发）。明亮的蓝眼睛是杏仁的形状，分得有点开。在银幕上，这双眼睛能根据需要表现出智慧，热忱，狂躁，疯狂。在《神探夏洛克》中，他饰演的人物智商超高而情商超低，但却性感得要命。而同时，如果你觉得他长得有点像一只河狸，那不是你一个人有这种看法。
When he sat down with a cup of coffee in a Camden pub last November and began to discuss electronic surveillance, the government, his favorite movies, his career, the rabidity of "Sherlock" fans and how coffee affects him (it makes him talk even faster), Cumberbatch had just come off an extraordinary run of work.
去年11月，康伯巴奇在伦敦卡姆登区的一个酒吧里坐下。他要了一杯咖啡，开始谈论起电子监控，政府，他喜爱的电影，他的职业，《夏洛克》粉丝们的狂热，以及咖啡对他的影响（让他说话更快了）。他刚完成了一连串非同寻常的工作。
"The Fifth Estate," in which he perfectly captures the slippery nature of Julian Assange — free-speech hero, treacherous colleague, possible megalomaniac — had just come out. Over the next two months, three more of his films would be released: "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," in which he gets to intone things like "I am death" in a creepy dragon voice; "12 Years a Slave," in which he plays a sympathetic slave-owner; and "August: Osage County," in which he has a small role in an ensemble of superstars like Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep.
《危机解密》刚刚上映。康伯巴奇出色地抓住了朱利安·阿桑奇让人捉摸不定的气质——他是一个言论自由斗士，但对同事却背信弃义，并有可能是个自大狂。在接下来的两个月中，康伯巴奇参与的另外三部电影也会陆续上映。这些包括《霍比特人2：史矛革之战》(The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)，在里面康伯巴奇用让人毛骨悚然的龙的声音说了些诸如“我是死亡”这样的台词；在《为奴12年》(12 Years a Slave)中，他扮演了一位有同情心的奴隶主；在有像茱莉亚·罗伯茨(Julia Roberts)和梅丽尔·斯特里普(Meryl Streep)等巨星助阵的《八月：奥色治郡》(August: Osage County)中，他饰演了一个小角色。
The Time cover had just hit the newsstands, and Cumberbatch was slightly freaked out. "It's one of the more bizarre levels of success," he said. At first he thought it was fake. "Someone sent me a photograph of it and I thought, ‘Some fan has got hold of a photo and done one of those neat apps where they impose your head on something,' " he said.
用他做封面的《时代》杂志刚刚上市。康伯巴奇有点吃惊。“能得到这样的成功实在让人感到匪夷所思，”他说。一开始他以为封面是假的。“有人给我发了一张封面照片，我还在想：‘肯定是哪个粉丝弄到了我给《时代》拍的照片，并用了什么软件把我的头放到了杂志封面上。'”
Also, he had had an exciting experience on a British talk show, when Harrison Ford, a fellow guest, emerged from his taciturnity to announce that he loved him as Holmes. This has been happening to Cumberbatch a lot lately, fellow actors declaring themselves fans, such as when Ted Danson saw him through a crowd of stars at a pre-awards party recently and began shouting "Sherlock!"
他不久前还在英国的一个脱口秀上出镜。在节目中，另一位嘉宾哈里森·福特(Harrison Ford)打破了一贯的寡言少语，宣称他非常欣赏康伯巴奇的福尔摩斯，这让康伯巴奇激动不已。演员同行们告诉康伯巴奇自己是他的粉丝，这样的事近来发生了不少次。在最近的一次颁奖典礼前的派对上，泰德·丹森（Ted Danson，美国老牌影星——译注）在一群明星中看见了他，喊道：“夏洛克”！
A few days earlier, he had wrapped his most recent movie, a biopic of the British cryptographer Alan Turing. Cumberbatch talked for a long time about the tragedy of Turing's life and about what has been a series of very intense roles, heavy on iconic fictional characters and real people. "I am so ready to play a really dumb character," he said.
几天前，康伯巴奇刚完成了他最新一部电影的拍摄。这是一部传记电影，主人公是英国密码破解家艾伦·图灵(Alan Turing)。康伯巴奇花了很长时间谈论图灵的悲剧人生，以及自己近期来饰演的一系列激烈角色——他们都是符号式的虚构人物或真实人物。“接下来我太想演一个笨蛋了，”他说。
He was born in London, to parents who were in the business — the actors Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton — and had his first substantial part in high school at Harrow, the famous boys' boarding school that is the Yale to Eton's Harvard. "I played the queen of the fairies," he said. (That would be Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream.")
康伯巴奇生于伦敦，父母都是演员——父亲是蒂莫西·卡尔顿(Timothy Carlton)，母亲是旺达·文瑟姆(Wanda Ventham)。他在哈罗公学（著名私立男校，与另一著名私立学校伊顿公学名声不相上下——译注）上高中时演出了第一个重要角色。“我扮演了仙女之王”。（他指的是《仲夏夜之梦》[A Midsummer Night's Dream]中的泰坦妮娅[Titania]。）
Later, when he performed in "As You Like It," an old alumnus watching the play apparently pronounced him "the best Rosalind since Vanessa Redgrave." He went to the University of Manchester and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and then slid pretty easily into work; so far he has appeared in more than 30 films and dozens of television, radio and theater productions. But it was his title performance in "Sherlock," which debuted in 2010, that propelled him to a new league.
后来，当他参演《皆大欢喜》(As You Like It)一剧时，观众中的一位老校友称他为“自瓦妮莎·雷德格雷夫（Vanessa Redgrave，英国女演员——译注）之后最出色的罗莎琳德(Rosalind)扮演者”。他随后到曼彻斯特大学读书，又到伦敦音乐和戏剧学院深造，然后很顺利地进入演艺圈工作；迄今他已经出演过30多部电影、十多部电视剧、广播剧和话剧。但直到2010年由他主演的电视剧《神探夏洛克》首映，他才真正成为一线明星。
Part of it has to do with the witty, knowing script, with its clever allusions to the old stories; and part of it has to do with Cumberbatch's sublime portrayal of the odd, brilliant, infuriating, charismatic detective. Sherlock-the-character has a fanatic following, with fans who debate every Cumberbatchian movement and every plot twist with the fervor of grassy-knoll conspiracy buffs. Cumberbatch takes care to remind them that though they might well love Sherlock, Sherlock would never love them back. "I always make it clear that people who become obsessed with him or the idea of him — he'd destroy you," Cumberbatch said cheerfully. "He is an absolute bastard."
《夏洛克》成功的原因之一在于其诙谐机智而让人心领神会的剧本，其中有许多与原著互相映衬的情节；另外一个原因就是康伯巴奇出色的演技：他把这位怪诞而聪明绝顶、富于魅力，让人又爱又恨的大侦探演得活灵活现。粉丝们热情追捧他扮演的夏洛克角色，康伯巴奇的每个动作、剧情的每一步发展，都会引发粉丝们的热烈辩论，其狂热程度完全不亚于肯尼迪遇刺事件中的阴谋论者们。康伯巴奇还特别注意地提醒他们：他们热爱夏洛克，但夏洛克可绝不会领这个情。“我一直清楚地表现这一点——你迷恋他，为他痴迷，而他会玩死你，”康伯巴奇开心地说:“他是个彻头彻尾的混蛋。”
Over a follow-up breakfast at the Algonquin Hotel in New York a few weeks later, I started to see what his public life is like. We walked there after a quick trip to my office, in which we spoke to no one but which precipitated three breathless "Is that who I think it is?" emails from normally phlegmatic colleagues in under five minutes. (He came back a couple of weeks later, and the non-phlegmatic people were gaping in the halls.) In the street we had to move quickly, because crowds form if Cumberbatch stands still for too long. In the hotel, we positioned ourselves behind a pillar, but people spotted him anyway (when they asked for autographs, they invariably asked on behalf of their teenage children).
在初次采访之后几个星期，在纽约阿隆金酒店再次与康伯巴奇共进早餐时，我开始了解他的公众生活究竟是什么样的。早餐前，我们在我的办公室短暂停留了一下，并未与任何人交谈，但在短短五分钟内，三位平日里都很稳重的同事兴奋地给我发来邮件：“难道这真的是他？”（几个星期后，他又来过一回；这次，那些不那么沉稳的同事们在走廊里惊讶得闭不上嘴）。走在街上，我们要健步如飞；他稍作停顿，就会有一群人围上来。在酒店里，我们坐在一根柱子后面，但还是有人认出了他（当他们来要签名时，永远都是说为了他们十几岁的孩子）。
As good a sport as Cumberbatch is, he sometimes finds it a bit too much. Filming "Sherlock" last year in Cardiff, Wales, he had an awkward interlude when he had to walk from his trailer to his car wearing a costume that, had anyone seen it, might have become a major plot spoiler. When he failed in his efforts to get a particularly persistent paparazzo not to photograph him, Cumberbatch shrouded himself in a hoodie ("I looked like Kenny in ‘South Park'") and held up a sign he had hastily fashioned that said: "Go photograph Egypt and show the world something important."
即使康伯巴奇这样性格随和的人，有时候也会受不了。去年在威尔士卡迪夫拍《神探夏洛克》时，出了这么一段尴尬事件：他需要身着戏装从化妆车走到自己的车里，戏装如果被人看到，就会严重泄露剧情。他屡次试图摆脱一个固执的狗仔摄影师都没成功，最后只好套上一件帽衫（“我看起来就像是《南方公园》里面的肯尼”），举起一个匆匆写就的牌子：“去拍埃及吧，让世界看到点重要的东西。”
The move was lampooned by the British newspapers, particularly when, to the delight of hundreds of fans massed on the street in London for another shoot, Cumberbatch did it again, this time with signs printed with provocative questions about democracy, government intrusion, journalism and the battle between liberty and security in the war on terror. "These are very complex questions and very difficult arguments to be very clear about, so to ask the questions is to stimulate the debate," he explained. He has not done it since, though, he said, "I felt really strongly about it at the time."
此举遭到某些英国报纸的抨击。让粉丝们兴奋不已的是，康伯巴奇后来又这样做了一次，这次他的纸片上面写满了关于民主、政府侵犯个人隐私、新闻以及在反恐战争中自由与安全的矛盾等引人深思的问题。“这些都是很复杂的问题和难以解释清楚的论点，所以提出这些问题就是为激发讨论，”他解释道。尽管此后他并未故伎重演，但他说“我当时对这些问题感想很强烈。”
In New York he was visiting his friend Zachary Quinto, who acted alongside him in "Star Trek," seeing some movies, going to some museums and trying to keep a low profile.
康伯巴奇在纽约拜访了他的朋友——和他一起出演《星际迷航》的扎克瑞·昆图(Zachary Quinto)，看了几场电影，逛了逛博物馆，并试图保持低调。
He is currently unattached, and is gearing up for his next batch of work. One question that has excited "Star Trek" fans is whether his character, who all but stole the last film, will appear in the next one. There is certainly that possibility: He ended the film frozen in a pod and stored away in space. ("That was a stupid thing to do," Cumberbatch said, referring to Starfleet Command. "They should have just blown me up.")
现在还是单身的康伯巴奇正在为他下一轮工作做准备。让粉丝们感到兴奋不已的一个问题是，他在《星际迷航》中抢尽风头的角色会不会出现在续集中。这是有可能的：电影结束时，可汗被冻在一个冷冻仓里，放逐到茫茫宇宙中。（“这可真不是明智之举，”康伯巴奇指的是星际舰队指挥部：“他们应该直接把我炸死。”）
He pulled a cap over his head and prepared again to withstand the public. He says he has a way of negotiating big-city crowds: "If you pick a point far behind them they perceive you as not seeing them, and you're the obstacle they have to get around." For a moment, he sounded positively Sherlockian. "There is a way of just shadowing through," he continued. "The higher the walls, the more dark the windows, the bigger the sunglasses — the more people are going to look. The greatest disguise is learning how to be invisible in plain sight."
离开时，康伯巴奇在头上戴了顶帽子，又一次做好了和公众打交道的准备。他说在大城市的人群中穿行他有自已的一套办法：“如果你目光聚焦在他们身后很远的地方，他们会以为你没有看见他们，这样你就成了人群不得不绕开的障碍物。”这会儿他听上去跟夏洛克没什么两样：“总有办法混迹于人群之中，”他接着说道：“墙越高，窗户越黑，墨镜越大，就越会引人注意。最好的伪装术就是学会在光天化日之下变成隐身人。”