‘An attractive, complex character to play for an actor” is how Benedict Cumberbatch describes Doctor Stephen Strange, the latest Marvel comic-book hero to make the leap to the big screen.
An arrogant and egotistical, but brilliant, neurosurgeon, he wears expensive jewellery, resides in a luxurious apartment, and drives a sports car. Until, that is, a horrifying car crash leaves him crippled, unable to use his hands.
“To be spun out of control literally and mentally and psychologically in that car crash, losing his ability and being completely broken down, to rebuild as a superhero … that’s a fun way into an Avengers character,” says Cumberbatch.
As the 40-year-old British actor hints, his mystic medic is being groomed for a future team-up with Marvel's better-known heroes, including Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War.
For the moment, Doctor Strange, directed by Scott Derrickson, is the first solo outing for the character, who was created by Steve Ditko and first appeared in 1963 in the comic Strange Tales. A master of the mystic arts, Strange becomes a powerful sorcerer after his accident, able to access alternate dimensions and hop through portals in the space-time continuum.
Such was the character's cult success that he appeared on the front cover of prog-rock band Pink Floyd's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets.
The comic-book tales can be somewhat surreal, and it was this element that Derrickson most wanted to bring to life in the film.
"I'm a Marvel fan," he says. "I know that me, as a Marvel viewer, I can only take so much more of what I've seen. If I saw Iron Man 4, and it was just following Iron Man 3, I'd be like: 'I'm really wearing down now'. So as a fan, I was coming in and meeting on this movie, saying: 'This is what it needs to be. It needs to be completely different. It needs to go deeper and weirder'."
Even compared with super-heroes who fly through the air in metal war machines or spin spider's webs, Doctor Strange does veer towards the, well, stranger side of the comic-book spectrum.
“I am a big fan of things a little more psychedelic or weird,” says Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who plays the film’s eternal life-seeking villain, Kaecilius.
“It’s not as completely out there as the comic books ... I think they did a smart version of it. You could obviously go further but that might have made people a little sick.”
Mikkelsen, who has already played a Bond villain, in Casino Royale, and serial-killer Hannibal Lecter in the TV series Hannibal, was desperate to take on the role of Kaecilius, particularly given the fighting sequences.
“From 7 until I reached the age of 44, I firmly believed I was Bruce Lee,” says the 50-year-old actor with a laugh.
“I spent all my time flying around doing crazy tricks, so when this came along and Scott pitched the story and said the words ‘flying kung-fu’ … I was sold completely.”
For Cumberbatch, one of the perks of this acting job was a return to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he had travelled as a 20-year-old during a gap year to teach English at a Buddhist monastery.
With the country rebuilding after the April 2015 earthquake that claimed the lives of nearly 9,000 people, “we wanted to show the world that Kathmandu was working”, he says.
“It’s a big deal for a Marvel film to film that far away, let alone in a place that’s had that much damage to its infrastructure.”
If this move worked, Derrickson was nonetheless criticised during pre-production for “whitewashing” the role of the Ancient One, the guru who teaches Strange how to see alternate dimensions and harness his magical powers.
The director turned the character into a woman and cast British star Tilda Swinton.
The director says this was a “conscious attempt at diversity”, suggesting it was a way of dismantling the stereotype of a wise, old Asian man helping a white hero to victory.
“There’s a conviction that any race within any source material has to be kept faithful to. I’m not sure why that’s a cardinal rule,” says Derrickson.
However, he admits that he understands why a new generation of Asian filmgoers are angry.
“Other than Bruce Lee in the 1970s … where’s their movie star?” he adds.
“I understand the outrage and I understand the hostility, even. I don’t fault anybody for that. I just know in this movie I had a precarious minefield to navigate … and I still think I made the right choices.”
Certainly, nobody seems to be arguing with the casting of Cumberbatch. After playing a brainy hero in BBC TV drama Sherlock, becoming Doctor Strange feels natural.
“I think both of them suffer from work obsession and not letting the world in enough,” says Cumberbatch.
“But he’s not on the scale of Sherlock, I don’t think – he does mix and has relationships.”
Derrickson believes the actor’s legions of fans will be delighted by the film.
“It’s like nothing he’s ever done before,” he says.
• Check out our review of Doctor Strange in tomorrow’s Arts & Life
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