Benedict Cumberbatch: Abrams is brilliant

(Cover) - EN Movies - Benedict Cumberbatch says director J.J. Abrams gives audiences “what they secretly want”.
The British actor is playing Captain Kirk’s nemesis John Harrison in the hotly-anticipated Star Trek Into Darkness. The back story and motives of his character have been shrouded in mystery, and Benedict says J.J. has his reasons for keeping fans in the dark.
“It’s all J.J.,” he explained to Empire magazine. “What’s so brilliant is that he keeps things so close to his chest. It’s not paranoia, it’s not absurd control. It’s about giving the audience what they secretly want. We all seek out who’s playing what, what’s going to happen… But, like a kid with a box of chocolates, once you’ve eaten them all you feel sick, we all do. We all glut. And J.J. knows it.”
Benedict went on to explain how he landed the role. The 36-year-old star says J.J. was eager to work with him after he impressed in the Steven Spielberg-directed film War Horse. He admits that the audition tape he sent J.J. was a rather homemade affair.
“I was on J.J.’s radar, probably in no small part down to Steven Spielberg. I think he was willing me to send in a winning tape and somehow I did,” Benedict recalled. “I had to record it on my friend’s iPhone, late one night in his kitchen. I was crouched in the corner, under the one spotlight that was throwing enough light on my face. My friend was reading the lines to me, and his wife was holding the camera, balanced on two chairs on top of the kitchen table. It was all a bit made-out-of-toilet roll.”
Benedict also revealed he has had to “quite literally work my a**e off” in the gym for the role and promises something “genuinely intense and scary” when the movie is released in May.