British actor Benedict Cumberbatch is known for the role of brilliant but idiosyncratic sleuth Sherlock Holmes in the PBS Masterpiece: Mystery series Sherlock. A four-time BAFTA nominee, London-born Cumberbatch has appeared in numerous television productions in the U.K., including an acclaimed performance as Stephen Hawking in the 2004 BBC drama Hawking, Steven Ezard in the miniseries The Last Enemy and Bernard in the TV movie Small Island.

In February 2011, he starred in Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the Royal National Theatre. In late 2011, he played Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's War Horse. He also played Peter Guillam, one of the pivotal roles in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).

He also starred as Christopher Tietjens in the BBC/HBO co-produced miniseries, Parade's End, which first aired August 2012. He portrayed Smaug the dragon through voice and motion capture and also provided the motion capture for the Necromancer in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy (2012).

Cumberbatch portrayed the main antagonist, Khan Noonien Singh, in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness, released in May 2013, and played WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate.

In 2017, Cumberbatch received his fourth Emmy nomination for his work in Sherlock, in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2018, he garnered an Emmy nomination in the same category for his titular role in Patrick Melrose.