Benedict Cumberbatch gained global prominence as a Mystic Arts practitioner, Dr. Stephen Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. While his role has continued to grow inclusion of his magic in the franchise, he has not had many good memories of it. His role specifically needed him to master hand gestures which were important to perform his magic. However, it was a completely different experience to watch him doing it on screens than in filming.
The actor was last seen portraying his MCU role in the film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which saw his character indulging in multiple universes to face off Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. While promoting for his then-new film, he appeared for a Twitter Q&A round in which he was asked about his hand gestures.
Benedict Cumberbatch Explained Feeling ‘Mortified’ Doing Magic Hand Motions
The MCU’s visual effects have always been a topic of discussion among Marvel fans. However, not delving much into it, its importance in the films cannot be overlooked since Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Doctor Strange role has heavily used it just like other films in the franchise.
The actor doing strange hand motions made him quite spectacular in fans’ eyes however it is not something he is quite proud of. Even though the actor has perfectly blended the weird hand signs in a quirky way, the view while practicing it would be completely different since no magic is being seen in real life.
On being asked how he was able to go through those hand sign scenes without laughing at himself in the 2022 Q&A Twitter round, he explained,
“I don’t find it funny anymore. I find it mortifying. I realize that very cool stuff will manifest ultimately with them. So you just, as you do being a kid in the bedroom just making stuff up, you just kind of have to believe in it.”
Check out the tweet here.
It is not surprising since we all know that there are times when the actors only have to do some random tricks which eventually becomes cool post-editing. However, his hand signs were not some random movements as he was properly taught for the part.
The Man Behind Dr. Strange’s Spell-Casting!
The actor was well trained for his specific hand movements that ultimately modified his character to express what his mystic arts were in the best form. Doctor Strange director, Scott Derrickson had prior concerns over the method of using magic as he wanted something “organic.” It was because the magic wielder (protagonist) had to perform them in the action.
That was how he found JayFunk, a talented finger-tutter who performs finger-tutting which is a street dance style form of using hand and finger movements.
He trained the actor to perform his magic signs that became phenomenal after the addition of effects. Doctor Strange 2 was able to gross $955 million worldwide with the film getting somewhat mixed reviews, major being positive.
Source: Twitter Movies
