Great Performances: Starter for 10

Srsly, dude?  

Starter for 10 is where you want to start talking about Benedict Cumberbatch's greatest performances?

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Yup. Because Patrick Watts was intended as a bit of comic relief in a film thought to be a vehicle for James McEvoy to become a teen-heartthrob. Which worked. Sort of.

Rebecca Hall - as "Rebecca" 

But the immensely talented Rebecca Hall and the stunning nuanced performance that maintained the intended broad-comedy dimension of his character by Benedict Cumberbatch, hijack Starter for 10.  In the years after one has seen it, very little is recalled of anything McEvoy did, while Patrick Watts' moments of humility and leadership, bravado and foolishness are cleanly etched in our memory banks.

Patrick Watts

The young Cumberbatch might have wished he'd been offered the part of the decidedly not posh Brian Jackson, scholarship student and romantic lead.  Perhaps if they had, it would have become a breakout hit in America and earned more than $200k.  

But the potential for the great performance was in Patrick Watts, not written to be three-dimensional or heroic or an icon of character that often accompanies what is sometimes called "good breeding."  Patrick Watts has valor.

In the moment when Watts has to put doing the right thing ahead of ego or status, we see the struggle.  It's not written and cannot be directed.  It is simply happening inside of Watts and seen on the outside of Cumberbatch.  It's so subtle, yet so perfectly delivered, one begins to suspect a form of actor/audience telepathy at work.

Benedict Cumberbatch gleaned recognition and awards from Hawking, which he did around the same time.  And that is, quite obviously, a brilliant performance.

But rising to the challenge of that portrayal is, in fact, simply to be expected.  To bring the same dedication, depth and intensity to something Cumberbatch could have phoned-in and his audience and director probably been as happy with, is what defines greatness in an actor.