Shadowing Practice: Does Benedict Cumberbatch Know His Lines? - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Let the game commence.
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That's not one of my lines.
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Am I taking too long with this?
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Oh, I get to read it.
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Okay.
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Wow.
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The power of reading.
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I'm not a psychopath.
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I'm a high -functioning sociopath.
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Do your research, Sherlock Holmes.
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Circa God knows when now.
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It feels like ancient history, but that's a great line.
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I remember saying that to Sherlock.
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I'm not a psychopath, Anderson.
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I'm a high -functioning sociopath.
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Do your research.
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There's something about it held in its memory as it is, and it's so tantalizing.
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You know, You leave them or yourselves wanting more, there's always that itch to scratch.
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But I think it would have to be the superlative version of what we've already achieved.
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And I would like a script to read, which was not the normal way of doing it, naturally enough.
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You know, Stephen and Mark are trusted entities, and I was just only too glad to be fed by their script.
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But I think this has to be a little bit more like, if we're all going to do this together, let's have a read.
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It'll be recycled.
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Okay.
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Do you remind me I've come to bargain?
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Like, yeah, that's Doctor Strange, the first film.
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Romamo, I've come to bargain.
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I can't remember how many times I said that in different setups, how many times I died.
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A lot was taken over by Digi Doubles, but I was in all sorts of rigs.
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It was the same space rig as Sandra Bullock in her acting as well, putting up with that.
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It was unbelievably good fun for the first sort of couple of rides, and then it was just, it was really hard.
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Very odd strains on the body in a weird way.
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And I like that kind of work.
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I like the physical aspect of my work.
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But I think there was a bit of
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that involved on the same set and just coming up and saying it again and again and again as he dies.
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Where's Dormammu out in this trap of repeated time?
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Next.
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Thank you.
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I specifically brought enough food to last until January.
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How much emotional eating have I been doing?
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That's really funny. Is this a cartoon?
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It's not The Grinch.
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It's the Grinch.
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How much emotional eating have I been doing?
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It's one of the chiefest things I get a thrill out of because I don't, you know, to do a voice character for kids who go, you're not the Grinch, and then go, I know just what to do.
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It's fun.
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It's just fun.
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They're going to go, ooh, it's creepy.
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It's all the same.
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Was it because, you know, I can't obviously be the Grinch as opposed to being strange or any of the other more iconic ones they might know?
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But God, I had fun.
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I mean, it's a long process, but it's really good.
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And Chris and all that team are brilliant.
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They're just brilliant.
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They write really witty scripts.
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Scott, who directed me a lot of the time, was light on his feet.
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The sessions were fun and the animation was just gorgeous.
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And, you know, it's another cut of that brilliant story that we all love and know from the Dr. Seuss canon.
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And I like it.
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Bring on another one.
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I love that.
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I am fire.
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I am death.
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I mean, I've had some quite good lines.
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I am fire.
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I am death.
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These are hard ones to forget, really.
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Smaug.
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I am...
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Death.
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that was just great and we did a lot of variations on
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that i don't remember doing
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that in the now very available youtube video of me crawling
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around like a madman in a in a mocap suit i laid low the warriors of old
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and in stew of terror
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but i do remember on the sound stage doing it a lot with peter
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when we were kind of augmenting the voice and trying different vocodas
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and strains and effects with microphones and different temperatures and placings and tonalities
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and i just remember the sort of the quieter it was
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the more terrifying it was as this you know shape of
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destruction swooped down silently through the night very cool line to have to say
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this is not i i don't like this tossing it's pretty it's great a man was made patience
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and the odds again that's not right a man it was made patient by the odds against him
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i think that's a quote of is it phil burbank in power the dog and i say about Oh, I forgot the character's name, which is essential to that part.
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Oh, God, what he's called.
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Bronco Henry.
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A man was made by patience and the odds against him.
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I mean, I didn't remember it being that way, unless I got it wrong on the day, and that's what it is in the film, which is mortifying.
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And we all know I had trouble with the word penguin.
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His penguins.
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Yeah, I think I screwed up a line, either of Thomas Savage's.
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I mean, I did put some of Savage back in, much to Jane's chagrin at the time, but then some of it made it, some of it ended up on the floor.
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I can't remember when that was in her original screenplay.
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Well, what kind of prep didn't I do?
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I mean, everything that he does in the book I tried to do, whether it was ironmongery, taxidermy, which that was a very odd afternoon.
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Well, obviously horsemanship and wrangling and cowarding and also braiding, that was featured a lot, which is fine when you're not then doing dialogue and not looking and going, oh, shit, don't film this bit.
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I've done about five, oh, no, they're not.
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And you just keep going.
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Yeah, I mean, it was a really deep dive into kind of city slicker, guy culture, cowboy camp.
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It was amazing.
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I spent some time in Montana with an incredible bunch of folk there and we were all over the county as well.
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We went to different places so we saw some really beautiful flat planes
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that kinds of grazed by thousands of buffalo back in the day
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and then to mountainous stuff
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that was slightly nearer where thomas savage set the novel near his family home yeah recite i'll recycle it towards you
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is there anything you would not do for your family yes so
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that was khan in star trek into darkness is there anything
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you would not do for your family is it sad
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that i remember these lines
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or these just these are very potent these lines apart from the one
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that i think i mangled from power the dog oh
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that was fun i mean
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that was just a big moment for me we just had
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a blast i mean J .J.'s sets are just a fun ground of entertainment and distraction and creativity and energy, you know.
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And he was so grateful.
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He was so encouraging.
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And I was a very little fish in a big pond.
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It was a big, scary movie to be on with.
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The first kind of announcing me, OK, what it is, Benedict Cumberbatch, woo!
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Tommy Gormley, that's a crap Scottish accent, sorry, Tommy.
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You get whooped on set like it's the beginning of your turn in a sitcom on US television.
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I was like, oh, I'm sort of in character.
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This is a bit distracting, you know we worked at some amazing places some amazing sets
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and then we went to this really amazing amazing location the national ignition facility
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which is where they're hoping to create nuclear fusion rather than fission
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and the only byproduct of that is water they convinced me before i got there
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that there was this neutron cream you had to dot on your face to protect against all the neutrons
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that were flying around in the air and i'm like i'm not sure really
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and you know who am i to question science i played a few scientists
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but i don't you know i'm not stephen hawking so So, therefore, maybe it's some crazy American sort of, you know, insurance thing.
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This is all by way of, you know, excusing how stupid I am.
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I then went on set, I had this cream on, and then there was a sign up, and I had to read this notice to the whole crew about, you know, guys, you really have to do this neutron cream.
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And as I was reading it, I went, yeah, and if you've been wearing neutron cream, then you're an idiot, there's no such thing.
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And I was like, what?
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The whole crew had me.
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It was brilliant.
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It was brilliant.
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Fling.
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Thank you.
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A machine is different from a person, hence they think differently.
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That's very true.
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Alan Turing, my God, we need him now.
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That was Alan Turing in The Imitation Game.
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A machine is different from a person, hence they think differently.
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It's just like a deep, deep, deep kind of connection of thinking, oh, I understand what you were or went through.
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And the pain of that at certain points in his story.
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You know, no acting was required it just sort of thinking of him
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was enough maybe that's not good acting i don't know i've
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talked about this a bit maybe that's just witnessing something
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and feeling it historically as that abomination that it was his chemical castration
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because of his sexuality and
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if you just leave it alone i don't think how does
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this story get most effectively told at this point something just
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happens i think that's true of a lot of art a
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lot of sport a lot of anything where we're just doing it
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and it's coming through us you're not really you know i got patted on the back for it a lot
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but it's not really you it's something else just coming through you it's the power of the story or the character.
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And just letting yourself be open for that, I suppose, is the trick of the acting of it.
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Thank you.
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All is done here.
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Wow, that's quite prosaic, isn't it?
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All is done here.
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Okay, you got me.
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I have no idea.
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All is done.
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We're done here.
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All is done here.
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I mean, I don't know.
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Am I stretching back into the mists of time?
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Is this a little bit further away?
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Oh, oh, oh, all, all is done here.
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Zoolander 2.
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Sorry.
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That was post -limitation game, yeah.
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All is done here.
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I've had to apologise for that quite a lot.
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So it's a difficult one to talk about.
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I love that group of people
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and it was the chance to sort of be part of something
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that the first time round was iconic and I was a huge fan of.
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But it got complicated, it got misunderstood and I upset people and I respect that.
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So I probably wouldn't do that again now.
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What does this do?
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Shoot poison darts?
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Oh, oh, oh, oh.
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Oh, no, I knew this one.
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What was it?
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What does this do?
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Shoot poison darts?
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um it's not sherlock is it no it's the kind of
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thing james bond would say in q's office isn't it whilst looking at a straw
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or something i don't know
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but uh oh oh i know i know i know the
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invitation oh no the courier the courier yeah what does this do shoot poison dart i was with rachel
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and angus angus wright in a fruit store just having been
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propositioned to become this kind of mule for this guy penkovsky the highest ranking soviet official to trade secrets
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or give away secrets during the cold war because he thought
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that russia was going in the wrong direction
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and it's just he's trying to make funny out of a
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very sort of serious situation it's a sort of joke
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that falls flat a complex character in real life i mean
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a really fun unexpected hero to play thank you i got
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a truth to tell my god that's i don't know i've got a truth to tell
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that's a pretty forthright line am i taking too long with this sounds like
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and then i burst into song is this the film i'm
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about to do it sounds american okay i'm gonna need more
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of a clue what uh oh really really i don't remember saying
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that in um augusto sage county really i got the truth to tell i got a truth to tell
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But all the truth in that is about my relation to my love.
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You know, I think it's just a cousin.
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Okay, when do I say that?
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I'll have to watch this to find out when I...
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Okay.
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Okay, we're in the endgame now.
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Well, yeah, yeah, that's a big old Avengers line.
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We're in the endgame now.
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That's me at the end of Infinity War, I think.
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Oh, this is so boring watching people not know what everyone watching knows.
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Sorry, people watching who know.
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Yeah, I can't remember exactly when I said that, but I think it was the end of the first film.
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And it was a sort of Easter egg for what the title of the follow -up film, Endgame, was going to be.
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We are very small, but we are profoundly capable of very big things.
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Stephen Hawking.
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We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, very big things.
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That was a very big moment for me to get cast in that role.
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And I think like a lot of people I've played
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that I've had the fortune of knowing him for a short period of time, but very intense and wonderful period you know to be brought close to people's lives like
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that and to have a friendship out of someone as extraordinary like
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that to have a communication with them to be able to
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convene with them is just that's the cheapest thrill of
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that kind of stuff that lasts well after the job you know
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and to be there at westminster abbey for his memorial was
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just uh incredible very very special man my last memory of him was getting drunk on margaritas
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and telling him at a time when no one else could tell him
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and he had about three so i think he was a little in his cups
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so i know where you live and you can't run away from me, which was probably a very bad taste joke, which he grinned at.
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I'm gonna tell you a secret.
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I'm playing Khan in Star Trek.
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About half an hour later, I got this, you know, IBM voice going, very good.
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He was really excited about it.
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What a person to be associated with.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Does Benedict Cumberbatch Know His Lines?”. This video has 242 sentences and 2488 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:37. The speaker talks fast, about 214 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| odd adjective | /ɑd/ | Differing from what is usual, ordinary or expected. |
| script noun | /skɹɪpt/ | A writing; a written document. |
| poison noun | /ˈpɔɪ.zən/ | A substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism when ingested. |
| dart noun | /dɑɹt/ | A pointed missile weapon, intended to be thrown by the hand; for example, a short lance or javelin. |
| hence adverb | /ˈhɛns/ | In the future from now. |
| khan noun | /kɑːn/ | An Ottoman sultan. |
| differently adverb | /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/ | In a different way. |
| patience noun | /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/ | The quality of being patient. |
| strain noun | /stɹeɪn/ | A particular variety of a microbe, virus, or other organism, usually a taxonomically infraspecific one. |
| iconic adjective | /aɪˈkɑnɪk/ | Relating to, or having the characteristics of, an icon. |
| trek noun | /tɹɛk/ | A journey by ox wagon. |
| bargain noun | /ˈbɑːɹɡən/ | An agreement between parties concerning the sale of property; or a contract by which one party binds themself to transfer the right to some property for a… |
| hawk noun | /ˈhɔːk/ | A diurnal predatory bird of the family Accipitridae, smaller than an eagle. |
| penguin noun | /ˈpɛŋ.ɡwɪn/ | Any of several flightless sea birds, of the family Spheniscidae within the order Sphenisciformes, found in the Southern Hemisphere, marked by their usual… |
| thrill verb | /θɹɪl/ | To suddenly excite someone, or to give someone great pleasure; to (figuratively) electrify; to experience such a sensation. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| follow up verb | To take further actions remaining after an event; to continue, revisit, or persist; especially, to maintain communication or verify. |
| give away verb | To make a gift of (something). |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| put up with verb | To endure, tolerate, suffer through, or allow, especially something annoying. |
| run away from verb | To avoid or shirk a problem or consequences; to rush to back away from or disclaim responsibility for something. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- That's not one of my lines.
- Am I taking too long with this?
- Do you remind me I've come to bargain?
- How much emotional eating have I been doing?
- Am I stretching back into the mists of time?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are trusted · be recycled · was taken |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've already achieved · I've come · I've done |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | read, which was · kids who go · name, which is |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | were flying · was reading · was going |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 62 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thrill /θɹɪl/, psychopath /ˈsaɪkəʊpæθ/, sociopath /ˈsəʊ.si.ə(ʊ)ˌpæθ/, forthright /ˈfɔɹθˌɹaɪt/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: patience /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/, friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/, destruction /dɪsˈtɹʌkʃən/, relation /ɹɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/, animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, memorial /məˈmɔːɹi.əl/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like odd, script, poison.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.