Benedict’s Khan is trailing badly

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Benedict Cumberbatch’s foreword in the book "Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon" by Daniel Falconer.

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The frozen lake we’re standing on is speaking to us. It’s a groaning, creaking voice, almost of pain, from way down deep in the icy abyss. ‘Listen to that,’ says Benedict Cumberbatch, dressed in a thick fur-collared jacket, black salopettes, chunky blue scarf, big snow boots, thick gloves and woolly hat. He looks more Scott of the Antarctic than Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. ‘It sounds absolutely magical,’ he says, concentrating hard on the sound of the ice moaning beneath us, around us. There is no other sound. It’s too cold for birds or people or animals, too isolated for traffic.

'The ice is quite solid, I assume?' asks Benedict, articulating what we're all thinking. We're about to power around this frozen lake in a range of Jaguar sports cars and nobody wants their F-Type to turn submarine. 'Quite solid,' says our Finnish instructor, Tomi. He shows us a contraption that measures ice thickness. 'It's 35cm,' he says reassuringly. (That's just over a foot.) 'Although maybe less thick in places.' (An unhelpful postscript.)

We’re in southern central Finland taking part in a Jaguar winter-driving course. Alongside me is probably the biggest British TV or film star since Anthony Hopkins made Hannibal a cannibal or Colin Firth performed his royal stammer. In excess of 16 million Brits watched Benedict reappear as Sherlock Holmes for his third series on BBC1, making it the most-watched — and certainly best-loved — British TV drama in over a decade.

He’s tall (6ft), ramrod straight, just 37, slim (though trying to bulk up for his next part as a mercenary in Blood Mountain), has a blemish-free and stubble-free complexion, ice-blue eyes and swept-back auburn brown hair — which was dyed black forSherlock, blond for Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate.

It was Sherlock, of course, that made him a star. Since that first series in 2010, it’s been nonstop. ‘I’ve played so many characters so fast,’ he tells me. ‘I had a bank holiday weekend to transfer from Sherlock Holmes into Christopher Tietjens [inParade’s End].’

He admits he’s gone from an ‘anonymous actor’ into ‘apparently a sex symbol — although it’s a bit of a mystery why as my face has not changed that much during the ten years I have been in this business’. He’s even been responsible for a new word: Cumberbitch. (Urban Dictionary definition: ‘Any woman who has a deep fascination with the wonderful, beautiful, talented English stage and on-screen actor Benedict Cumberbatch’.) Meanwhile, @cumberbitches is one of the largest social-media fan groups around, with over 123,000 Twitter followers, describing themselves as ‘the most glorious and elusive society for the appreciation of the high cheek-boned, blue-eyed sex bomb that is Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch’.

There are no Cumberbitches around today. It’s too cold for them, or anyone else. It’s -7°C out on this frozen lake and feels bitterly, bone-bitingly chilly. Tomi says it’s not cold. ‘Last week was -24. This is mild for February.’

Tomi says when it’s -24 you can’t touch anything metal with bare skin — so no touching a car with your hands, no touching the viewfinder of your camera with your eyelid. Otherwise you’ll leave your skin behind. Benedict seems rather worried by that. I guess being eyelid-less wouldn’t be a good look for an actor. He tells us he tripped recently while jogging on Hampstead Heath and, when he fell, he thought he was going to smash his face. His next thought was for Steven Moffat, the co-creator of Sherlock, who, ‘would not have been impressed’.

The sun — hugging the horizon, even though it’s early afternoon — has just come out from behind the clouds. It’s the first time we’ve seen it. Up until now it’s been flat grey soft wintry light, like you get in Scandinavian crime dramas The Bridge and The Killing. Suddenly that big lake, carpeted in fresh snow, ringed by white-dusted pine and birch, sparkles under the bright winter sun.

It’s time to go rally driving. That’s the big attraction of Alive on Ice, a Jaguar winter-driving course open to all. You get to drive very powerful sports cars on a frozen lake (on this occasion near the Finnish town of H

Yesterday’s race is available in HD now on iplayer.

Benedict’s Appearance: 54.02 / 1:00.57 / 1:25.31 / 2:56.40

londonphile:

One more

Not tagging the interviews f1 or the video might get pulled.

Benedict interviewed on BBC2’s Formula 1 programme this morning.