16 Benedict Cumberbatch Things to Watch After You See Doctor Strange
By Lacy Baugher
Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Hawking (Photo: BBC)
Hawking
Not to be confused with Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything, Hawking also tells the story of renowned cosmologist and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. (It was just made in 2004 by the BBC.) Benediction Cabbagepatch plays Hawking, because geniuses are like 7000% his thing.
The story features Hawking as a young man during his early years as a PhD student at Cambridge. It follows the creation of his doctoral thesis, in which he mathematically disproves the prevalent theory of time. (And provided support for the existence of the Big Bang.) Hawking was also diagnosed with debilitating motor neurone disease at age 21, and given just two years to live. Against all odds, he goes on to become one of the world’s most respected and successful scientists, penning the best-selling book A Brief History of Time.
Cumberbatch is joined by Michael Brandon, Tom Hodgkins, Lisa Dillon, Alice Eve, Peter Firth and more.
There’s a lot to love about Cumberbatch’s performance in this film – the relentless intellectualism, the painful struggle to understand how his body can fail him when his mind is so strong. But the thing that’s the most compelling is probably the joy – in discovery, in the capacity of the human mind. The scene in which Hawking experiences his “Eureka” moment, and explains his idea by drawing on the ground with chalk is just phenomenal.