Benedict Cumberbatch Orders Fans Not To Film Him — ‘It’s Mortifying’

Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t want his fans, known online as the cumberb*tches, filming him while he’s on stage in a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Cumberbatch told his fans that he thinks there’s nothing “less supportive” than seeing people recording him when he’s on stage. The 39-year-old actor asked fans not to record as he exited the Barbican Theatre Saturday night after a performance, the Daily Mail Reports. Fans had gathered near the exit even though they’d been warned that Cumberbatch would not be signing autographs.

Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock Holmes on television, told fans that it was “mortifying” to realize that they were filming him during the performances, pinpointing one fan who was “blindingly obvious” when recording.

Before pleading with his fans to refrain from recording, Benedict thanked them for coming to see him perform.

“Can I ask you all a huge favour? First of all can I just say a huge thank you to all of you who are here tonight,” he said, to cheers from the theatre-goers who had gathered to hear him speak.

Then, he got real with them.

“But all of this (pointing to flashing cameras) all these cameras, phones, filming me….This is part of it, outside, whatever, fine. But I can see cameras, I can see red lights in the auditorium. It’s blindingly obvious, it’s very, very obvious. We started again tonight… it’s not the easiest thing to do in a play but (it makes it) even harder. I could see a red light in the third row. It’s mortifying.”

Cumberbatch then continued to say that there was nothing supportive about distracting an actor from delivering to a live audience.

“I can’t give you what I want to give you which is a live performance that hopefully you will remember in your minds and brains, whether it’s good bad or indifferent, rather than on your phones, so please don’t,” he said.

Benedict added that the staff at the theatre will be stricter in the future and remove anyone found filming during performances.

“I don’t want that to happen, that’s a horrible way to police what is a wonderful thing,” Cumberbatch added.

“What I really want to do is try and enlist you. I don’t really use social media, but I’d really appreciate it if you did tweet, blog, hashtag the s*** out of this one for me,” he asked as a request for fans to share his message about not recording the production.

“This isn’t me blaming you, this is just me asking you to just ripple it out there, in the brilliant, beautiful way that you do with your electronic things,” he said.

Cumberbatch is playing Hamlet in Lyndsey Turner’s production of the Shakespearean classic on Wednesday. According to Entertainment Weekly, his next big role will be as Sorcerer Supreme/Doctor Strange in an upcoming Marvel movie.

At least he won’t have to worry about fans filming him then.

[Photo by Amanda Edwards—Wire Image/Getty Images]