An apple a day is not nearly enough for Doctor Strange — but maybe it should be.
Benedict Cumberbatch discussed his complicated feelings toward maintaining his Marvel diet and fitness regimen during an interview with the Ruthie’s Table podcast.
“For me, the exercise is great,” the Sherlock star began. “And the end result is that you feel strong and you feel confident — you hold yourself better. You have stamina through the exercise and the food that makes you last through the gig.”
Cumberbatch expressed dismay, however, at the nutritional side of the job.
“But it is horrific. I don’t like it personally,” he said. “I think it’s horrific eating beyond your appetite. Again, going back to responsibility and resourcefulness and sustainability — it’s just like, what am I doing? I could feed a family with the amount I’m eating.”
Cumberbatch said that his diet while playing the Sorcerer Supreme included five meals per day, plus “a couple of boiled eggs between those five meals, or some kind of high protein snack, cheese and crackers or almond butter and crackers — crackers, lots of crackers.”
That being said, the Imitation Game actor said that on the whole, he appreciates the overall process of maintaining intense fitness for his superhero projects.
“It’s great fun. I love it. I love body transformation in my job,” he said. “On Marvel, it’s a big sand pit. So they’ve got resources. You have someone who can prescribe you what you’re eating, and they can cook [for] you. We had a fantastic chef on the last Doctor Strange film.”
Other Marvel actors have previously discussed the difficulties of maintaining a superheroic physique. Paul Rudd said that he essentially cut out all flavorful foods while playing Ant-Man.
“When I was having to train for the Ant-Man movie, and I was on a very restrictive diet, my reward was sparkling water,” he told the Off Menu podcast in 2023. “That’s how horrible that diet was. I was like, ‘All right, I can have some sparkling water now, I’ve earned it.'”
Earlier this year, Danny Ramirez — who played Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon in Captain America: Brave New World — said that upholding his character’s physique requires significant sacrifice from a dietary standpoint.
“I think everyone out there that goes through an intense training regimen knows how boring it gets,” he told Men’s Health. “Now my dinners are kinda bland.”
Daniele Venturelli/Getty
Benedict Cumberbatch at a ‘We Live in Time’ screening in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Dec. 9, 2024
Elsewhere in the Ruthie’s Table interview, Cumberbatch also explained how his Marvel diet is indicative of a wider problem in Hollywood.
“It’s a grossly wasteful industry,” he said. “You may think about set builds that aren’t recycled, think about transport, think about food, think about housing, but also light and energy — the amount of wattage you need to sort of create daylight and consistent light in a studio environment, it’s a lot of energy.”
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The Power of the Dog actor said that when he produces projects, he pushes for more climate-friendly policies during production.
“It is a systemic thing, but as a producer, I’m really hot on that,” he said. “I try to push the green initiative, the green handshake into every agreement I can, whether it’s just a gentlemanly discussion about, ‘Can we not have any single-use plastic? Really, I think we’re beyond that.’ [Or] if people have water bottles now, they can bring in…. You don’t have to give the crew plastic bottles.”
Watch the full interview with Cumberbatch above.
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