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HOW skilled a secret keeper is Benedict Cumberbatch if he readily confesses the easiest method for extracting secrets from him?

Asked somewhat frivolously for information about one of the many coming projects he cannot talk about, Mr. Cumberbatch, the 35-year-old British actor, offered an equally facetious response.

“You could stick a knife in my thigh, and I wouldn’t tell you,” he said a few weeks ago, relaxing on the deck of the Venice, Calif., home where he was staying. But he added: “Pull the hair on my head the wrong way, and I would be on my knees begging for mercy. I have very sensitive follicles.”

Deeper still within his head were numerous vital details that Mr. Cumberbatch’s work required him to keep locked away. There was not much he could say about his dual roles as a necromancer and a talking dragon in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of “The Hobbit,” and even less about the part he was shooting in J. J. Abrams’s sequel to “Star Trek.” (“I’ve got to be a complete and utter tease,” he said, more gleeful than apologetic.)

What Mr. Cumberbatch can confirm is that these high-profile opportunities were made possible by the success of “Sherlock,” the television series that casts him as a cool and contemporary — if brutally rational — upgrade of Sherlock Holmes. It returns on May 6 for a second season on PBS’s “Masterpiece Mystery!”

In Britain, where “Sherlock” is shown on BBC One, the series has left millions of fans frantic to know the resolution of a season-ending cliffhanger, which American viewers have not yet seen, and transformed Mr. Cumberbatch (who already knows the outcome) from a well-regarded journeyman actor into a superstar.

And he makes no secret of his desire to see “Sherlock” enjoy similar acclaim in the land of “Mad Men” and “Modern Family.”

“I’m desperate for America to really take to this,” he said. “It has taken it into its heart as a cult thing, but I’d love it to hit the mainstream this time. Because I just think it’s of that quality, and it belongs there.”

In person the thin and muscular Mr. Cumberbatch shares the piercing gaze and sonorous, sinister voice of his Holmes but is warmer and more irreverent. He is a self-confessed motormouth and a relentless mimic who, over the course of an hour, adopted the shrieking voice of an admiring Valley girl; the Scottish burr of his friend and colleague James McAvoy; the synthesized speech of Stephen Hawking, whom he portrayed in a British TV movie; and the rapid, adenoidal clip of both Mr. Abrams and Steven Spielberg, who directed him in “War Horse.”

In similarly haphazard fashion Mr. Cumberbatch has spent the past 18 months ricocheting from role to role, in British stage productions like “After the Dance” and “Frankenstein” (for which he shared the Olivier Award this month with his co-star Jonny Lee Miller); a coming television version of “Parade’s End,” adapted by Tom Stoppard from the Ford Madox Ford novels; and films like “The Hobbit,” “War Horse” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

Last December, on vacation in Gloucestershire, England, he got the call that Mr. Abrams wanted him to submit a videotaped audition for “the not-so-good guy” (in Mr. Cumberbatch’s words) in the “Star Trek” sequel — and could not find anyone to film it for him.

“We observe this little Judeo-Christian cult holiday called Christmas,” Mr. Cumberbatch said sarcastically. “Whereas, you know, some kids in this part of town” — he circled his hands in the Los Angeles air — “with their Crackberrys, don’t.”

In a friend’s kitchen late at night, an agitated and weary Mr. Cumberbatch recorded his audition on an iPhone — “I was pretty strung out,” he said, “so that went into the performance” — and sent it to Mr. Abrams, only to be told the director was also on vacation.

Mr. Abrams, who saw the recording a few days later and hired Mr. Cumberbatch, wrote in an e-mail that it was “one of the most compelling audition readings I’d ever seen.”

But Mr. Abrams already knew this from Mr. Cumberbatch’s work on “Sherlock,” whose second season drew around 10 million viewers in Britain for each of three 90-minute episodes shown in January, according to the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board. (By contrast, in the United States, the first season averaged 4.6 million viewers per episode, PBS said.) On Tuesday, Mr. Cumberbatch’s work on the show earned him a Bafta award nomination for best actor.

Steven Moffat, the television producer who created “Sherlock” with Mark Gatiss, recognized similar qualities in Mr. Cumberbatch after seeing him play a quietly frightening character in “Atonement.”

“His look is quirky,” said Mr. Moffat, who also produces the BBC’s hit revival of “Doctor Who.” “His appeal is quite intellectual. He’s not conventionally handsome — handsome by any normal human standard. But the screen is very demanding.” Mr. Cumberbatch, he added, is “not ever going to play an ordinary man.”

Tsyroc wrote:Wouldn't original Spock have warned Starfleet about the Botony Bay being out there?

It could have even been intercepted and arrangements made for Khan and his people to go somewhere they wouldn't cause any problems, and where the neighboring planet wasn't going to explode.

I would hope that none of the reboot Trek films would have anything to do with repeating much of anything from the original series or movies that can be avoided as long as they are forewarned by Spock.

V'ger shouldn't be too much of a problem. The whale probe might still be. Syboc might have died on Vulcan or at least have different priorities after it's destruction.

They could still do cool stuff with the Romulans, Klingons, Gorn, Thollians etc... no reason to completely rehash stuff when they have plenty to play with that could be different but still be Star Trek.

edaw1982 wrote: Spock isn't going to remember every-single detail, I mean sure he's a clever sod but he *is* getting old, that's bound to make you forget a few things.
I can't really see him, sitting around reciting every single incident that happened to the Enterprise.
"..and then we leapt through a shiny doughnut after McCoy after he was drugged up and we had to let Edith Keeler die....oh and we hand to deal with some half-black-half-white aliens...and a non-corporeal alien controlling some kids...and some non-corporeal aliens pretending to be low-tech pacifists who wind up dictating the terms of the Federation-Klingon Cold war oh and Kirk winds up on a planet with some chick called Miramee and he calls himself Kirok...and I get infected by some space-poppies and laugh and have a vulcan-rage...oh and we encounter a non-corporeal trickster who fancies himself a Napoleonic General and we encounter.....who's race wind up dicking around with humanity in the next century..."

I mean, there's a lot of stuff to remember. Even for someone who isn't a hundred-and-thirty-something. Hell, even Scotty forgot (or chose to forget) that Kirk died on the Enterprise B.

...They were really big on non-corporeal aliens back then. Was that because 'Sixties = Oriental Stuff = Cool = Hey lets give a nod to that' or were 'non-corporeal aliens' just a totally groovy sci-fi thing back then?

Who will be the villain?

It appears that Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing Khan Noonien Singh. Cumberbatch is said to have given a very impressive audition for the character after Benicio Del Toro bowed out of the role. There are also rumors of the Klingons and Section 31 being involved in the plot. In addition, Alice Eve will reportedly be playing an Aria T'Loak type femme fatale, such a character could blur the line between villain and love interest. Lastly, if Peter Weller is reprising his role from Enterprise, then that would likely mean that he too is playing a villain.

Will Carol Marcus be Kirk's love interest in this film?

This has not been confirmed at this time. However, there was a scene set up to be in "Star Trek" where a young Kirk meets a young Carol Marcus, but this was eventually cut out before filming began in 2007.