“Weird and ginger” Benedict almost didn't get Sherlock role

It’s hard to imagine anybody else donning a deerstalker alongside Martin Freeman’s Doctor Watson in Sherlock, isn’t it?

But Sherlock writer Mark Gatiss, who also plays Mycroft in the show, has revealed that Benedict Cumberbatch almost didn’t get the role – because he just wasn’t sexy enough.

And while we’re pretty sure that the millions of ‘Cumberbitches’ out there will testify to the 40-year-old actor’s power to make people go weak at the knees, BBC bosses thought he was a bit too….well… “ginger and weird.”

Ouch.

“When we presented Ben on his audition day, everyone at the BBC agreed he’s definitely got to be in it. And then they went ‘We were promised a sexy one though.’,” Gatiss explained.

“And we didn’t say ‘yeah he is sexy’ we went ‘he’s very good isn’t he?’ And Benedict to this day doesn’t think of himself as sexy.

“His nose was entirely wrong apparently. We thought if only we could get the nose right we might have something. The truth is, this isn’t made up.

“But as he walked through into 221B Baker Street it all changed. He was a weird man a few minutes ago, a sort of ginger weird person. But that disappeared.

“It was the thing that suddenly worked with Colin Firth with Mr Darcy.”

And although you might think of Holmes as a well spoken sort of chap, Gatiss also explained that Cumberbatch has had to TONE DOWN his accent to play the role because his Harrow eduction has left him with an accent waaaaay too plummy for the show.

“We consciously made him sound less Victorian – he speaks in quite a formal way,” he explained. “But we had fun making him say ‘laterz,. We make him play like a performing monkey.”