Benedict Cumberbatch goes through chilling ‘near death’ experience

Benedict Cumberbatch, widely known as Sherlock Holmes, met an accident that brought him terrifyingly close to death.

Doctor Strange, who recently admitted to hating being called a ‘celebrity’, recounts the horrifying time that made him “impatient to live a life less ordinary”.

As reported by Daily Mail, the 48-year-old was 20 years ago filming BBC miniseries To The Ends Of The Earth in South Africa.

During a short trip with his friends, a flat tire forced them to stop the car on the side of the road.

Cumberbatch, who recently made it clear that he would sit out of Avengers: Doomsday, shared that the group of friends unfortunately got robbed and attacked by a group six armed man before being taken into another car that drove for hours.

Later, the group of friends was made to sit together in execution style before the abductors fled the scene.

The incident that left him physically unharmed altered his personality irrevocably.

“It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one. It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience,” said the British actor.

The Imitation Game star admitted turning into an “adrenaline junkie” who resorted to skydiving and other extreme sports.

“The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that. It made me go, "Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment.”

“I was throwing myself out of planes, taking all sorts of risks. But apart from my parents, I didn’t have any real dependents at that point,” he revealed the reason he could afford to be reckless with his life.

Though the actor, who shares three sons Christopher, 9, Hal, 7 and Finn, 6 with his wife Sophie Hunter, confessed that being a family man has “changed” and sobered him.