After having been seen to emerge from his porcelain cup to thrust a tiny trembling cane in the faces of the good sirs at CBS's Elementary, impudent dormouse Benedict Cumberbatch now claims he was "misquoted" in yesterday's report regarding certain impolite exchanges with his U.S. Sherlock competitor Jonny Lee Miller. In a lengthy statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Cumberbatch now makes it perfectly clear that he is supportive of—nay, excited by!—the prospect of another modern-day Sherlock show, and to suggest otherwise by so vulgarly relaying words in which he seems to say as much is certainly vexing, to say the least:
I am both bemused and upset at this misquote. I never said that Jonny took the job for the paycheck nor did I ask him not to do it. What I said is I would have preferred not to be in the situation where we will again be compared because we are friends. I know for a fact his motivations were to do with the quality of the script and the challenges of this exceptional role.
It is baffling because I have only been supportive of an incredibly talented actor who I am proud to call a friend taking a job I know he is going to enjoy immensely and be wonderful in.
Over 70 actors have played this exceptional character before us. To say that there can be only one Holmes would be ludicrous. We're both thrilled to get the opportunity to play him in a modern context. The world of Sherlock Holmes and the world that we live in now is big enough to take more than one interpretation. As a genuine Sherlock Holmes fan I am greatly looking forward to his series.
Shortlist, the source of the "misquote," has yet to weigh in on how it could have misheard Cumberbatch so incredibly incorrectly, or else admit it concocted the entire thing out of some scurrilous, Grub Street hackery. In Shortlist's defense, words can be so easily misconstrued when mumbled through a scarf.