Rebecca Cook
Published November 25, 2025 5:03pm
Updated November 25, 2025 5:03pm
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Benedict Cumberbatch has said he has no desire to send his kids to boarding school (Picture: Ian West/PA Wire)
Benedict Cumberbatch has explained why he doesn’t want his children to follow in his footsteps and attend boarding school.
The 49-year-old, who shares three sons with wife and theatre director Sophie Hunter, attended Harrow School in greater London, where the annual fees are in the thousands.
Yet he has no said that he does not want his sons Christopher, Hal and Finn to attend such a school, for fairly selfish reasons.
‘Not unless they really want to, but no way,’ the actor said.
‘And Sophie [feels] the same. Selfishly, I want them around – I still want to be there, in case the call comes, [when] the fall happens, I wanna be there,’ he added, according to the Daily Mail.
Yet Cumberbatch went on to praise his all boys boarding school – which counts Winston Churchill, James Blunt and Lord Byron in its illustrious alumni – and said it boasted ‘amazing facilities and very structured timetable’.
The 49-year-old shares three sons with Sophie Hunter (Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images for BFI)
The Sherlock star has previously admitted to feeling he let his parents down by going into acting after they ‘scrimped and saved’ as jobbing actors to send him to the pricey boarding school.
He said his parents – who knew how difficult making a living on acting could be – decided to give him a top education so he could become a doctor or a lawyer.
Speaking about his parents Wanda Ventham and dad Timothy Carlton, Cumberbatch told The Lady magazine: ‘They scrimped and saved to get their only son the very best education possible.
Cumberbatch said his wife feels the same (Picture: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
‘And I took that education, threw it all in their face and became an actor anyway.’
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He added: ‘To this day, one of the reasons I get out of bed in the morning is to make them proud of me.’
The actor previously opened up about his time at the all-boys private school he attended prior to Harrow, Brambletye School, revealing there was ‘experimentation’ among students.
He said: ‘While there was experimentation, it had never occurred to me as “Oh, this is that.”
‘It was just boys and their penises, the same way with girls and vaginas and boobs. It wasn’t out of desire,’ he told Out magazine.
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