s endCumberbatchweb: Quotes from Empire Magazine article on Parade's End:
Stoppard wanted Cumberbatch long before Sherlock made him a global star. “I started thinking of him for it in 2007. Fortunately, it took so long to launch the project he got famous in the meantime, or we couldn’t have cast him. And, for me, another Christopher would have been unimaginable.”
Cumberbatch himself was initially reluctant. “I was wary of Christopher’s class and the period of Parade’s End. I wanted to avoid type-casting.” he says. “But when Tom Stoppard says you’re the only person he can conceive of for the role, you want to find out what he means. In the process I’ve fallen completely in love with the project.”