Happy Birthday Benedict Cumberbatch! 8 facts you may not know about him

English actor Benedict Cumberbatch is turning 46 on Tuesday. The actor, who shot to international fame with the BBC TV series 'Sherlock', has played several memorable characters on the big and small screen, He has received various honours, including a British Academy Television Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Cumberbatch is married to English theatre director Sophie Hunter. He follows Buddhist philosophy and is a vegan. Here are some lesser known facts about him.

Parents are actors

The parents of Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch are also actors. Dad Timothy Carlton and mother Wanda Ventham even played his reel parents in the BBC mystery crime drama series 'Sherlock'.

Worked as English teacher
Yes! for a year at a Tibetan monastery in Darjeeling. This was for a year after he did his graduation in Harrow School. After this he went on to study drama.

Painting skills
He was an arts scholar at Harrow School and a decent painter. He has painted large oil canvasses and self-portraits.

Can croon
He once sang the lead vocals for the Pink Floyd song "Comfortably Numb". This was in September 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall in London when David Gilmour was performing. He sang the parts of Roger Waters. The part beginning: "Hello, is anybody in there."

Was kidnapped once
This was in 2005, during the filming of the BBC mini-series 'To The Ends of the Earth' in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He was kidnapped along with his co-star Denise Black by a group of locals, but they talked their way out of it.

Can officiate weddings
Benedict Cumberbatch is legally ordained and so is licensed to officiate a wedding. He officiated the wedding of his friends Seth Cummings and Rob Rinder in 2013.

His natural hair colour
His natural hair colour is actually red blond auburn . For all the raven-haired characters he plays, he has to dye his hair.

His eyes change colour
Cumberbatch's eyes appear to change colour. That's because he has Heterochromia Iridis, a rare condition which causes his eyes to appear blue one time and as green another time.