Benedict Cumberbatch reveals his mum's hilarious reaction when he won Sherlock role

However, not everyone was so sure when the 42-year-old was cast in the role, with Cumberbatch's own mother, actress Wanda Ventham, questioning the decision at first because she felt he he didn’t look right.

“The first thing my mother said when I mentioned to her that I’d got the part [of Sherlock] was ‘You don’t have the right nose,’” the Doctor Strange star told British GQ.

But thankfully, Cumberbatch didn’t pay much attention, with Sherlock launching the actor into the mainstream and winning him universal acclaim from critics and fans alike. The series also saw appearances from Cumberbatch's mother and his real-life father, fellow actor Timothy Carlton, playing the character's fictional parents.

Speaking about the show’s initial and immediate success, Cumberbatch told the BBC, “I was thrilled with how the first series of Sherlock was received.

"It was such great fun to film, which makes it so rewarding when something you enjoy is so well received."

Viewers last sleuthed with Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Doctor Watson in 2017, in the aptly titled ‘The Final Problem’ – with no immediate plans for a fifth season materialising any time soon.

However, we may still catch more of Cumberbatch as Sherlock, with the actor still keen to revisit the role that made him a household name.

“We love doing the show and all I'll say about it is that we're all very busy, we're all doing other things now and you'll have to see the fourth season to realise why, for now, it's not going to happen again at the same regularity that it has been happening,” he explained in 2016.

“But we'll see, we'll never say never and when it's right, and if it's right, we'll do more. I'd love to revisit it, I'd love to keep revisiting it – I stand by that. The idea of never playing him again is really galling.”

For now, however, Cumberbatch fans can catch him playing strategist Dominic Cummings in Channel 4’s ambitious political drama, Brexit: The Uncivil War, which airs on Monday 7th January at 9pm.

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