Onscreen superhero Benedict Cumberbatch turned out to also be a real-life superhero when he saved a cyclist from getting beat up by a group of people on a London street Friday night.
According to The Guardian, Cumberbatch was in a cab with his wife in central London when he saw a cyclist getting repeatedly hit over the head with a glass bottle by four men. The Sherlock actor jumped out of his car to intervene, yelling at the men until they fled.
“Benedict was courageous, brave and selfless. If he hadn’t stepped in, the cyclist could have been seriously injured,” the cab driver, Manuel Dias, said. “He stood there instructing them in the street, shouting, ‘Leave him alone.’”
“I had hold of one lad and Benedict another. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He was very brave. He did most of it, to be honest,” continued Dias. “Here was Sherlock Holmes fighting off four attackers just round the corner from Baker Street.”
Dias also said that when the actor “asked the rider how he was and when he said, ‘I’m OK’ Benedict just hugged him.”
Cumberbatch himself gave a decidedly superhero take on the situation to the The Sun: “I did it out of…well, I had to, you know.”
h/t The Guardian