"I was fine with it": When Star Trek Into Darkness star Benedict Cumberbatch talked about whether it was a mistake to keep Khan a secret

In 2013, Star Trek Into Darkness made Benedict Cumberbatch a part of the Star Trek universe. He was reportedly cast in 2012, around the time he started to become a household name for his role in the BBC's Sherlock. In this iconic role, Cumberbatch solved famously unsolvable mysteries, and the world gasped at his every other reveal. Just then, he bagged another iconic role as Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. However, until the film hit the theaters, it was kept a secret.

Back then, director JJ Abrams and his team decided to keep Cumberbatch's "Khan" identity a secret. Instead, his character was revealed to be Commander John Harrison, and throughout the promotional tour, the cast was told not to spill the beans. Cumberbatch was also not featured on the official poster for Star Trek Into Darkness. However, it showed a dark and mysterious figure, who was speculated to be Cumberbatch. All of it was supposed to build suspense about his secret identity.

What did Benedict Cumberbatch say about the "big reveal" from Star Trek Into Darkness?

When Star Trek Into Darkness was released, Benedict Cumberbatch had not hopped on his MCU train as Doctor Strange. He was only one film into The Hobbit saga. So, he was not exactly used to withholding such details about his characters as he is now. Therefore, he might have been frustrated by the secrecy.

Well, this "big reveal" did not go over well with all the Star Trek fans, and even though the critics shared an overall favorable response, they were not sure why the surprise mattered so much. Some of their reviews reportedly spoiled this aspect of the character, while other reviewers tried to be as vague as possible.

As a result, after the film's release, JJ Abrams hinted in an interview that he regrets this marketing choice. He told MTV:

"The truth is, I think it probably would have been smarter just to say upfront, 'This is who it is.' It was only trying to preserve the fun of it, and it might have given more time to acclimate and accept that's what the thing was."

After that, Cumberbatch was asked about the secrecy around his character during an interview with IGN. Referring to Abrams, the actor jokingly said:

"What a di*head. I mean, all the times we had to lie for him, the amount of times we had to not talk about it being my character."

However, he further acknowledged that it might have made sense for the marketing team to lead with that mystery about his identity as Khan:

"Maybe, it's logistics [of it]. I don't know if it's a good or bad call but I was fine with it. I liked the idea. The intention was to have a reveal in the audience that was going to be thrilling, where people go, 'Ah! Really?' And that worked to an extent because not everyone knew that when they went into the theaters."

He further added:

"Some people wanted to join in that thrill of experiencing it [for the first time] in the theater rather than having it spoiled them by reviews or the internet gossip or trailers that gave everything away. So, I would say, it was a good thing."

The actor added his first-hand experience of fans gasping at this big surprise in Star Trek Into Darkness:

"I was sat in a couple of theaters. I saw the end of it in the UK when I was doing press and I saw all of it in the State and both times it was like: 'Yeah!' It was a verbal and physical reaction to it. So, it works.

However, he acknowledged that there were other ways to find out about his identity in Star Trek Into Darkness:

"For anyone else who wants to find out, there are always ways to find it out [since] people have their hunches."

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