See 'Doctor Strange' star before he was famous

Benedict Cumberbatch's 10-year journey from buzzworthy actor with a distinct name to bona fide, top-line movie star culminates this weekend with the release of "Doctor Strange," the latest Marvel superhero extravaganza - and one that Dann Gire calls a "spectacular 3-D theatrical experience."

Before American audiences first noticed him as creepy Paul Marshall in the acclaimed 2007 adaptation of "Atonement," Cumberbatch already had five years of British TV under his belt. You can see him with "House, M.D.'s" Hugh Laurie in "Fortysomething," a 2003 comedy series, on Amazon Video. You can join him on the seas in a 2005 miniseries adaptation of William Golding's "To the Ends of the Earth" novels, where he plays a British aristocrat alongside Jared Harris ("Mad Men") and Sam Neill ("Jurassic Park"), also on Amazon Video.

2010 brought the first installments of "Sherlock," in which "Doctor Who" scribes Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss put a modern spin on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective stories. Cumberbatch and his "Hobbit" co-star, Martin Freeman, play Holmes and Watson in a series of short films available on disc and digital platforms. If you've seen all of them, fear not - three new installments are coming to WTTW Channel 11, beginning with "The Six Thatchers" on Jan. 1.

Of course, the easiest way to see Cumberbatch this weekend is to watch "Saturday Night Live" on NBC, where the actor known for dead-serious performances in movies such as "The Imitation Game" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" will show us his silly side. His episode will be the last one before the presidential election; might Cumberbatch appear in a landmark sketch with Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon) and Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin)?

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.