For most male actors being a heartthrob is just something that comes with the territory, but it seems Benedict Cumberbatch hasn’t quite got his head around having millions of girls throwing admiration his way.

“It’s interesting and it’s something I’m processing,” Benedict told The Daily Mirror. “It’s new to me and I’m sure I’ll get used to it and find a way of dealing with it, but at the moment, it is quite odd.

“Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.”

Despite the attention, the Sherlock Holmes star admits that he is too shy to approach women. He said, “I’m not confident in social situations, just going up to someone in a bar and saying ‘hi’ is going to be even more difficult because they won’t know the real me. They will just know me as a fictional person I play on the screen.”

Benedict revealed that his parents (both actors) weren’t chuffed when he told them he wanted to be an actor too. He said, “They wanted me to do a grown-up job and be a barrister. But they understood my decision. I was at university playing Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus when my dad told me, ‘You’re better than I ever was, or will be. You’ll have a good time doing this. I’m going to support you’.

“It was a huge thing for a father to say to his son. It was very humbling and moving. One of the reasons I get out of bed in the morning and try to do my best each day is to make them proud.”

As well as playing Sherlock, Benedict played Major Jamie Stewart in War Horse, which is now out on DVD.