Benedict Cumberbatch has joined the ranks of Hollywood’s A-list, but he almost didn’t make it there. In a new interview, the Star Trek Into Darkness and Sherlock star recalled the most traumatic experience of his life, when he was nearly abducted in South Africa in 2005.

Cumberbatch spoke with The Hollywood Reporter for its new cover story and he actually teared up as he gave the details about the incident.

It happened while he was working on the miniseries To The Ends of the Earth. He and a friend were driving in the Durban district of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. “It was cold, and it was dark. I felt rotten. We were wary because that's a notoriously dangerous place to drive,” he said. Suddenly, one of the tires popped. “So we got the spare, but that meant getting all of our luggage out. We were like sitting ducks, adverts for -- not prosperity necessarily but materialism.”

Then, six armed men popped out of nowhere, asking them for drugs, money and weapons. “And at that point, this adrenaline of fight or flight just exploded in my body. I was like, 'Oh f---, we're f---ed!'”

They drove off with cumberbatch and his friend, bound. When he started complaining that he was losing feeling in his hands, they pulled him and threw him in their trunk. Then, in the middle of the road, they stopped and let him out. But he was still shaking in terror. "I was scared, really scared,” he told THR. “I said: 'What are you going to do with us? Are you going to kill us?' I was really worried that I was going to get raped or molested or just tortured or toyed with in some way, some act of control and savagery."

He then said the incident gave him new respect for living. “It's incredibly important,” he said.

According to the New York Daily News, this isn’t the first time he’s talked about the incident to the press. “I kind of thank God I had the presence of mind to give them the idea that it would be better to keep me alive,” he told BRitain’s Daily Star last year. “It taught me that you come into this world as you leave it, on your own. It's made me want to live a life slightly less ordinary."

This fall, Cumberbatch can be seen in 12 Years A Slave, The Fifth Estate and August: Osage County.

image: The Hollywood Reporter cover