Benedict Cumberbatch's parents begged him not to follow in their actor footsteps

Despite warnings from his successful actor parents Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, Benedict Cumberbatch followed the family path to stardom with "Sherlock."

"I was, if anything pressured the other way, like, 'Don't do what we're doing. It's a stupid way to spend a life,'" he recalled during Monday's episode of "SmartLess," before adding, "'And how family life is a chaotic jumble of loose-end commitments that have to be abandoned at the last minute because dad's got an advert audition.'"

"They did really, really well in their careers. Mom, especially commercially. Dad, brilliantly as well in the theater. He did a lot of the royal court in the early days of kitchen sink drama there. But the point is, you know, they … wanted me to have the opportunities that they didn't, or that they didn't have in their life as my parents. And they afforded me an education where I could have gone on to be a lawyer or something of that."