Benedict Cumberbatch covers this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, but not as you know him. The actor appears for the first time as Marvel’s Doctor Strange, nearly a year before the film is scheduled to hit theatres and it appears the actor needs all time he can get to come to grips with the famous sorcerer.

The cover shoot was one of the first times Cumberbatch had tried on his costume and the actor even used the shoot as something of a 'research-and-development session for the gesticulations which are part of his character’s spell-casting', according to the mag.

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“I’m still in the infancy of learning all that,” Cumberbatch told Entertainment Weekly. “It was like, okay, I’ve got to keep throwing these poses, these spells, these rune-casting things, everything he does physically. I’m thinking, there’s going to be a huge amount of speculation and intrigue over the positioning of that finger as opposed to it being there, or there.”

“And I’m still working on that. We haven’t played any of those scenes yet. I felt really self-conscious. But, then, by the end, it was great. It’s like anything, you just have to experiment.” Principal photography on the film only began last month, so Cumberbatch can be forgiven for still having a lot to learn about the character.

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But Cumberbatch promises that fans are in for a real treat at cinemas next November as the film contains some ‘psychedelic visual effects’. “There’s going to be crazy s— going on,” the actor added. The film, which is due for release November 2016, also stars Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Mads Mikkelsen and is directed by Scott Derrickson.