Benedict Cumberbatch finds it awkward when men fancy his mother.

The Star Trek Into Darkness star's mom Wanda Ventham has appeared in a number of British TV shows and he admitted he doesn't know how to react when he's told she is "hot."

"I've been trapped with men in elevators who say to me, 'Oh... I really used to like your mum. She's really hot.' I don't know what to say. If I say, 'No, she's not', that is really insulting to my mother, and if I say she is, it seems very wrong. She is smokin', I guess," he said.

The British actor - who also stars in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - admitted people in the United States can't quite get their head around pronouncing his name. As well as its spelling, he joked fans sometimes confuse it for a sexually transmitted disease: "Some people don't understand my name. Some people think it is an STD, but I don't think that is what my parents were thinking about when they christened me."