Benedict Cumberbatch said Monday that he's an "idiot" for using the word "colored" to refer to his black colleagues during an interview with PBS host Tavis Smiley.
"I'm devastated to have caused offense by using this outmoded terminology," the British star of The Imitation Game said in a statement to People.
Cumberbatch, 38, used the term during a conversation about the lack of roles for non-white actors in British cinema.
"I think as far as colored actors go it gets really different in the U.K., and a lot of my friends have had more opportunities here [in the U.S.] than in the U.K., and that's something that needs to change," he told Smiley last week.