Benedict Cumberbatch Ponders Grief and Humour in New Film

ODE

Benedict Cumberbatch was in London to promote his new indie film ‘The Thing With Feathers’ at the UK Premiere during the BFI London Film Festival Gala.     An adaptation of the novel ‘Grief is The Thing With Feathers’, Benedict explained why there’s a surprising amount of comedic moments in a story of a grieving widowed father. Benedict was joined at the event by the author Max Porter, and the writer director Dylan Southern.     ‘The Thing With Feathers’ is scheduled to launch in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday 21st November. Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

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00:00No, I just think it's an exemplar of how within what we universally all will experience at some

00:05point in our lives, it is utterly chaotic, unexpected, unwelcome, unpleasant, but eventually

00:12something we have to accept. That's the kind of journey of the film. This is the very opposite

00:18of anything that teaches a lesson. I think there are sort of easy five steps of psychological

00:22solutions and a whole muck sense of the stages of grief. And anyone who's been through that

00:27knows that they get in a mighty jumble in real life. It's not that linear and clean and,

00:32you know. Well, I guess within their chaotic nature of grief in general then, I've heard

00:37a lot of people talking about how there's a lot of humour within the film too, which is

00:40something that shouldn't go hand in hand, but they massively do, don't they? Oh, they do.

00:45Oh, they do. You know, they do. I think because there's that sort of flutter in the belly,

00:52which is, it's the same, it's the diaphragmatic movement between tears and laughter. And it's

00:57sits in the body in the same place. And I think when you're in a very heightened, raw space,

01:02as in after a wake or, I mean, even within a funeral itself, something can set you off.

01:11And then there's also the sort of prohibitive nature of like, you cannot find something funny

01:14when someone you love is being buried. But I don't know. I think it does push us to the

01:20sort of extremes. And so therefore we're touch paper sensitive to everything. And whether

01:25it's the intonation of someone giving a speech or a sort of slightly misaligned phrase, as

01:31has occurred in my life, my experience of funerals, it can make you laugh. It can make you laugh.

01:37And that's, that's okay. That's okay. And a very final one from me. And the memory of

01:42the person as well. You know, you want, you want to bring out the joy of that person. So

01:46that often results in laughter as well. David Thewlis is the voice of the crowing. Yes, he is.

01:50Wonderful. Yeah. Just voice in general. Yes. Yes. Have you worked with him before? And was

01:55he there on set? Oh, I've worked with David before. I've worked with him before, yeah. David,

02:00I love David. I did a film called The Fifth Estate with him, and he played a guardian journalist.

02:04And I was Julian Assange in that. We had a lovely few interactions and scenes together in Brussels

02:10and elsewhere. Yeah, he's a phenomenal, phenomenal talent. I'm hugely fond of him. And, you know,

02:14a real inspiration. His performance in Naked was one of the things I sat in the audience of and went,

02:18I want to do that. I want, that's the, that's the, that's the goal. That's the kind of mountain

02:23that you want to climb. That's the reason why you want to be an actor is to have a challenge

02:27like that and to be as good as that, you know. How did he react when you told him that back

02:32in the day? David, if I've never told you that, and I hope I have, that you're hearing it now

02:36on IT. So...

02:38That's just me. Who are doing the L?

02:45It's been a ten-year journey. Like Odysseus. Exactly like Odysseus, yeah.

02:56I mean, yeah, so he, he, he acquired the rights to adapt the book, which I wrote, uh, ten years

03:02ago almost to the day. Oh, wow. So we've been collaborating for 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

03:07Fair friendship at this point, I guess. Can't stand each other.

03:10You can tell, you can tell. Yeah, no, it's all good. Uh, and actually the, the process

03:15has been so film oriented. Dylan will send film comparisons, actors work, like soundtracks

03:22all the time. So actually to be at home in London, the film is set and shot in London, written

03:28in London. Uh, so yeah, to be here in the kind of home of London film, showing it tonight

03:32is to our friends and families magic. Are we having any more opportunities to take this

03:36film international? I know that it's already been shown at a few international as well.

03:39Like, are you going to showcase the London that you love across the world as well? Yeah.

03:43I mean, we, we, we started at, uh, Sundance. We went to Berlin. We've been to various festivals

03:48in between, going to Spain on Monday, and then it gets its international release at the

03:53end of November. But, um, it's so important to me that it's shown here at the BFO London Film

03:58Festival because I come here every year. I religiously like sort of get the program

04:03and book every ticket and then find I can't go and I'm gifting tickets to people because

04:08like I, I just spend such a lot of money on this festival. So it's about time they gave

04:13something back. Just, just the point is all he's after. Yeah, anything, you know, so this

04:19will do. This is, this is good. This is a pretty good reward. Yeah. It was also, this is

04:23my spiritual home. So I'm an, I'm an associate artist at the South Bank. So for the next three

04:27years, this is my cultural and, uh, creative home. So to kick it off with this is magical.

04:33Yeah. Um, so let's talk about the casting of, uh, Benedict, our lead for this. Um, everyone

04:38always says, Oh, why is that Benedict in mind when I wrote the script? Is that, is that the

04:42case in this? Or actually did he, did you just come to him later on when the character kind

04:46of like, um, I, I sort of never had any specific person in mind when I was writing it because, you

04:54know, I read Max's book and I probably saw myself, you know, it's like, it's, uh, you,

04:59which is the great thing about Max's writing. Is it so empathetic? You kind of just put yourself

05:05in that position, but, um, it happens. I, I was working on this for ages, uh, and just

05:12wanted to get a script in order to send to somebody. And it was round about the time that

05:16the script was finished that I heard that Benedict was a huge fan of the book and it was, well,

05:20let's take a punt, you know, um, first time filmmaker, uh, it's a low budget indie film.

05:25You'll probably say no, but let's just send it to him. And it was such a fast response.

05:30Like he, he read it. He wanted to meet me to make sure I wasn't, you know, dangerous or,

05:34you know, weird or anything, but we met and got, got both quite a large measure, but we got

05:42along and, um, yeah, it just happened very fast. You know, after a long period of like not

05:48knowing whether the film would ever get made when someone like Benedict comes on board,

05:51it suddenly seems like a serious proposition. And he gets it. Well, I mean, the film is

05:56testament to this, but he gets it as an actor, he gets it as a reader, he gets it as an English

06:01person, he gets it as a dad. So he's, he's perfectly positioned to take this to, to, to the,

06:07to the place that only film can take it. If you see what I mean? Like the adaptation requires

06:12Crow to bump to become Crow, dad to become dad, you know? So yeah, some kind of alchemy happened

06:17when he got on board. And, uh, this may be a really boring, rubbish question. Sorry,

06:20but I'm very just curious somewhere between when you have the story and then you had the

06:24story, we lost grief is just in the title of the book to the film. Why? What was the reasoning

06:29for changing the title of us lately? Yeah. What is it? Well, I mean, I'm going to be honest

06:33that there was a, there was some doubt from financiers whether people would go to see a film

06:40with grief is in the title, um, which I never agreed with because this is a film about grief. Uh,

06:45it's a book about grief, you know, taking it out of the title was not something that I would have

06:51chose to do, but you know, I think it opens it up, you know, obviously the, the title is an allusion

06:57to Emily Dickinson's poem, which is hope is the thing with feathers. And I think, you know,

07:01with the title of this film, you can kind of like take both of those, you know, and it's a very

07:08different adaptation to previous adaptations. You know, there's been theater adaptations around the

07:12world. So I think actually it makes it its own thing and introduces a kind of ambivalence around

07:17what, what is the thing, which, which we like. Yeah. Also, if physical media was still popular,

07:23it would be next to the thing in the racks, which is, you know, which is really, you know,

07:28I like that. That's smart thinking. Yeah.

07:34Yeah. I think it's very important to sort of stand up front center for a small independent film

07:37like this. We don't have a huge publicity budget. It's not a question of kind of occupying cultural

07:42space and making the usual kind of loud noise. It's much better to turn up and have people see

07:47the film, discuss it and spread the word themselves through that experience. So therefore it's a more

07:52intimate collegiate and collaborative and communal experience, which I love with, with, with film

07:57festivals. That's, that's why they breathe such life into the idea of what we watch in the dark next

08:03to strangers. And this, you know, this is a film about grief. It's something that we bring something

08:08out into the open. That's not taboo, but we don't have much culture for it. We don't have much depth

08:14of language or ritual in our society, in this country, at least beyond awaken a memorial, perhaps,

08:20and the funeral itself. And we need that. We need that. And part of Max's imagination is

08:26displaying how chaotic it is when we don't have that, you know, this unruly unexpected and unwelcome

08:32visitor, which is pro, which is both an obsession of his work, but manifestation in some ways of

08:39the unexpected nature and twists and turns that grief as a ride is. And so, you know, for what it's

08:45about, as well as the kind of film and the scale of film, it's very important for it to have a life

08:50in a festival. And briefly, it's a London set movie. It is a London set movie, that's true. I mean, we're not,

08:55you know, it's not sort of red buses and, you know, beef heaters and palaces, but it's, it's,

09:02it's a very honest portrayal of a milieu of, you know, a North London flat that I'm very familiar

09:08with. Um, so yeah, it's, it's quite nice to be in that space as well. Yeah.

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