Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
Published November 22, 2025 7:00am
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Benedict Cumberbatch explores the theme of grief in drama The Thing with Feathers (Picture: Getty)
Benedict Cumberbatch is teaching me how to cry like a pro.
‘What makes me despair is when you see actors going like this, like they’re trying to squeeze something out…’ He screws up his face, casting his eyes towards the heavens and does some hilariously agonised gurning. ‘They’re attempting to be all “lost in grief”, but no! No! Because you’re actually just shutting everything off.’
Crying on demand is something the Marvel Universe icon had to do a lot of in his new film, the Thing with Feathers, about a graphic novelist whose wife dies suddenly, leaving him to bring up his two young sons.
The secret to A-list sobbing, apparently, is using the same muscle that you laugh with.
‘I said this once to Tom Holland,’ Cumberbatch says, referring to his Spider-Man: No Way Home co-star. ‘And then Tom told everyone: “Ben gets himself to cry by laughing”. I don’t, but it’s using the same diaphragmatic part. You need to stay open, relax, breathe out deeply, manifest a thought, and then start feeding and feeding and feeding that thought as you generate this engine of emotion’. He starts to well up – then breaks off with a grin. ‘Acting is a weird f*****g job, isn’t it?!’
Energetic gum-chewing aside, the two-time Oscar nominee is on remarkably relaxed and jolly form today when we meet at the Soho Hotel. He’s looking cosy, styled in a rather lovely Prada Jumper (which I mentally put on my husband’s Christmas list, until I realise it costs over £2,000).
‘If you don’t want to see a film about grief, then don’t see this film,’ Benedict warns (Picture: Briarcliff Entertainment)
It’s been a nice break for Cumberbatch to play a relatively ‘normal’ chap in Thing With Feathers (Picture:BFI London Film Festival)
He’s joined on the sofa by Dylan Southern, the modest writer/director of Thing With Feathers, a daring adaptation of Max Porter’s award-winning bestseller. The book has already inspired a stage play (starring Cillian Murphy), a puppet show, a mime performance and an entire album of minimalist drone music. But it was widely considered unfilmable, mainly because one of its lead characters is an 8-foot-high, talking crow.
This led to early excited online reactions to the trailer, dubbing it ‘the movie where Benedict Cumberbatch battles a giant crow!’ which is crazily overselling the man vs beast action dimension. ‘I would watch that film though,’ chuckles Southern. ‘I would too! But maybe with Godzilla’s budget,’ agrees Cumberbatch.
Still, budget restraints can be a blessing. The ‘Crow’ of a Thing With Feathers is all the more distinctive and interesting for not being created with costly CGI effects. Designed by sculptor Nichola Hicks and performed by actor Eric Lampaert, ‘Crow’ is a unique, clawed and feathered personification of grief, with a very sarcastic edge, thanks to the voice talents of David Thewlis (best known as Professor Lupin in the Harry Potter franchise).
‘Crow had to feel terrifyingly real, rather than something dreamt up by AI,’ explains Cumberbatch, who produced the film with his company, Sunny March. ‘He is violent and unruly and messy. Something you can properly crash into, like a sofa or a chair.’
It’s all a world away from the multi-billion dollar Marvel Universe, which Cumberbatch is rumoured to be returning to soon, as Doctor Strange, despite letting slip that he won’t be appearing in Avengers: Doomsday, out in May 2026. And it proved a nice break for Cumberbatch to play a relatively ‘normal’ chap in Thing With Feathers, given he’s typically cast as an eccentric genius, such as trailblazing computer scientist Alan Turing or ambidextrous visionary artist Louis Wain.
‘Yes, there’s been a lot of “otherness’’,’ the 49-year-old North Londoner agrees of his back catalogue. ‘The character of Dad is not far off me. I am a father now and an Englishman of a certain age and it was very relatable: culturally, age-wise and the milieu.’ As Crow mockingly puts it, Dad (which is how the unnamed lead character is referred to) is a ‘middle-class, middle-aged Guardian-reading, beard-stroking, farmers’ market’ type of guy.
‘So, this time it’s not me with an accent or a wig or a cloak or a magnifying glass – though I don’t think I actually used a magnifying glass as Sherlock,’ he muses. ‘But you know what I mean! There’s not much dressing up, really. It is me.’
Except, it isn’t quite. As an actor, he ‘always’ draws on a well of personal experience.
Cumberbatch stars alongside Henry Boxall and Richard Boxall in The Thing with Feathers (Picture: Getty)
Crying on demand is something the actor had to do a lot of in his new film (Picture: Getty)
‘I’m nearly 50,’ he points out. ‘And I’ve experienced grief. Not of my partner, thank God,’ he is married to the theatre director, Sophie Hunter, whom he has three children with. ‘But some pretty profound moments, as we all do in life.’ Was he thinking, for example, of his half-sister, Tracey, who died of cancer four years ago, as Dad is crying at the very start of Thing With Feathers? ‘No, I was just placing myself in an imaginary space and thinking purely of the character.’
It was clearly an emotional shoot. Director Dylan Southern recalls when Jess, his first assistant director, had to walk off set during a scene where Dad smells a jumper that belonged to his beloved late wife. ‘That moment particularly affected her. There was just an energy on set that was really authentic.’
All of which is, let’s be honest, likely to put some audiences off. Whereas Max Porter’s source book is titled Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, the ‘G’ word has been notably dropped from its movie version, much to the annoyance of the filmmakers.
‘I hated taking grief out of the title’, admits Cumberbatch. ‘If you don’t want to see a film about grief, then don’t see this film. Maybe it’s too close to something you have experienced.
Cumberbatch with theatre director wife Sophie Hunter (Picture: Getty)
‘I’m not going to sit here and sell the film as something else. But if you can step into it, step into it. Because this is about something we, unfortunately, will all need to go through at some point. And, I’m giving a gender generalisation here, there’s an acceptance that English Men of A Certain Age are more likely to go “No, I’m alright. I’m good. I’m coping”, and take grief away and hide it.
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‘This film is allowing you to understand that it’s human to be out of control, to have fear, to feel vulnerable and not know who to express it or be around other people,’ Southern agrees. ‘I’ve had an incredible reaction from audiences who have found this illuminating and cathartic,’ he explains. ‘We wanted to make a kind film and I hope it’s a kind film.’
It is. But best to bring tissues.
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The Thing With Feathers will be released in UK and Ireland cinemas from November 21.
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