The Thing With Feathers： Benedict Cumberbatch on Finding Humour at Funerals

No, I just think it's an exemplar of how, within what we universally all will experience at some point in our lives, it is utterly chaotic, unexpected, unwelcome, unpleasant, but eventually something we have to accept. That's the kind of journey of the film. This is the very opposite of anything that teaches a lesson. I think there are sort of easy five steps of psychological solutions in a hallmark sense of the stages of grief, and anyone who's been through that knows that they get in a mighty jumble in real life. It's not that linear and clean and, you know. Well, I guess within their chaotic nature of grief in general then, I've heard a lot of people talking about how there's a lot of humour within the film too, which is something grief and humour shouldn't go hand in hand, but they massively do, don't they? Oh, they do. Oh, they do. You know, they do. I think because there's that sort of flutter in the belly, which is, it's the diaphragmatic movement between tears and laughter, and it sits in the body in the same place. And I think when you're in a very heightened, raw space, as in after a wake or, I mean, even within a funeral itself, something can set you off. And then there's also the sort of prohibitive nature of, like, you cannot find something funny when someone you love is being buried. But, I don't know. I think it does push us to the sort of extremes. And so, therefore, we're touch paper sensitive to everything. And whether it's the intonation of someone giving a speech or a sort of slightly misaligned phrase, as has occurred in my life, my experience of funerals, it can make you laugh. It can make you laugh. And that's OK. That's OK. And a very final one for me. And the memory of the person as well. You know, you want to bring out the joy of that person. So that often results in laughter as well. David Thewliss is the voice of the Guardian. Yes, he is, he is. Wonderful. Just voice in general. Yes, yes. Have you worked with him before? And was he there on set? Oh, I've worked with David before. I've worked with him before, yeah. David, I love David. I did a film called The Fifth Estate with him, and we had a lovely few interactions and scenes together in Brussels and elsewhere. Yeah, he's a phenomenal, phenomenal talent. I'm hugely fond of him. And, you know, a real inspiration, his performance in Naked was one of the things I sat in the audience of and went, I want to do that. That's the goal. That's the kind of mountain that you want to climb. That's the reason why you want to be an actor, is to have a challenge like that and to be as good as that. How did he react when you told him that back in the day? David, if I'd never told you that, and I hope I have, that you're hearing it now on ITN. It's been a 10-year journey. Like Odysseus. Exactly like Odysseus, yeah. Yeah, so he acquired the rights to adapt the book, which I wrote 10 years ago, almost, to the day. Oh, wow, so you've been collaborating for 10 years now. Yeah. Firm friendship at this point, I guess. Can't stand each other. Yeah, no, it's all good. And actually, the process has been so film-oriented. Dylan will send film comparisons, actors' work, soundtracks all the time. So, actually, to be at home in London, the film is set and shot in London, written in London. So, yeah, to be here in the home of London film, showing it tonight, is, to our friends and families, magic. Are we having any more opportunities to take this film international? I know that it's already been shown at a few international as well. Are you going to showcase the London that you love across the world as well? Yeah, I mean, we started at Sundance, we went to Berlin, we've been to various festivals in between, going to Spain on Monday. And then it gets its international release at the end of November. But it's so important to me that it's shown here at the BFI London Film Festival, because I come here every year. I religiously get the program and book every ticket and then find I can't go and I'm gifting tickets to people. Because I just spend such a lot of money on this festival. So, it's about time they gave something back. Just a pint is all he's after. Anything. So, this will do. This is good. This is a pretty good reward. This is my spiritual home. So, I'm an associate artist at the South Bank. So, for the next three years, this is my cultural and creative home. So, to kick it off with this is magical. So, let's talk about the casting of Benedict, our lead for this. Everyone always says, oh, why was that Benedict in mind when I wrote the script? Is that the case in this? Or did you just come to him later on when the character became available? I never had any specific person in mind when I was writing it. Because I read Max's book and I probably saw myself. Which is the great thing about Max's writing. It's so empathetic. You kind of just put yourself in that position. I was working on this for ages and just wanted to get a script in order to send to somebody. And it was round about the time that the script was finished that I heard that Benedict was a huge fan of the book. And it was, well, let's take a punt. First time filmmaker. It's a low-budget indie film. He'll probably say no, but let's just send it to him. And it was such a fast response. He read it. He wanted to meet me to make sure I wasn't dangerous or weird or anything. But we met and got... Both in quite a large measure. But we got along and it just happened very fast. After a long period of not knowing whether the film would ever get made, when someone like Benedict comes on board, it suddenly seems like a serious proposition. And he gets it. Well, I mean, the film is testament to this, but he gets it as an actor. He gets it as a reader. He gets it as an English person. He gets it as a dad. So he's perfectly positioned to take this to the place that only film can take it, if you see what I mean. The adaptation requires Crow to become Crow, Dad to become Dad. So, yeah, some kind of alchemy happened when he got on board. And this may be a really boring rubbish question, sorry, but I'm very just curious. Somewhere between when you have a story and then you have a story, we lost three things. Yeah, what is it? Well, I'm going to be honest. There was some doubt from financiers whether people would go to see a film with grief is in the title. Which I never agreed with, because this is a film about grief. It's a book about grief. Taking it out of the title was not something that I would have chose to do. But I think it opens it up. Obviously, the title is an allusion to Emily Dickinson's poem, which is Hope is the Thing with Feathers. And I think with the title of this film, you can kind of take both of those. And it's a very different adaptation to previous adaptations. There's been theatre adaptations around the world. So I think actually it makes it its own thing and introduces a kind of ambivalence around what is the thing, which we like. Also, if physical media was still popular, it would be next to the thing in the racks, which is really... That's smart thinking, yeah. I think it's very important to stand up front and centre for a small independent film like this. We don't have a huge publicity budget. It's not a question of occupying a cultural space and making the usual kind of loud noise. It's much better to turn up and have people see the film, discuss it and spread the word themselves through that experience. So therefore, it's a more intimate, collegiate, collaborative and communal experience, which I love with film festivals. That's why they breathe such life into the idea of what we watch in the dark next to strangers. And this is a film about grief. We bring something out into the open that's not taboo, but we don't have much culture for it. We don't have much depth of language or ritual in our society, in this country at least. Beyond the wake and the memorial, perhaps, and the funeral itself. And we need that. We need that. And part of Max's imagination is displaying how chaotic it is when you don't have that. This unruly, unexpected and unwelcome visitor, which is Crow, which is both an obsession of his work, but a manifestation in some ways of the unexpected nature and twists and turns that grief as a ride is. For what it's about, as well as the kind of film and the scale of film, it's very important for it to have a life in the festival. And briefly, it's a London-set movie. It is a London-set movie, that's true. It's not red buses and beef eaters and palaces, but it's a very honest portrayal of a milieu of a North London flat that I'm very familiar with. So yeah, it's quite nice to be in that space as well. Music by Ben Thede