Tom Holland has recently revealed that he hated his Spider-Man: No Way Home co-star, Benedict Cumberbatch, in his new film The Power of the Dog. The Power of the Dog stars Cumberbatch as a rancher in 1925 who inspires fear in those around him until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love. The film is helmed by The Piano director Jane Campion and began streaming on Netflix in December of 2021.
It has been widely reported that Cumberbatch utilized a certain amount of method acting when portraying the rancher, Phil Burbank. To bring the character to life, Cumberbatch has admitted that he stopped bathing for quite some time. It has also been revealed that Cumberbatch gave himself nicotine poisoning on more than one occasion from all the real, hand-rolled cigarettes the actor smoked during filming. Luckily for Cumberbatch, his method acting seems to have paid off, as many have praised the transformation he has made for the film.
One such person to be blown away by Cumberbatch's performance was none other than Spider-Man himself. In a recent video posted by Netflix, Holland interviewed Cumberbatch about his experience working on The Power of the Dog. Holland admitted that when he first saw the film, he hated Cumberbatch (or rather, he hated the rancher Cumberbatch was portraying). Holland described Cumberbatch's character as "horrible and so, just, grotesque and awful." Due to his close relationship with Cumberbatch, Holland described his first reaction to Cumberbatch on-screen by stating, "Whoa, that's not the Benedict that I know. What on Earth is going on here?" See Holland's full quote below:
“When I meet you in the beginning of the film, I’m like, ‘Whoa, that’s not the Benedict that I know. What on Earth is going on here?’ For the first time in knowing you, I really, like, hated you. I thought you were horrible and so, just, grotesque and awful. As the film progresses, what I loved about it was that it has these themes of toxic masculinity and gaslighting but it explores the problem rather than the problem just being present. Not that his actions are justified in any way, but you understand why he is the way he is.”
Holland also brought up how The Power of the Dog contained themes of toxic masculinity and gaslighting. According to Holland, he was impressed by the way the film "explores the problem rather than the problem just being present." Holland went on to praise Cumberbatch's performance for helping him to "understand why he is the way he is." In response, Cumberbatch noted that it not only took his performance to pull this off, but also Campion's directing, and Thomas Savage who wrote the novel that The Power of the Dog is based upon.
It is clear that Cumberbatch put a tremendous amount of passion into his performance. According to the actor, he was committed to fully being in character, so much so that he and his co-star Dunst refused to speak on the set of The Power of the Dog. This obviously has paid off if he managed to make even someone who knows him as well as Holland dislike him in the film. Cumberbatch is famously a person who many have trouble disliking, but even the most committed Cumberbatch fan may have their strength tested when they catch The Power of the Dog on Netflix.
Source: Netflix