Benedict Cumberbatch’s grief is the thing with feathers. The actor stars as a father who is mourning the death of his wife in Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Dylan Southern’s upcoming film adaptation of Max Porter’s book. At Sundance 2025, Cumberbatch reflected on what drew him to this project, which he also executive produced. “It was something I very much wanted to have out there in the culture because male grief and the way it’s examined — I think especially in British cultures — is quite limited,” he told Vulture. “You imagine what that is in its usual format in an indie film, and this is a very, very unique and different take on all the colors of grief.” How different? For starters, the movie features a talking crow that Cumberbatch described as a “manifestation of an internal feeling” that has become real. “He’s everything from an amanuensis to Mary Poppins to a full horror trope to an annoying best friend to a therapist,” the actor explained.
Cumberbatch, who said this role is “far closer” to him than a lot of other characters he’s portrayed, agreed with Southern’s perspective that grief isn’t something you can just get over or expect to remain at the same level throughout various points in your life. “It’s not always in the full face of the storm at the funeral, at the moment of death, or even the few days after that loss,” the actor said. “That absence that’s felt, and how that destroys any kind of semblance of normality in a life that’s relied on, that presence, that person, is now gone […] It’s learning to live with the scar, the knot in the rope of your life.” Whew.
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