"I Like A Challenge": Benedict Cumberbatch Explains How His New Movie Turned Into A Horror Film Based On A Dramatic Novel With First-Time Director Dylan Southern

Benedict Cumberbatch is back at Sundance with the chilling and emotional new drama, The Thing with Feathers. The movie is based on Max Porter’s similarly named novel, Grief Is The Thing with Feathers, a book in which both Cumberbatch and writer/director Dylan Southern were very drawn to. The latter even spent the better part of a decade working to adapt the novel for the screen, having gotten the rights to it from Porter himself and sending his script to the two-time Oscar nominee after learning he was a fan of the book.

Cumberbatch stars in The Thing with Feathers as a graphic novelist whose world is rocked by the sudden death of his wife and the mother of his two sons. Amid his spiraling mental state, he finds himself confronted by the terrifying crow from the graphic novel he’s currently working on, though the mysterious figure may have more of a benevolent side than its gruff demeanor belies. Alongside Cumberbatch, the cast for the film includes Richard and Henry Boxall, Eric Lampaert, The Sandman‘s David Thewlis as the voice of Crow, The Lazarus Project‘s Vinette Robinson and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ Sam Spruell.

In honor of the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, ScreenRant interviewed Benedict Cumberbatch and Dylan Southern to discuss The Thing with Feathers. The latter reflected on his 10-year journey to adapt Porter’s novel, including what he found was the key to translating the book to the screen, and his experience in working with the former as both a star and producer. Cumberbatch also shared what it was about the novel that sparked his interest to produce the film, and how it stands apart from any comparisons to Eric.

Eric & The Thing With Feathers Are About “Very Different People”

Cumberbatch Also Hails Porter’s Source Material As A “Startling Original Novel”

Vincent (Benedict Cumberbatch) disheveled and looking desperate in Eric season 1

With both the film and show centering on a father whose artistic creation is coming to life in the midst of a traumatic family matter, Cumberbatch understands it could be easy to draw parallels between The Thing with Feathers and his 2023 Netflix thriller series Eric. That said, the producer/star cautions that the two couldn’t be further apart, explaining that they ultimately focus on “very different cultures” and “very different people“:

Benedict Cumberbatch: No, not at all. Very different cultures, very different people. He’s a very insular, complex, fragile Brit who’s not very outwardly expressive with his emotions and starts to come apart at the seam. So, the flare-ups, his changes in mood, and the temperature of relationships, and the testing of him as he kind of slowly becomes unraveled, is very new to him.

There’s the obvious thing of something being made real from someone’s imagination, someone’s experience of something, but it’s held as an enтιтy that’s not just haunting them, and is very present in that flat, it’s also in the children’s experience, as well. So that makes it different from this sort of relationship with Eric. There were some odd moments, like the guy operating the crow in this was called Eric, and I was like, “Okay, it’s getting ridiculous.” [Chuckles] But yeah, they’re two very different subject matters.

When reflecting on his desire to both produce and star in the film, Cumberbatch pointed to Porter’s source material being “a startling original novel“, specifically praising the “inventive” and “unique way” he explored grief through the perspective of its lead character, while also being an “unreliable narration“. He also praised Southern for changing his character’s profession to that of a graphic novel artist, as he felt it lent something new to the material:

Benedict Cumberbatch: It’s just a startling original novel. It’s just the most formally playful, inventive and kind of unique way of expressing something that’s — I think, in the milieu of middle class, middle-aged Brit, it’s quite locked away sometimes, and Max Porter, the novelist, found this amazing kind of metaphor through Ted Hughes’ poems, and this academic succession with them. He slowly realized in the book that it’s all really about the boys.

It’s an unreliable narration, it’s about their memory of what happened to their father and what it felt like being around this man who was obsessed with the crow collection of poems at the time, and with our version, Dylan had the master stroke — and he’s a really big graphic novel fan — of making my character, Dad, an illustrator, an artist who’s bringing out this book based on inspired by the crow series of poems. So, that’s an immediate extrapolation between that being tactile and realizable on the page to being something in the room. But anyway, it was amazing to play with that in real time.

And everyone’s saying, you know, two children who’ve never acted before, a man in a crow costume and a 21st century career. There’s a lot of noise to separate from, or interplay with, but make believable to the integrity or authenticity of what you’re trying to do emotionally. And that was challenging. But, that’s why I get out of bed in the morning, I like a challenge.

Southern Spent 10 Years Developing His Adaptation Of Porter’s Book

“The book’s really unusual…”

Benedict Cumberbatch with his arm in a weird position while drawing in The Thing with Feathers

While Southern has helmed documentaries, TV specials and music videos in the past, ranging from Aziz Ansari’s Buried Alive to Showtime’s Meet Me in the Bathroom, his adaptation of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers marks his feature-length directorial debut. In reflecting on his journey, the filmmaker recalls having read the novel “10 years ago” and being “blown away” by its unique exploration of its тιтular theme, which provided him with a unique challenge to translate it to screen, though praised Porter’s support during this:

Dylan Southern: I read it 10 years ago. It’s been 10 years to get from first reading the book to today, and I’d never read a book that dealt with the subjects of grief in a way that was quite so honest and quite so strange and idiosyncratic and not sentimental, but somehow really, really moving. So, I was blown away by the book. I wasn’t sure how we would make it into a film. I knew that it was a challenge that was very interesting to me. And yeah, here we are.

It was a process, really. The book’s really unusual, it’s written from three different perspectives. It’s a mixture of prose and poetry, it uses different tenses, it spans multiple years. It’s not an obvious translation to a movie story. So I think it was embracing all of those things and realizing that I could kind of take it wherever I wanted to was the thing that unlocked it, and also the support of Max. Max didn’t have to option the book to me, but he did. He was always there as much or as little as I needed him. In the end, he was blown away by the first draft, and just kept me going. He’s a really good collaborator, so it was good to have him on the side.

Continuing on from the note of collaborators, Southern also praised Cumberbatch’s dual dedication to The Thing with Feathers as both a producer and star. He recalled having a fear of living up to the Oscar nominee’s expectations, particularly as he’s “worked with some huge directors before“, though immediately had his nerves washed away upon meeting Cumberbatch and discussing his plans for the film:

Dylan Southern: It was amazing. I’ve made documentaries before, this is my first dramatic feature, so just to make my first feature with an actor of his caliber, I was kind of like, “Am I gonna meet up to his expectations?” He’s worked with some huge directors before, but he was absolutely amazing. He supported me, and he was supportive of my vision. SunnyMarch’s involvement meant that he had a vested interest in it, and it was a really, really great collaboration. All of my nerves about working with someone who had so much more experience than me were gone. We just talked as two humans about this project that we’re working on together. Yeah, it was a dream collaboration.

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