There’s Only 1 Role Benedict Cumberbatch Wouldn’t Play Ever Again
The actor says he would like to forget it, and we kinda agree.
A theatre kid that made it to big screens and has over the years become Hollywood’s darling, Benedict Cumberbatch has plenty of truly iconic roles under his belt — but bad roles can happen to good actors too, and he isn’t an exception either.
With Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange set to return in a couple of Marvel’s upcoming movies and Sherlock ’s possible fifth season that remains in negotiation mode for years now, the actor is likely to revisit some of his most famous characters, but there’s at least one he will never dare portray again.
In this case it will be fair to say that Cumberbatch’s performance has nothing to do with it (some might think it was iconic too), and the main problem, according to the actor himself, lies in him just being a bad fit for the role.
Benedict Cumberbatch Regrets Taking On That Role in Zoolander 2
In a video posted by Variety where the actor went through some of his most notable performances, Cumberbatch revealed that he would never come back to the role of the non-binary model he portrayed in the Ben Stiller-directed and led action comedy Zoolander 2.
According to the actor, he “had to apologize for that quite a lot, so it’s a difficult one to talk about”, though he still admitted he had fun working with both Stiller and Owen Wilson who also had a leading role in the film.
However, “it got complicated, it got misunderstood, and I upset people and I respect that,” Cumberbatch continued, later on saying that a trans actor would be a much better fit for the role, though, considering all circumstances, it wasn’t an option back in the day.
Cumberbatch’s Role Was a Part of Zoolander 2’s Flop
Upon its release back in 2016, the movie was slammed by the LGBTQ+ community whose activists called Zoolander 2 “cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals.”
Anyway, it’s very unlikely that the film would do much better if it wasn’t for Cumberbatch’s controversial role. Critics were generally tough with the flick, crashing it for the script that tried to promote bad ideas with some help from the star-studded cast.
Zoolander 2 landed disheartening scores of 22% and 20% from critics and the audience, also becoming a major box office flop with $56 million earned against a $55 million budget.
