Benedict Cumberbatch is reflecting on a controversial previous screen role — one he “wouldn’t do” now.
In Ben Stiller’s 2016 comedy Zoolander 2, Cumberbatch, 48, played All, a character described as a non-binary fashion model. “It’s a difficult one to talk about,” the British actor said of the role in a video interview with Variety published in January.
“I’ve had to apologize for that quite a lot,” he said when quizzed about whether he remembered one of his lines in Zoolander 2. The character’s unveiling in a 2015 trailer prompted backlash from LGBTQ activists at the time, who spoke out against the movie’s apparent jokes surrounding the character’s gender.
“I love that group of people,” Cumberbatch continued of director-star Stiller, costars Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell and more, who reunited after 2001’s hit Zoolander. “It was the chance to sort of be part of something that the first time around was iconic and I was a huge fan of.”
But, he added, playing All “got complicated and it got misunderstood and I upset people. And I respect that, so I probably wouldn’t do that again now.”
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Speaking to Zoolander 2 costar Penélope Cruz in a 2022 Variety interview, the Oscar nominee acknowledged there was “a lot of contention around the role… in this era, my role would never be performed by anybody other than a trans actor.”
Last April, Stiller, 59, recalled that the negative response to the long-awaited Zoolander 2 was “blindsiding” in an interview with PEOPLE. “What scared me the most on that one was l’m losing what I think what’s funny, the questioning yourself … It definitely affected me for a long time.”
Cumberbatch has several screen projects in the works, including Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme and Jay Roach’s The Roses. The Thing with Feathers, from writer-director Dylan Southern and starring the actor as a grieving father haunted by a giant crow, had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 25.
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