Benedict and Sophie attended the premiere for The Power of the Dog at the 2021 AFI Fest last night alongside director Jane Campion, actors Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee, editor Peter Sciberras and cinematographer Ari Wegner. The screening was followed by a Q&A moderated by actress Kathryn Hahn.
Check out more about the event below:
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EVENTS & APPEARANCES > PREMIERES & SCREENINGS > 2021 > 11.11 – ‘THE POWER OF THE DOG’ PREMIERE AT THE 2021 AFI FEST
EVENTS & APPEARANCES > PREMIERES & SCREENINGS > 2021 > 11.11 – ‘THE POWER OF THE DOG’ PREMIERE AT THE 2021 AFI FEST – INSIDE + Q&A
EVENTS & APPEARANCES > PREMIERES & SCREENINGS > 2021 > 11.11 – ‘THE POWER OF THE DOG’ PREMIERE AT THE 2021 AFI FEST – AFTER PARTY
Quotes from/about Benedict from the event, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:
I fucking love my job, and we’re so lucky to do it. There’s so much catharsis in what we do.
Whatever you go to or whatever you use of yourself, forget pain. You’re able to express pain. How often are you able to do that if you experience real pain in life in those situations?
Benedict
Ben and I talked about it, and I could see that he felt a lot of pressure at befriending every member of the crew and that just was not going to serve him, me or the film. I said, ‘Look, we should do this old school, and you should stay in character.’ He was nervous that everyone would hate him, but I said that does not matter. It doesn’t matter to Phil, and it’s not going to matter to you.”
Jane Campion
I said, ‘This is Ben. He’s really nice, but you’ll find that out at the end.’”
Jane Campion explaining how she introduced Benedict to the cast and crew
Obviously, Benedict is so far from the character that he plays, Phil, who is quite cruel in his nature and narcissistic and has a lot of trauma in him. Benedict is an apologetic, lighthearted, beautiful, fuzzy Englishman. It was amazing to see that spectrum, but if anything, it really had a very positive domino effect on us all, in terms of actors and on the set overall, to stay in a certain mood and to keep it in this kind of hostile nature. We needed that to convey these messages that are very strong within the story. I enjoyed it.
Kodi Smit-McPhee
I felt incredibly held aloft by Jane. I’ve never worked so closely in parallel with a director to find the resources to play a character but to also to delve into the psyche of a character to curate something with care and ownership and reverence for the original material,
Benedct
I’m literally exposing myself in this film, and that’s interesting. But I guess the most painful thing to me, if I’m fucking honest, is trying to pretend I can play the banjo. [My character] is someone who has done it all their life, and I’m trying to master it in 4 weeks or something stupid. That’s tough.
Benedict
