(NOTE LANGUAGE) As reported last week, Western movie veteran Sam Elliott isn’t a fan of Jane Campion‘s 12-time Oscar-nominated The Power of the Dog. In fact, he called it a “piece of sh**.”
Elliott was speaking with on Marc Maron‘s WTF Podcast when he voiced his dislike for the movie, commenting the ranch hands were made out to be Chippendale’s dancers. He also appeared to resent the movie’s “allusions to homosexuality.”
“It just f**king rubbed me the wrong way, pal,” the veteran actor said of the film.
One of the movie’s nominated leads, Benedict Cumberbatch, plays Phil Burbank, a character who was a gruff cowboy on the surface, but clearly had repressed his homosexuality. In an interview that was part of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts series Film Sessions, Cumberbatch didn’t name Elliott, but called it an “odd reaction,” adding, “I’m trying very hard not to say anything about [it].”
The actor explained, “These people still exist in our world. Whether it’s on our doorstep or…someone we meet in a bar or pub or on the sports field, there is aggression and anger and frustration and an inability to control or know who you are in that moment that causes damage to that person and, as we know, damage to those around them.”
He added, “There’s no harm in looking at a character to get to the root causes of that. This is a very specific case of repression, but also due to an intolerance for that true identity that Phil is that he can’t fully be.”
Cumberbatch noted, “The more we look under the hood of toxic masculinity and try to discover the root causes of it, the bigger chances we have of dealing with it when it arises with our children.”
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