{"id":156466,"date":"2025-11-27T23:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156466\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:06:07","slug":"benedict-cumberbatch-tells-irish-audience-that-actors-must-lead-climate-activism-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156466\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedict Cumberbatch tells Irish audience that actors must lead climate activism \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actors can exist in a \u201cbubble\u201d untroubled by real world issues, but Benedict Cumberbatch<\/a> told an Irish audience his profession needed to use its star power to shine a light on the climate crisis<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The award-winning leading man, known for roles including Sherlock<\/a> and Dr Strange<\/a>, was in Dublin speaking about his activism and how to use an entertainment stage as a platform for change. <\/p>\n

Mr Cumberbatch said the climate action movement needed a Will and Grace style show to get the issue into resistant homes and mindsets. <\/p>\n

He praised the hit television comedy that ran between 1998 and 2000 for normalising gay relationships and said film and television had the potential to do the same for climate. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe less heavy-handed the better, that\u2019s what we\u2019ve learned,\u201d he said, adding that the environmental movement had been \u201chijacked by politics\u201d early on. <\/p>\n

\u201cWill and Grace is a great model for gay rights. That got the idea of same-sex marriage into Republican homes. That pushed the vote.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said producers could do similar for climate by small adjustments to scripts and scenes. <\/p>\n

\u201cInduction hobs in the back of the shot instead of gas cookers. An electric car instead of a luxury combustible engine. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that subliminal messaging, it\u2019s creating a norm.\u201d <\/p>\n

Green Rider<\/p>\n

Mr Cumberbatch supports the Green Rider movement started by TV and film professionals to try to eliminate waste in the industry. He said he had seen entire replica streets torn down and dumped in skips after filming, while the food waste on sets was massive. <\/p>\n

He encouraged influential people in the industry to push for upcycling of sets, less meat in catering and electrical generators instead of diesel. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese can be riders, these can be contractual. You can say, I don\u2019t need to travel by private jet,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can look after my privacy and security getting me to and from the plane and I can fly commercial. <\/p>\n

\u201cOr I don\u2019t need to travel this journey in a car. I\u2019d much rather be in a train. I can stretch my legs, do some work. <\/p>\n

\u201cWorried about public interaction? Then send me with a security detail.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr Cumberbatch was a guest speaker at the annual AIB Sustainability Conference. <\/p>\n

Known for human rights activism since he joined the Stop the War Coalition opposed to the war on Iraq in 2003, he said he had become particularly concerned about the environment and climate change following the birth of his children. <\/p>\n

Now a father of three boys, he said he wanted to teach them about the challenges the world faced without \u201calarming them into anxiety\u201d. <\/p>\n

With his wider audience, he said he also had to avoid proselytising and confrontation as social media was fuelling \u201chorrific polarities\u201d in public discussion. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe chief thing that\u2019s levelled at a lot of us in the creative industries is the hypocrisy of us standing for environmental issues and social justice when so much of our time is spent in a privileged bubble of infantilisation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said there was some hypocrisy in his own extensive travel when at the same time he was speaking out about climate. <\/p>\n

But he said creatives had a platform and needed to use it. <\/p>\n

He name-checked Adam McKay\u2019s satirical film, Don\u2019t Look Up; Mark Ruffalo\u2019s Dark Waters; and The End We Start From, adapted from the novel written by his wife\u2019s sister, as examples of how the industry could tell important climate and environment stories. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the unavoidable truth of what\u2019s happening in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s better that 99 imperfect people do something than one angel do everything.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actors can exist in a \u201cbubble\u201d untroubled by real world issues, but Benedict Cumberbatch told an Irish audience…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[59440,1477,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-156466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-climate-change","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}