{"id":86510,"date":"2025-10-20T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T11:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/86510\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T11:24:07","slug":"oasis-benedict-cumberbatch-films-interview-with-dylan-southern-lff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/86510\/","title":{"rendered":"Oasis, Benedict Cumberbatch Films Interview With Dylan Southern: LFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBenedict Cumberbatch<\/a> stars in The Thing With Feathers<\/a>, writer-director Dylan Southern\u2019s big-screen adaptation of Max Porter\u2019s award-winning Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, which just screened at the 69th edition<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0BFI London Film Festival<\/a>\u00a0(LFF) after its world premiere at Sundance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u2018A mother dies, leaving two primary school-aged children and \u2018Sad Dad\u2019. Before long, \u2018Crow\u2019 emerges from the pages of the book Sad Dad is writing, to peck at the open wounds and shepherd them through their grief, in the only way it knows how,\u201d reads a synopsis. The movie follows the father (Cumberbatch) and his two sons (Richard and Henry Boxall) as they struggle to cope with the sudden loss of their wife and mother.<\/p>\n

\n\tSouthern is best known for making music documentaries (Meet Me in the Bathroom, Shut Up and Play the Hits) and music videos for the likes of the Arctic Monkeys and Bj\u00f6rk. At LFF 2025, THR caught up with him to talk about how The Thing With Feathers came to be made and what\u2019s next for him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI optioned the book on my own,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI did everything you\u2019re not meant to as a filmmaker. I spent my own money. And I was sort of in the hole. But I believed in this book and the idea of this film so much that I just kept pushing it and pushing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe wasn\u2019t the only one touched by the book. \u201cWhen I was told that Benedict was a huge fan of the book as well, I thought I\u2019ll take a punt. So, I sent him the script. expecting to wait six months for a polite \u2018no\u2019,\u201d Southern told THR. \u201cAnd within two weeks, his company, SunnyMarch<\/a>, got back to me and said, \u2018Benedict really likes this. He wants to meet you\u2019. I was never expecting to get an actor of his stature in the film, and I was nervous, because I\u2019m a documentary maker, and this is my first narrative feature, but I went to meet him, and all of those nerves were dispelled. We got on so well.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe creative exchange felt right, too. \u201cHe was such a great collaborator,\u201d Southern said about Cumberbatch. \u201cHe asked as many questions of me as I asked him, and he eased me into it. We had so many long conversations about the character, weeks and months before we went on set, that by the time we got there, our working relationship was established.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, the shooting took much less time than the planning. \u201cI\u2019d been thinking about this film for years and years and years, and then suddenly you have six weeks, and you have to make it,\u201d the writer-director said with a laugh. \u201cSo just establishing that relationship is so important. The first time I called \u2018action,\u2019 I forgot to call \u2018cut\u2019 because I was so mesmerized by his performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWill Southern continue with fiction work or return to documentaries? \u201cI was not going to do another music documentary. And then, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard of a band called Oasis<\/a>!?\u201d he quipped. \u201cThe ask came from Oasis, if I and my directing partner would cover their reunion. So I\u2019m back in that world now, but I\u2019m also writing the next feature.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe hopes it will make its way to the screen now that he has one narrative feature under his belt. \u201cI wrote another film, an original film, and worked on that for five years and got to the point where we were casting and location scouting. But then the whole thing fell apart,\u201d Southern told THR. \u201cThat\u2019s where I learned you have to have really thick skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout the new narrative feature that he is writing, Southern can share this much: \u201cIt\u2019s flexing a different muscle from The Thing With Feathers, in which the arc is emotional. There\u2019s not so much plot in Feathers as it\u2019s more about an emotional journey for a character. The next thing I\u2019m doing is completely plot-driven with character. It\u2019s a London-based thriller.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benedict Cumberbatch stars in The Thing With Feathers, writer-director Dylan Southern\u2019s big-screen adaptation of Max Porter\u2019s award-winning Grief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[59440,51487,53890,146,85,399,46,17815],"class_list":["post-86510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-bfi-london-film-festival","tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2025","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-international","tag-israel","tag-oasis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86510","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=86510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}