Benedict Cumberbatch is, as you already know, quite a celebrated actor. He’s been nominated for an Oscar twice, and he’s beloved by many for his turns as Dr. Strange in the MCU — not to mention his role as the titular detective in the BBC series Sherlock.
Of course, even well-regarded actors have lapses in judgment — which is where Benedict’s turn as a non-binary character in the 2016 flop Zoolander 2 comes in.
In the film, Benedict played a NB model named All — and people were, understandably, pissed. There was even an online petition that referred to the portrayal as “the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority.” Very fair criticism!
Like so many things, the whole affair has just flat-out not aged well (and it wasn’t great to begin with) — and, to his credit, Benedict is more than aware of that.
In a recent interview with Variety, the actor admitted that portraying the role was very much not the right choice. “I’ve had to apologize for that quite a lot. It’s a difficult one to talk about,” he said.
“I love that group of people, and 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 it got complicated and it got misunderstood and I upset people.”
“I respect that, so I probably wouldn’t do that again now.”
I think we can all agree that’s a good thing!