Benedict Cumberbatch poisoned himself with nicotine on his last shoot

Some roles are so intense they make you sick. Benedict Cumberbatch is in a good position to talk about it: the actor, who plays a cowboy in the film The Power of the Dog, entered his character 100%, and he refused to exit while he was in the filming phase.

“If someone forgot on the first day and called me Benedict, I didn’t move,” he told Esquire. To interpret the hero Phil Burbank, in the adaptation of the novel by Thomas Savage, he even learned to roll cigarettes with one hand, an essential element to best interpret the cowboy. “It was really difficult. Cigarettes rolled without filter, just take after take after take. I have poisoned myself with nicotine three times. When you have to smoke a lot, it’s really horrible, ”he added.

Not very clean

For the film, directed by Jane Campion, Benedict Cumberbatch went so far as not to wash, so that all his partners on the screen really take him for Phil Burbank.

“I wanted that layer of stench on me. I wanted people in the room to know how I was feeling. It was tough, however. It wasn’t just during rehearsals. I would go out to eat, meet Jane’s friends and stuff. I was a little embarrassed for the cleaning lady, compared to where I lived, ”he explained.

The Power of the Dog will be released on December 1st on Netflix.