Interview with Benedict Cumberbatch
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Now, Benedict, to your end, we not only get to see you play Vincent, but we also hear
00:05your voice as Eric, his creation, this big walk-around puppet monster.
00:11And I was very curious, what part of your previous mocap work on the Hobbit trilogy
00:15do you think best prepared you for playing a puppeteer, and what was the greatest lesson
00:19you learned while doing specific prep for Eric?
00:22None of it, because, well, a bit of voice work, I suppose, although that was vocoded
00:27or whatever you call it, that was mixed a lot, whereas mine is as deep as I can get
00:31it as Eric.
00:33And I didn't do any...
00:36The hand puppet work that you see me doing with Bug at the beginning of the show is very
00:41different to mocap work.
00:43Mocap work is a sort of extension of you via an avatar, so it is your kind of...
00:47Your movements are creating the image.
00:49This is...
00:51It sort of becomes real at the end of your arm, if that makes sense.
00:53It's just slightly different, and you're looking at your work.
00:56You're seeing it on a screen.
00:58You're aware of yourself and what it's creating.
01:01It's a slightly different sensation.
01:03So no, it didn't help at all.
01:05It felt like a new skill, and a really difficult one to master.
01:11So we did as best as we could.
01:12I mean, I have to say, my team on that show were amazing, both the real puppeteers, but
01:16also the actors playing the gang in Good Day Sunshine, they were extraordinary, and they
01:21just threw themselves into it.
01:22We all kind of fell a bit in love with it and became a bit obsessed.
01:26Simon went out with a little puppet on a couple of club nights, I hear.
01:31I wasn't part of that experience, just, you know, talking away like that.
01:37It's joyous.
01:38It is joyous, despite the rich, dark sort of depths of this shadow self that is made
01:43real in Eric of Vincent's kind of odyssey through hell, really.
01:49It is a joyous thing to be around Eric, as encapsulated by Ollie, who's actually in the
01:53suit, was a real presence.
01:55All of us were kids when he was on set.
01:57I had a wonderful repartee with him, improvising lines.
02:01He was as quick an actor as he was a puppeteer.
02:04Very, very smart, brilliant performer, brilliant actor, and also a brilliant puppeteer.
02:08So it was a real entity for me to play off, and I enjoyed that enormously.