Louis is the opposite of Phil, a man unable to fulfill the traditionally male roles of provider and authority at a time that requires him to care for his mother and five single sisters. He falls ill in love and marries Emily (Claire Foy), the governess of his young sisters; when she gets sick, he draws cats to cheer her up.
“Over time, as Louis’ life takes a number of dramatic turns, his cat love deepens and his art changes, as does the film and Cumberbatch’s layered performance, with his openness, tenderness. and its performative control, ”Manohla Dargis wrote in a New York Times Review.
Sharpe said the actor was “not afraid to put himself in any scenario,” adding in a telephone interview that there was “some overlap between Louis and Benedict; a busy schedule, full of energy, full of ideas.
Cumberbatch said he loved everything about Louis Wain. “I had a similar bond with him as I had with Alan Turing when I made ‘The Imitation Game’: they were both calm characters in a very noisy world,” he said. , adding that he had been moved by Wain’s mental health issues, “how this industrialized, engineered, noisy era could suffocate someone who was a true hero to so many people down through the generations.” “
Cumberbatch, who rose to fame a decade ago as the cranky, brilliant, and emotionally disconnected Sherlock Holmes on the BBC’s “Sherlock” series, is no stranger to extremely idiosyncratic characters. He received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Turing; won a BAFTA award for the role of an abused and drug addict rich Englishman in the Showtime miniseries “Patrick Melrose”; played Hamlet and Frankenstein on stage; and is currently Dr. Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (he’s in the upcoming “Spider-Man: No Way Home”).
“I put a lot of really boring parentheses in my personal description,” said Cumberbatch, 45, who is married with children. “I am attracted by the otherness of these people, by the difference with my experience. I want to understand it from the inside, not like ‘Oh, I know what that feels like.’ “
