Penélope Cruz And Benedict Cumberbatch Talk Working With ‘Master’ Directors

There’s nothing like working with a true visionary to bring out the best in an actor.

In the new episode of Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” series, “Parallel Mothers” star Penélope Cruz and “The Power Of The Dog” star Benedict Cumberbatch sit down for a chat.

In the conversation, the actors talk about getting to work with “master” directors like Pedro Almodóvar and Jane Campion on their respective films.

“We rehearsed four and a half months. I love having directors that want to give you that time,” Cruz says of Almodóvar’s process. “I enjoy every single moment of the process with him — of trying everything, making mistakes, not being afraid of doing it all wrong.”

“I had a similar experience with Jane,” Cumberbatch says. “It wasn’t just rehearsing. It was just letting the character marinate, talking about him, trying to discover him and his past. And like you said, all the kinds of skill acquisition I had to master, from the accent to the roping to banjo playing and whittling. But really the most important thing was just excavating him and his psyche. The only time I’ve really experienced that before, certainly not in a film, was in the theatre.”

Cruz adds, “Pedro and Jane have something in common that is very rare. They are two of the directors that are also visually stronger and very particular. Nothing is there in a capricious way. I can see in every shot from Jane, it’s like Pedro: Everything is calculated. Everything is there for a reason. Nothing is there just because she feels, ‘Oh, that’s pretty.’ And Pedro is the same. Even the selection of the colours.”

“Jane is a master of that as well. Every choice of her frame is sometimes subconscious, sometimes poetic,” Cumberbatch remarks.

Also in the interview, Cumberbatch talks about the time he shared a smoke break with Meryl Streep.

“Some of the greatest acting lessons I learned from Meryl Streep,” he says. “I had a small part in ‘August: Osage County’. I’d already done some bigger stuff by then, but it didn’t matter. To me, this was it. To be in a company like that was extraordinary. I watched in that dinner table scene where Meryl’s character is battling with grief, drug addiction, drunkenness and a family secret. To watch her play with the full orchestra of her ability, every single take was completely different.”

The actor recalls, “I was on a balcony having a cigarette with her. She smokes, folks. I used to, but I’m sure she doesn’t anymore. Anyway, the point is, we were having a cigarette and chatting, and I went, ‘Do you have a singular way of approaching things?’ She went, ‘Oh, no. I don’t have a method. It’s different every time. Isn’t it for you?’ And I went, ‘Yeah, and I’m getting nervous that I don’t have armour to fall back on.’ But every job is different. Every director, every demand, every person you work with in front of the camera and behind, it’s different.”