Benedict Cumberbatch is not only fantastic as a cowboy with toxic masculinity in The Power of the Dog, an engineer who goes undercover as an MI6 spy in The English Spy or shines with the cape of the superhero Doctor Strange in different alternate realities of the Marvel multiverse, for cite some of his latest work.
The Briton now launches with another unique character, that of the painter Louis Wain, who takes him directly to Victorian England alongside Claire Foy, Queen Elizabeth II from The Crown who acts here as the beloved and long-suffering wife ten years older in Mr. Wain, a film that ends up in Spanish theaters this Thursday after passing through the official section of the BCN Film Fest.
Under the orders of Will Sharpe and based on a story by Simon Stephenson, the film follows the life of an artist with an eccentric personality and little known in these parts, but truly emblematic in his native country where he became famous for his eccentric drawings of cats. anthropomorphic. After the death of his father, when Wain was 20 years old, he had to financially take care of his mother and his five sisters, with whom he lived for much of his life. He drew as a part-time illustrator for The Illustrated London News, had ambitions to compose music and write plays, although he always failed as a businessman.
Naturally, the shooting was marked by the presence of several felines. If Hitchcock said that you should never work with children or animals (not even with Charles Laughton), Cumberbatch adds that the cat thing "has been a very hard experience. I don't recommend it. Children are extraordinary, they do what you expect of them "But don't expect the same from cats on set. Outside of it, though, I adore them. They're magical, unique and mysterious. They remind us of our wild nature and I think Wain was able to capture that perfectly in his paintings," he says. the actor in a videoconference interview with a group of journalists from a hotel in London.
Foy, on the other hand, was amused shooting with them: "They're lovely. I had a great experience." The actress entered the project thanks to Cumberbatch, of whom she has been friends since they coincided in the film Wreckers (2011), who saw in her the perfect Emily. "Then I talked to Will, who is a genius, and everything was wonderful. I found it attractive that he wasn't shooting a conventional movie. He sees the world in a different way, just like Louis did. He wanted to capture the authentic emotions of the characters and that's what I tried with Emily, which was like a breath of fresh air. That's why I tried to convey the humor, the tragedy and the honesty that surrounded her at the same time, "says the actress about a character "so beautiful". And she continues: "I thought that Louis's story was really amazing and that it could benefit a lot of people and that it would be a really precious story to tell."
Cumberbatch knew nothing about Wain, and when the script fell into his hands he was completely intrigued by the character, "a man whose perception of reality was often out of sync with what real life really was. I was touched by his way of humanizing characters." cats and I was touched by their plight," he explains.
In addition, everything fell into place when Will Sharpe, who has combined his work as an actor with those of a director (How to get into a garden, Flowers...), took over the direction. "We met in an episode of Sherlock and he has done a wonderful job, he has been a source of inspiration for me," acknowledges the interpreter, who learned to draw with both hands simultaneously, just as a hyperactive Wain did. "He was very fast and it was a real challenge to try to pick up his skills," he says with a wide smile.
The visual style and the excellent recreation of the time stand out in a biopic that highlights both the overflowing creativity of the protagonist, who had financial problems all his life and was obsessed with the idea of electricity as the key to understanding life, as well as his beautiful story. of love with Richardson, the introverted governess of his sisters whom he married in 1883 and who died four years later of breast cancer.
His encounter with Peter, a stray cat they adopted, made the illness more bearable and Louis began to draw numerous comical sketches of the pet to make him laugh. "In Emily, Louis found a loyal and courageous partner and she was key to him creating all that he had to offer, finding purpose through love and connection," Cumberbatch maintains.
After his death, the artist was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a disease that had already manifested itself in his younger sister. "We have tried very hard not to be prescriptive about what his condition was, but he was mentally challenged. I don't think he was necessarily schizophrenic, even if he was diagnosed that way in his lifetime. I thoroughly investigated his behavior pattern and what surprised me most is that He was a very lonely, generous human being, with a brave and playful spirit and a lot of imagination who had to live in a very rigid time and he had to challenge all that a little, fight to be himself in a world that did not understand him. I think if I were alive now, I'd be thriving. We live in a more tolerant and caring age where people like Wain are given the ability to have self-esteem, even though it's hard sometimes."
Wain was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he continued with his creative work and taking care of the cats that roamed the garden. Some cats that, immortalized in his canvases, came to walk on two legs, were dressed, had extravagant facial expressions and carried out activities such as playing golf, cards, having tea or enjoying a night at the opera. H. G. Wells said of Wain: "He invented a style of cat, a society of cats, a whole world of cats." Now that feline universe floods the big screen to relive the story of a man who deserves to be celebrated in a big way.
