Cumberbatch talks grief during Berlin film fest

Star plays a widower in 'The Thing With Feathers'

Benedict Cumberbatch was overtaken by grief at unexpected moments while playing a widower in his new family drama The Thing With Feathers, the British actor said on Tuesday in Berlin, as per Reuters.

"Odd moments would just sideswipe me," Cumberbatch told journalists about the film, playing in the Berlin Film Festival's non-competitive Special section.

He recalled how one scene of his character folding his dead wife's clothes and putting them in a box caught him off guard.

"I'm 48. I've been through a bit. I've lived. I've experienced grief," he said. "It just really struck a chord."

Cumberbatch stars as the father of two young sons whose wife has unexpectedly died, and he begins to receive visits from a large, otherworldly crow figure that eventually forces the family to confront their grief.

Part of the role involved letting go and not trying to control what grief should look like, said Cumberbatch, who made a name for himself by playing Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Strange.

"It sounds perverse when talking about grief, but as far as the artistry of making something feel or look or be real in that moment for a character, you just leave it alone and it happens," he said.

Meanwhile, US actor Ethan Hawke recalled how he had to wait more than a decade for director Richard Linklater to decide he was old enough to star in his new music movie Blue Moon.

The film, which is competing for the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, follows lyricist Lorenz Hart, one half of the legendary US songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart, on the opening night of the musical Oklahoma!

The Broadway hit marked the first time Hart's partner Richard Rodgers collaborated with another lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he went on to create several successful musicals.

Hawke told Reuters the Oscar-nominated director had sent him the script for the first time about 12 years ago, and he loved it.

"I called him up: 'Let's make this movie.' And he said, 'No, we have to wait a little while'," Hawke said.

After repeated calls to Linklater, Hawke finally got the answer he craved last year, and the two embarked on their ninth feature film together.

Blue Moon, which also stars Irish actor Andrew Scott, is closer to a stage play than a typical film in that it takes place on one night, at the same setting.

"Most people would say this isn't a movie and nothing happens. It's just people talking," Linklater said. "But I've made 30-plus years of movies that I think are cinematic, that I believe that can be cinema."