Benedict Cumberbatch, director Toby Haynes, and writer James Graham explain why this Brexit story had to air while its ramifications are still unspooling.
Three days before shooting started was when Benedict Cumberbatch really committed to the Brexit movie. Sitting in his house with director Toby Haynes, the Oscar nominee, global superstar, and $600 million-face of Marvel’s Dr. Strange said four words he couldn’t walk back: “Take off the hair.”
“We were nibbling away at his hairline, taking bits off here and there, and suddenly he just looks really weird,” Haynes said in an interview with IndieWire. “The makeup artist had a wig prepared, but the only way the wig would work is if we shaved his head. […] I looked at Benedict, he looked at me, and he said, ‘Take it off. Take off the hair.’”
“It was a bit crushing at the time,” Cumberbatch said, chuckling. “I had what’s called a ‘no hawk’ — no hair around the middle, and then I had my normal hair at the sides. Then we put a shrinky [on top], which is a kind of three-piece wig. […] I just went for it. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.”
Read More:‘True Detective’ Review: Season 3 Premiere Is All About the Memories, Man It’s a good thing it did. Haynes said he was so nervous about shaving off his star’s hair that he didn’t tell anyone they were even considering it. His producers gave explicit instructions to “take off as little as possible” and “not turn him into an alien.” “People funding the film would’ve been horrified if we said we’re gonna cut all Benedict Cumberbatch’s hair off,” Haynes said. “[But] that’s the thing about Benedict: If he does something, he really does it full pelt. I was really impressed by his commitment — his integrity to authenticity when it came to Dominic Cummings. He really wanted to do him justice and not do a fake TV version of him.” Benedict Cumberbatch in “Brexit” Nick Wall/HBO “Brexit,” the feature film distributed by Channel 4 in the U.K. and HBO in the U.S., tracks the Remain and Vote Leave campaigns for the 2016 European Union membership referendum through Cumberbatch’s Campaign Director Dominic Cummings. Socially volatile but strategically brilliant — and, of course, bald — Cummings is shown in the film as the mastermind behind simplifying Vote Leave’s strategy and implementing advanced data mining techniques to understand how best to motivate voters. Those same voters are still wrestling with the ramifications of their decision to leave the E.U. — a decision guided by Cummings’ campaign. In the last week alone, Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to carry out the Brexit deal was rejected by Parliament, and a no-confidence vote was called for her government’s ouster. Though that didn’t carry either, there’s no clear path for Britain to exit the European Union before the March 29 deadline.