During the director/actor commentary of Amazing Grace Benedict was mentioned a few times.
Michael Apted (MA): ...Benedict Cumberbatch, this is his first really big role, and what was so interesting, meeting him, was just like Wilberforce comes from a trading community, it was important that William Pitt came from nobility, and as soon as Benedict walked in, toi knew,
Ioan Gruffudd (IG): Immediately. Yes, he has that sort of quality about him.
MA: He has class.
IG: Absolute class. Classy guy. Absolutely.
MA: It's hard to act that sort of stuff. So when I was doing all this casting, it was sort of crucial to me who actually had that innate breeding.
MA: Did toi enjoy working with Benedict?
IG: I loved working with Benedict. We had a wonderful time. It's so important to have that relationship formed, so we did become very, very good friends. We see each other quite often, now.
MA: Did toi work the same way?
IG: I think we do. I don't want to commentaire on his sort of process, but I think we both work, I mean, sort of from the outside in. I wouldn't necessairly call us both two method actors, toi can't really with this sort of stuff. I mean, the language is there for you, it's all there in the script.
MA: Did toi have trouble rolling that [the petition]?
IG: Yes, yes. I thought myself a little bit of a cricketer, a sort of slow-medium paced bowler, and [laughs] Benedict and I had been playing 10-pin bowling and I thought I'll get this down then, no problem, and I couldn't do it for the life of me. It took forever to get that thing to roll out properly.
IG: I l’amour the fact that Benedict decided that he was to drink port as much as he could during the movie because obviously he [Pitt] was sort of addicted to drinking four bottles of port a day.
MA: Six, I think. He drank six bottles of it a day.
IG: And still stood up in Parliament and ran the country.
MA: And I think the thing killed him in the end. But we were always, where ever he was, he [Benedict] wanted a drink. It's kind of disappointing because toi have to do it so often, and no one notices.
MA: He did very well with this didn't he, Benedict. Holy cow! We thought he was seriously ill when he was doing this.
IG: He's superb. He's such a good actor.
MA: And this is sort of, toi know, somewhat, somewhat a homoerotic element to this. I mean, I l’amour this hand holding and this touching thing that toi do.
IG: They're montrer that they're true friends. Have to bring a human element to it as well.
MA: It's interesting historically that Pitt had no known sexual bias at all, historically. He never had any romantic relationships with women and no one knows whether he ever had romantic relationships with men, becuase although it was a very licentious period of history, people like renard [played par Sir Michael Gambon] were sort of... there was a huge amount of child prostitution and all this sort of stuff. Nonetheless, it was still not good to come out of the closet for some reason in that society. Whereas in others, greek ou roman societies, it was very open. So one never quite knew about his, Pitt's, sexuality. toi know, I quite like the fact that we suggest the real kind of... deep feeling.
IG: Yes, yes. Absolutely.
MA: And, of course, toi too [Wilberforce]. I mean, toi know, there's no question of your sexuality, but there's no history of toi having any romantic relationships until toi met Barbara [Wilberforce, nee Spooner, played par Romola Garai] and par that time toi were well into your thirties.
IG: Yeah, yeah.
MA: And it was strange, because it was such a interesting period of history because there were these great visionary people like toi and renard and all that, and the same people, not you, but renard and others... it was an incredibly lude time, so it's odd.
[not mentioned specifically, but MA mentions that he brought in someone to teach Benedict to play 19th century golf with antique clubs and such]
Michael Apted (MA): ...Benedict Cumberbatch, this is his first really big role, and what was so interesting, meeting him, was just like Wilberforce comes from a trading community, it was important that William Pitt came from nobility, and as soon as Benedict walked in, toi knew,
Ioan Gruffudd (IG): Immediately. Yes, he has that sort of quality about him.
MA: He has class.
IG: Absolute class. Classy guy. Absolutely.
MA: It's hard to act that sort of stuff. So when I was doing all this casting, it was sort of crucial to me who actually had that innate breeding.
MA: Did toi enjoy working with Benedict?
IG: I loved working with Benedict. We had a wonderful time. It's so important to have that relationship formed, so we did become very, very good friends. We see each other quite often, now.
MA: Did toi work the same way?
IG: I think we do. I don't want to commentaire on his sort of process, but I think we both work, I mean, sort of from the outside in. I wouldn't necessairly call us both two method actors, toi can't really with this sort of stuff. I mean, the language is there for you, it's all there in the script.
MA: Did toi have trouble rolling that [the petition]?
IG: Yes, yes. I thought myself a little bit of a cricketer, a sort of slow-medium paced bowler, and [laughs] Benedict and I had been playing 10-pin bowling and I thought I'll get this down then, no problem, and I couldn't do it for the life of me. It took forever to get that thing to roll out properly.
IG: I l’amour the fact that Benedict decided that he was to drink port as much as he could during the movie because obviously he [Pitt] was sort of addicted to drinking four bottles of port a day.
MA: Six, I think. He drank six bottles of it a day.
IG: And still stood up in Parliament and ran the country.
MA: And I think the thing killed him in the end. But we were always, where ever he was, he [Benedict] wanted a drink. It's kind of disappointing because toi have to do it so often, and no one notices.
MA: He did very well with this didn't he, Benedict. Holy cow! We thought he was seriously ill when he was doing this.
IG: He's superb. He's such a good actor.
MA: And this is sort of, toi know, somewhat, somewhat a homoerotic element to this. I mean, I l’amour this hand holding and this touching thing that toi do.
IG: They're montrer that they're true friends. Have to bring a human element to it as well.
MA: It's interesting historically that Pitt had no known sexual bias at all, historically. He never had any romantic relationships with women and no one knows whether he ever had romantic relationships with men, becuase although it was a very licentious period of history, people like renard [played par Sir Michael Gambon] were sort of... there was a huge amount of child prostitution and all this sort of stuff. Nonetheless, it was still not good to come out of the closet for some reason in that society. Whereas in others, greek ou roman societies, it was very open. So one never quite knew about his, Pitt's, sexuality. toi know, I quite like the fact that we suggest the real kind of... deep feeling.
IG: Yes, yes. Absolutely.
MA: And, of course, toi too [Wilberforce]. I mean, toi know, there's no question of your sexuality, but there's no history of toi having any romantic relationships until toi met Barbara [Wilberforce, nee Spooner, played par Romola Garai] and par that time toi were well into your thirties.
IG: Yeah, yeah.
MA: And it was strange, because it was such a interesting period of history because there were these great visionary people like toi and renard and all that, and the same people, not you, but renard and others... it was an incredibly lude time, so it's odd.
[not mentioned specifically, but MA mentions that he brought in someone to teach Benedict to play 19th century golf with antique clubs and such]
