Benedict Cumberbatch Says He Regrets Playing Non-Binary Role In ‘Zoolander 2’

The actor has said that he wouldn’t play a non-binary character again after his controversial performance in Zoolander 2…

Benedict Cumberbatch is reflecting on a controversial previous screen role — one that he says he “wouldn’t do” now. Cumberbatch played All, a character described as a non-binary fashion model, in Ben Stiller’s 2016 comedy Zoolander 2. “It’s a difficult one to talk about,” the British actor said of the role in a recent video interview with Variety. 

“I’ve had to apologize for that quite a lot,” he said when quizzed about whether he remembered one of his lines in Zoolander 2. The character’s unveiling in a 2015 trailer prompted backlash from LGBTQ+ activists at the time, who spoke out against the movie’s apparent jokes surrounding the character’s non-conforming gender. There was even an online petition that referred to the portrayal as “the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority.”

“I love that group of people,” Cumberbatch continued of director-star Stiller, costars Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell and more, who reunited after 2001’s hit Zoolander. “It was the chance to sort of be part of something that the first time around was iconic and I was a huge fan of.”

But, he added, playing All “got complicated and it got misunderstood and I upset people. And I respect that, so I probably wouldn’t do that again now.”

It’s not the first time that the actor has spoken about his regrets taking on the role. Speaking to Zoolander 2 costar Penélope Cruz in a 2022 Variety interview, Cumberbatch acknowledged there was “a lot of contention around the role… in this era, my role would never be performed by anybody other than a trans actor.”