It certainly doesn’t suck to be Benedict Cumberbatch. Not only are you a star of stage and screen with countless award-winning projects to your name, you also happen to be the lynchpin of the most expensive movie franchise in history. But this also means you have no one but yourself to blame when even the most minor comments about the upcoming “Spider-Man: No Way Home” happen to be splashed across the internet writ large. It comes with the territory.
READ MORE: Andrew Garfield Continues To Deny His ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Involvement
On a recent episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Cumberbatch sat down to discuss his current lineup of festival darlings, including Jane Campion‘s “The Power of the Dog” and Will Sharpe‘s “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.” But no conversation with a Marvel actor is complete without a few teasers for upcoming franchise films, so it was no surprise to see the conversation switch towards Cumberbatch’s upcoming appearance in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
In the conversation, Cumberbatch opened up about his enjoyment of working with ‘Spider-Man’ director Jon Watts, who he described as a “genius” and the sort of director any actor wants to work with. But when asked about Tom Holland‘s previous comments on the sequel — where the actor described “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as “the most ambitious standalone superhero film ever made — Cumberbatch was not shy in his own praise. “It’ll be a lot of fun. There will be a lot of debate about it, I’m sure. It’s a daring, brilliant concept,” the actor noted, adding, “Even on paper, the audacity of it is, like, ‘How the hell is that gonna work?'”
READ MORE: Benedict Cumberbatch Was “Sad” About ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Director Change
Of course, Cumberbatch was not above throwing a few comments his co-star’s way. When asked to confirm or deny Holland’s original claim, Cumberbatch added a major caveat: “Until ‘Doctor Strange 2,’ yeah. Throwing it down, Tom. Throwing it down. But yeah, for now, it’ll do.”