Benedict Cumberbatch has revealed he regrets his controversial role in Ben Stiller’s Zoolander 2 where he played a non-binary fashion model.

The actor played a non-binary fashion model named All in the comedy sequel, which was an infamous box office flop in 2016 with just £23 million at the box office.

Speaking to Variety, the Sherlock Holmes actor, 48, said about the role: ‘I’ve had to apologise for that quite a lot.

‘It’s a difficult one to talk about. I love that group of people and 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 it got complicated and it got misunderstood and I upset people.

‘I respect that, so I probably wouldn’t do that again now.’

Benedict Cumberbatch has revealed he regrets his controversial role in Ben Stiller ‘s Zoolander 2 where he played a non-binary fashion model

Speaking to Variety, the Sherlock Holmes actor said about the role: ‘I’ve had to apologise for that quite a lot. It’s a difficult one to talk about.’

The actor played a non-binary fashion model named All in the comedy sequel, which was an infamous box office flop in 2016 with just £23 million at the box office

His role in Zoolander 2 drew backlash from the get-go when the film’s first trailer was released.

LGBTQ activists urged moviegoers not to see the movie because of Cumberbatch’s casting, with one online peтιтion calling for a Zoolander 2 boycott.

During his scene Cumberbatch wears a fur coat with a black long wig.

‘Are you like a male model or a female model?’ Stiller’s Derek Zoolander asks All.

‘All is not defined by binary constructs’, replies Cumberbatch.

Owen Wilson’s character Hansel then attempts to get a clearer answer.

‘What I think he’s asking is do you have a H๏τ dog or a bun?’ he asks.

‘All is All,’ replies Cumberbatch.

His role in Zoolander 2 drew backlash from the get-go when the film’s first trailer was released

LGBTQ activists urged moviegoers not to see the movie because of Cumberbatch’s casting, with one online peтιтion calling for a Zoolander 2 boycott

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The film revolved around the washed-out Derek Zoolander and Hansel McDonald rejoining the world of high fashion to track down the person ᴀssᴀssinating the world’s most beautiful people.

The sequel to the beloved 2001 film starred Stiller and Wilson, as well as Penelope Cruz, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell, with appearances by Joe Jonas and Justin Bieber among many star cameos.

Cumberbatch admitted in 2022 to his Zoolander 2 co-star Penelope Cruz in Variety’s Actors on Actors interview that ‘there was a lot of contention around the role, understandably now.’

‘In this era, my role would never be performed by anybody other than a trans actor,’ he said.

‘But I remember at the time not thinking of it necessarily in that regard, and it being more about two dinosaurs, two heteronormative clichés not understanding this new diverse world. But it backfired a little bit.’

Cumberbatch admitted in 2022 to his Zoolander 2 co-star Penelope Cruz in Variety’s Actors on Actors interview that ‘there was a lot of contention around the role, understandably now’;

‘In this era, my role would never be performed by anybody other than a trans actor,’ he said.

Ben Stiller, 59, has also admitted in past interviews that Zoolander 2 performing badly at the box office was ‘not a great experience,’ and he said on David Duchovny’s Fail Better podcast last year that he was blindsided by the disastrous results.

He said: ”I thought everybody wanted this. And then it’s like, “Wow, I must have really f***ed this up”. Everybody didn’t go to it. And it’s gotten these horrible reviews’.

He said the film’s failure ‘really freaked me out because I was like, “I didn’t know. Was that bad?”‘. 

‘What scared me the most on that one was I’m losing what I think what’s funny, the questioning yourself… on Zoolander 2, it was definitely blindsiding to me. And it definitely affected me for a long time,’ he said. 

Ben Stiller, 59, has also admitted in past interviews that Zoolander 2 performing badly at the box office was ‘not a great experience (pictured in Los Angeles in 2018)

The actor and director said the poor receipts and ‘horrible reviews… really freaked me out because I was like, “I didn’t know. Was that bad?”‘ he explained 

The 2016 comedy co-starring Owen Wilson and Penelope Cruz bombed, earning $28.8 million domestically and a total of $56.7 million globally

The comedy made $28.8 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, and cleared $56.7 million globally, which just covered the movie’s $50 million budget. 

Critics at Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 22-percent rating, two points higher than the audience score.

However, since the тιтle of the podcast is Fail Better, the Starsky And Hutch star said that particular episode in his life gave him time to think about what he really wanted to do.

‘The wonderful thing that came out of that for me was just having space where, if that had been a hit, and they said “Make Zoolander 3 right now,” or offered some other movie, I would have just probably jumped in and done that,’ he reasoned.

‘But I had this space to kind of sit with myself and have to deal with it and other projects that I had been working on — not comedies, some of them — I have the time to actually just work on and develop.’