Veteran actor Sam Elliott, who stars in Yellowstone prequel 1883, goes on tirade over Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog because it ‘alludes to homosexuality’: ‘What the f*** does this woman from New Zealand know about the American west?’
- Famed western actor Sam Elliott, 77, called Jan Campion’s Power of the Dog a ‘piece of s**t’ and said he took offense to its portrayal of the American West
- Elliott said Campion, of New Zealand, was out of her depth directing a western and said implications of gay cowboys hurt his image of the American myth
- Campion’s Power of the Dog, nominated for best picture, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a repressed gay cowboy
- Elliott compared Cumberbatch and the men in the film to Chippendale dancers
Popular western actor Sam Elliott, who stars in the Yellowstone prequel 1883, went on a rant over New Zealand director Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog because of its implications to homosexual cowboys in the West.
Speaking with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast on Monday, Elliott, 77, referred to Champion’s Oscar-nominated film as a ‘piece of s**t’ and said he took personal offense to its portrayal of the American West.
‘What the f**k does this woman from down there, New Zealand, know about the American west,’ Elliott, whose career is centered around the western genre, said.
‘And why in the f**k does she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say, ‘This is the way it was.’ That fucking rubbed me the wrong way, pal.’
Elliot said his main gripe stemmed from the implications that the character Phil Burbank, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, was a closeted gay man and that the movie over-critiqued the masculine image of the west.
‘They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts,’ Elliot said of the movie’s characters, comparing them to Chippendales dancers. ‘There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie.’
Veteran actor Sam Elliott (above), whose career is engrained in the western genre, called Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog a ‘piece of s**t’ and said he took personal offense to its critique of the West through the film’s main character, a repressed gay man
Elliot said Campion (pictured) does not know enough about the West and that the myth that cowboys were ‘macho men’ was real
The Oscar nominated film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, right, a closeted gay man
When Maron chimed in to tell Elliott that that was the point of the movie, the veteran actor said it was ruining his image of the cowboy as he was shooting 1883.
The myth is that they were these macho men out there with the cattle,’ Elliott said.
‘I just came from Texas where I was hanging out with families – not men – but families. Big, long, extended, multiple-generation families that made their livings… and their lives were all about being about cowboys.
‘And boy, when I f**king saw that [movie], I thought, ‘What the f**k,” he said.
‘Where’s the western in this western?’
Elliot said Cumberbatch was not properly representing the real myth of the American cowboy
Campion (left, pictured with Cumberbatch) was nominated for best director
Elliott, who starts in the Yellowstone prequel 1883, said he thinks Campion is a ‘brilliant’ filmmaker, but that she is out of her depth in the western genre
He added that he was also angry that Cumberbatch’s character never seemed to remove his chaps.
‘Every f**cking time he would walk in from somewhere – he never was on a horse – he’d walk in to the f**cking house, storm up the f**cking stairs, go lay in his bed, in his chaps and play the banjo.’
Ellliott, however, did call Campion a ‘brilliant’ filmmaker and said he just did not agree with her direction in The Power of the Dog.
The film is nominated for best picture and Campion is nominated for best director.
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