Rule 1: First refusal on a British Biopic: Cumberbatch or Sheen 

Photo by Tyson Moultrie on Unsplash

There are times when you expect to see an actor in a movie. It could be due to the content itself. Need a weirdo, that used to be Tom Noonan’s job before he passed away. Need an icy villain, call Walken (although he has taken a turn on this lately). But the biopic is the ultimate Oscar bait. It carries the promise of the top award. De Niro has had one since 1980 (Jake La Motta). They even gave George C Scott a biopic award for playing Patton, and he refused it.  

Cumberbatch has Alan Turing, Julian Assange, Stephen Hawking, Dominic Cummings and many more. But if you want to get your biopic made, he needs to be offered it first. I won’t say somebody is Oscar chasing but when you see Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), Gary Oldman (Churchill) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Abraham Lincoln) getting in on the action, we can’t blame poor Benedict for his right of biographical passage. Even Sean Penn devoured the Best Actor category at the expense of the more deserving Mickey Rourke performance for The Wrestler. Colin Firth was a romantic lead. One Biopic later, an Oscar winner. 

Whenever you have that movie made, remember it has to pass the Benedict test. Michael Sheen is slightly different. He can invade the cinema and TV screen in equal measure. A royal miniseries? It needs Michael. A blockbuster biopic, you’d better have a salary for Benedict ready. 

But as much as Cumberbatch and Sheen have a really good gig for playing the real people, no Oscar for it. Not yet. In fact, the boys should form a biopic union in response to this injustice. 

Now I have a question: Is the biopic a cheap way to get an Academy Award?