'I wanted to keep Dad's humanity'

Benedict Cumberbatch and Dylan Southern on The Thing With Feathers and navigating stages of grief - the film opens in cinemas this weekend

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If we were told when we would die, Benedict Cumberbatch doesn't think it would better prepare us for the finality death brings.

The 49-year-old BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning British actor, who stars as the grieving Dad in Dylan Southern's adaptation of Max Porter's book Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, believes our brains can sometimes protect us from dwelling on our inevitable demise.

"Nothing really prepares you for that sense and reality of loss. You can breed an acceptance of impermanence, whether it's through philosophy or meditation, but you can't really know what it's going to feel like when you reach that end date," says Cumberbatch, who played Sherlock Holmes in the mystery crime drama Sherlock.

The Thing With Feathers-British filmmaker Dylan Southern's debut feature - follows a widowed father, simply called Dad, who suddenly loses his wife and is left to raise their two young boys, played by Richard and Henry Boxall.

As his life begins to unravel, Dad's grief takes the form of an unhinged and unwanted house guest, Crow, portrayed by Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets star Eric Lampaert, 39, but voiced by 62-year-old Harry Potter star David Thewlis.

As Crow continues to taunt him from the shadows, things start to spiral out of control for Dad.

Cumberbatch, who joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Dr Stephen Strange with films Doctor Strange and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, adds: "Max's novel is an exceptional piece of prose. It's lyrical, damaged, salvational, majestical, mundane, domestic, real and surreal. It is an extraordinary prism through which to reflect grief-the structure and intimacy of it.