‘1883’ Actor Sam Elliott Slams ‘Piece of S**t’ Netflix Movie ‘The Power of the Dog’
“Where’s the Western in this Western? I mean, [Benedict] Cumberbatch never got out of his f*cking chaps.”
Western movie legend Sam Elliott didn’t mince words while slamming The Power of the Dog, a 12-time Oscar-nominated drama currently streaming on Netflix.
During a recent appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Elliott, 77, launched a rootin’, tootin’ tirade against the critically-acclaimed movie, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a closeted gay rancher in 1920s Montana.
“You want to talk about that piece of shit?” said Elliott, who stars as a Civil War veteran in Paramount+’s hit Yellowstone prequel series 1883.
“You didn’t like that one?” Maron responded.
“Fuck no. Why? I’ll tell you why I didn’t like it anyway,” Elliott said before comparing the movie’s characters to Chippendales dancers “who wear bowties and not much else. Remember them from back in the day?”
“That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie look like. They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie,” Elliott added, per the New York Post.
“I think that’s what the movie’s about,” Maron said in reference to the character’s repressed homosexuality.
“Where’s the Western in this Western?” Elliott asked. “I mean, Cumberbatch never got out of his fucking chaps.”
“He had two pairs of chaps — a woolly pair and a leather pair. And every fucking time he would walk in from somewhere — he never was on a horse, maybe once — he’d walk into the fucking house, storm up the fucking stairs, go lay in his bed in his chaps and play his banjo,” he said. “It’s like, what the fuck?”
Elliott went on criticize the movie’s director Jane Campion, a native of New Zealand, who he believes has no business making a movie set in early 20th century Montana.
“What the fuck does [Campion] — she’s a brilliant director by the way, I love her work, previous work — but what the fuck does this woman from down there, New Zealand, know about the American West?
“And why in the fuck 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,” Elliott said.
Elliott, a veteran character actor who narrated The Big Lebowski and has appeared with his signature ‘stache in numerous movies over the years, also voiced Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ 2020 Super Bowl commercial.
Both 1883 and The Power of the Dog are streaming on Paramount+ and Netflix, respectively.