Sam Elliott slammed the Oscar-nominated film “The Power of the Dog” in an interview with Marc Maron on his podcast “WTF.”
Elliott, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in “A Star Is Born” and stars in the Paramount+ Western series “1883,” bristled when Maron asked him on Monday’s podcast whether he liked “The Power of the Dog.”
“You want to talk regarding that piece of shit?” Elliott said when Maron brought up the Netflix film.
Jane Campion’s neo-Western psychodrama, which is nominated for best picture, follows a Montana rancher, a closeted gay man battling his own toxic masculinity played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
Elliott described Campion as a “brilliant director” and said he loved her previous work. But he questioned her perspective.
“What … does this woman from down there … New Zealand, know regarding the American West?” Elliott asked. “And why … did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say, ‘This is the way it was?’ That rubbed me the wrong way, pal.”
Elliott said that the common depiction of American cowboys as “macho men” is a “myth” and that in his experience, cattle ranching is a family operation.
He said he just came from Texas, “where I was hanging out with families, not men, but families, big, long, extended, multiple-generation families that made their living and their lives were all regarding being cowboys.”
Elliott likened the cowboys in “The Power of the Dog” to Chippendales dancers.
“They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie,” he said.
Representatives for Netflix, Campion and Elliott did not immediately respond to requests for comment.