DRAWING THEIR WAY TO LASTING CHANGE

Phil recounts how his hero and role model and “best friend” Bronco Henry once saved him from freezing to death by lying body against body in a bedroll. As the scene progresses, it’s clear that there’s a seduction taking place, but the power dynamic is fluid.

“Is there some real chemistry there?” Cumberbatch asks, still unsure of the answer himself. “Who’s in control? Is Phil allowing himself to be killed to risk it? He doesn’t ask where the hide comes from. He doesn’t ask about the cow. Is he losing himself in some kind of dreamscape where he’s falling into a memory and he’s suddenly Bronco Henry and Peter is becoming Phil?”

Cumberbatch likens Phil’s destabilized mental state to what he experienced when he came down with COVID after the London Film Festival in October.

“You’re just consumed by the illness, but, at the same time, you understand what’s going on around you,” Cumberbatch says. “By the end, Phil knows what the boy did and why he had to do it and he can’t believe he did it and is sort of proud and astonished by it and then, you know, he’s got a fever, so he’s fighting death. I really wanted to play with the space between those two things.”

The end comes quickly, both for Phil and the movie. The next day Phil doesn’t show for breakfast. George drives him to the doctor. The screen goes dark briefly, and the next thing we see is George picking out Phil’s coffin. And then, after the funeral, we find Peter pushing the rope under the bed.

“It definitely signifies that he’s holding onto something,” Cumberbatch says. “I love stories that are f— up.”

Did you grieve Phil? Cumberbatch did. For all the emphasis on Phil’s cruelty, Cumberbatch says there are things about the man that should be celebrated. As the father of three boys, he says he’d like to be able to teach them to be “so resilient in a world gone mad so they could be producers rather than consumers.”

“That’s what my ethos is,” Cumberbatch says, noting that he thinks often about what skills he’s passing on to his children. “There’s an amazing amount that Phil is capable of.”

CUMBERBATCH stayed in character throughout the shooting of “The Power of the Dog.” In an oft-told story, director Jane Campion introduced Cumberbatch to the crew on the first day of filming as “Phil.”

“You’ll meet Benedict at the end of the movie,” she added. “Benedict’s really nice.”

One anecdote that Cumberbatch hasn’t yet shared came on that last day of filming, which concluded with a shot of Phil lying in a coffin as the lid is shut. (By the way, Cumberbatch also would like you to grieve the way Phil has been shaved and dressed. “He has been completely de-Philled,” he says. “It’s awful and would go against every wish as to how he’d like to be remembered.”)

After Campion finished the shot, Cumberbatch stayed in the coffin for a little longer than he would have liked. He could hear glasses clinking outside. And then Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” came wafting through the lid.

“Then they opened the coffin and it was this weird celebration and f— up commemoration all in one,” Cumberbatch says. “I was so floored. Even now, I’m getting choked up talking about it. And, of course, I immediately went into stuttering English actor mode, super self-conscious because everyone was just kind of staring at me like I had just dropped out of the back of an animal. ‘Why are you staring?’ ‘Well, it’s because we really haven’t met you.’ That’s how wonderful my immersion into Phil was. They gave me the space to play this toxic but ultimately damaged and flawed human being.

“And that orchestrated ending was a really beautiful thing,” Cumberbatch continues. “I’d been naked spiritually, psychologically and physically in front of them all. I bared my soul and my ass as well.”

That made me laugh, and I repeated the line to Cumberbatch in appreciation.

“There’s the headline,” he says, laughing. “It’s something my mom will read and ask, ‘Oh, Benedict, why do you have to say things like that?’ ”

O R L D S of wonder have materialized in every frame of animated productions for a century, but it’s only in recent years that these realms — and the people who conjure them up — have begun to reflect a wider spectrum of racial and ethnic identities, cultures and lived experiences. ¶ In a striking sign of progress, three of the five films Oscar-nominated for animated feature this year include Latino talent in top creative and leadership roles. That makes it the category with the most Latino representation among its nominees. ¶ Four of these Latino artists based in Los Angeles spoke about their distinct entryways into the medium with The Times: Phil Lord, one of the producers of “The Mitchell vs. the Machines”; Yvett Merino, producer on “Encanto”; Carlos López Estrada, co-director of “Raya and the Last Dragon”; and Charise Castro-Smith, co-screenwriter/codirector of “Encanto.” ¶ Although their collective range of previous endeavors includes live-action filmmaking, administrative duties and acting, all four creatives have found an artistic home in the boundless possibilities of animation.¶ For some, finding success in film or television seemed unrealistic early on, while others couldn’t imagine doing anything else. They all agree, however, that the entertainment industry’s solutions to diversify the creative pool remain insufficient.

tions, landing production manager duties on “Tangled,” “Big Hero 6” and “Moana” before taking on a role as producer.

Though supportive, Merino’s parents had never fully registered what her role at Disney entailed, but with “Encanto,” they finally shared a profound moment of pride.

“I was blessed enough to bring them to the premiere,” she said. “Afterward, I went up to my dad, who’s a very traditional Mexican guy, very quiet, and said, ‘How was it?’ And he goes, ‘Never in my life did I ever think I’d be at a Hollywood premiere, much less for a movie that my daughter produced.’ I feel so fortunate that they’re able to share it with me.”

With the popularity of “Encanto” in theaters, on Disney+ and even on the Billboard charts, Merino thinks about the children who will grow up with a Latino family to look up to in popular culture — something she never had. Awards attention and strong reviews have bolstered the film’s positive reception, which she refers to as “humbling,” but Merino’s thoughts return to the two women who made her dream possible.

“My grandmothers both came over here from Mexico, and knowing the sacrifices they made and understanding who they are, learning their story as I got older, learning what they went through in their lives, this story spoke to that. I was excited for people to see it, but nowhere in my mind did I think it would have the success that it has.”

No stranger to discussions about how to solve the industry’s issues around diversity, Merino shared eloquently pointed thoughts.

“Studios want a quick fix to it. They want to know what the instructions are to do it. In my opinion, it needs to be attacked on multiple levels. You have to hire in new people, yes, but hiring in a lot of PAs who are there for one show doesn’t help. You need to hire at different levels and get different voices in,” Merino said. “And for a quicker fix, you need to hire at the higher levels and actually get those voices in the room. You also need to hire incoming talent at entry-level positions, but you need to welcome them and work to make sure that they’re included within the studio.”

Nevertheless, Merino sees efforts at her own company and elsewhere with measured optimism.

“I’m so excited about the future of animation in general, because there are a lot of Latinos working within the industry. And the more they share their stories, the more I know my children will see themselves in the various stories, and it’s not just, ‘Oh, remember that one story that Disney did that one time.’ ” end of the film, he told me, ‘I was watching it and I just knew you wrote that scene.’ That really moved me,” she said.

Thanks to viral reactions on social media and the ubiquitous earworm that is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” “Encanto” has taken on a life of its own as a cultural phenomenon. Witnessing an outpouring of earnestness for something she helped create drove home the magnitude of its relevance.

“Just seeing all the TikTok videos, seeing the videos of the children recognizing themselves on the screen, all the videos of people deconstructing the movie and talking about how the family archetypes resonate with them, all of that has been so huge,” CastroSmith said.

Of course, this rare spotlight on Latino art, via animation, can’t capture an entire community’s idiosyncrasies, but it’s a welcome building block for a more prosperous artistic landscape.

“Hopefully, ‘Encanto’ puts to bed the argument that these movies can’t make money, because this movie made a lot of money. Hollywood is just starting to scratch the surface of actual representation. Most of us who consume popular media have been so conditioned to see storytelling through this white male lens, and it takes a lot to break that,” Castro-Smith said. “It takes a lot to convince people to take chances on new stories and new ways of approaching story. That change is just beginning.”