Netflix ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’: Ben Barnes reveals scene that made him ‘physically sick’

Ben Barnes was actually ‘creeped out’ while he was filming one of the episodes on Netflix’s Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.

Barnes stars in the episode ‘Pickman’s Model’, which is an adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft haunting short story, which is set in 1909.

William Thurber (Ben Barnes), a promising art student, sees his world turn upside down after he meets the mysterious Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover). After experiencing the macabre paintings by Pickman, he is haunted by them to the point of madness.

In an interview with The Collider, Barnes revealed that the dinner table scene, which had a severed body served up to a group of unnatural beings, creeped him out the most while he was filming.

“When the actor finally shoved his head through the table onto the platform and I was watching it, I actually felt physically sick, just looking at that. I did try to get Keith Thomas, the director, to trick me into various things. I said, ‘You have my permission to creep me out,’” shared Barnes.

“So, I purposefully didn’t go and look at the dinner, all set up, until I had to film it. They were filming it for a while without me, and then I walked in and did my reactions to it, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to look at it until I’m actually looking at it, so I can feel that.’”

He further explained his experience with the horror genre, claiming he likes getting his heart rate up but not being grossed out. “I don’t mind having my heart go fast, but I don’t feeling like icked out by stuff, which is somewhat ironic, bearing in mind that this episode has a table with someone’s head on it and creepy witches, and all the things that I’m talking about. But I felt like this was more allegorical, in terms of relationship connections, the expression of imagination, reality through art, the blurred lines of that, and the power of art with allegory and metaphor.”

Barnes also added at first he was unsure of doing the show because he is ‘very easily creeped out’.

“I got sent the script for this episode and I remember thinking, ‘It’s a horror thing.’ I don’t really do well with horror. I’m very easily creeped out. And it was a period piece playing an artist, which I’ve done about four or five times now.”

However, when he discovered that the series will be Guillermo del Toro’s curated anthology, Barnes “just thought it was really cool.”

All episodes of the Netflix horror anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is available to stream.