‘Power of the Dog’ Star Jesse Plemons ‘Laughed’ When He Heard Sam Elliot’s Criticisms of the Oscar-Nominated Film

“Power of the Dog” star Jesse Plemons is speaking out about Sam Elliott’s recent rant against Jane Campion’s award-winning Netflix film.

“I laughed when I heard. I don’t know why,” Plemons told me at premiere of his new Charlie McDowell-directed thriller “Windfall” on Friday night at the London West Hollywood hotel. ”I haven’t listened to it so I’ve heard it from what people have told me. I know there’s some undertones to what he said, but I also feel like you don’t have to like the movie and that’s totally fine. Not everyone has to like it.”

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Elliott criticized the film during an appearance on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast. He called the movie, which has been nominated for 12 Oscars, a “piece of shit” and said it wasn’t a realistic portrait of the American West. He sneered that Campion’s cowboys were like Chippendale dancers who “wear bow ties and not much else.”

When “Power of the Dog” co-star Kodi Smit-McPhee stopped by Variety’s portrait studio at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon on Monday he said hehad “nothing” to say about Elliott’s remarks “because I’m a mature being and I’m passionate about what I do, and I don’t really give energy to anything outside of that.

“If anything I just had a little bit of a laugh,” he added. “Good luck to him.”

Elliott aside, Plemons has plenty to celebrate. He and his fiance Kirsten Dunst earned Oscar nominations for their work in “Power of the Dog.”

“I was working [the day of the nominations announcement],” Plemons said. “I worked about half the day and we were both so tired. Kirsten was off with the kids and I was up early working. But we went out to this Italian restaurant and then FaceTimed every family member and watch them freak out.”

Being nominated for the same movie is a surreal experience, Plemons said: “My sister kind of put it the best actually – it’s not even a scenario you could dream up as a kid. It extends beyond any of your wildest ideas of what could be. It just wasn’t on my radar of possibilities.”

“Windfall,” out on March 18 on Netflix, stars Plemons and Lily Collins as a married couple who arrive at their vacation home to find they are being robbed by Jason Segel.