The 81-year-old actor has poured scorn on the musical about an Austrian singing family who escaped the Nazi regime.
Asked in The Hollywood Reporter what was the “toughest role” he’d ever played, the Canadian says: “The part in The Sound of Music.
“It was so awful and sentimental and gooey.
“I had to work terribly hard to try to infuse some minuscule bit of humour into it.”
Since its release in 1965, The Sound of Music – starring Julie Andrews as Maria, a nun who falls in love with a widower and his children – has been a family favourite and a holiday classic.