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11:33 am - 02/01/2013

Benedict Cumberbatch 'in talks to play Alan Turing' the Enigma codebreaker



Benedict Cumberbatch who is currently playing Julian Assange in Wikileaks film The Fifth Estate looks set to bag another high profile real-life character.

The Sherlock actor is in talks to play Bletchley Park codebreaker and mathematician Alan Turing according to a report in Deadline.

Graham Moore's screenplay The Imitation Game has been commissioned by Black Bear Pictures with Headhunters' Morten Tyldum signed up to direct.

Turing is widely hailed as responsible for cracking the Enigma Code which greatly helped British naval efforts during the Second World War. Also known for what is regarded as the first blue print for modern computing, Turing's heroic wartime activities were not revealed to his family or the world until after his death.

The State which Turing had fought to protect cruelly turned on him in 1952. He was found guilty of gross indecency for homosexual acts avoiding prison by agreeing to be chemically castrated. He took Stilboestrol, a pill containing female hormones, but was removed from his government work and felt himself to have been placed under observation. As the holder of State secrets, who was in 1950s attitudes a sexual deviant, he was a dangerous outcast.

He was found dead aged 41 on 7 June 1954 having apparently taken cyanide.

Turing's remarkable life and achievements, so numerous that the Science Museum currently has an entire exhibition dedicated to them, are only now being fully recognised and a petition to get his face put on a £10 note garnered 26,336 signatories last year.

The script for The Imitation Game was originally sold to Warner Bros with Leonardo DiCaprio intended for the main role. But the project was shelved and sold onto Black Bear when the actor got involved with The Devil In The White City for Warner.

Source.
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black_swan87 1st-Feb-2013 08:32 pm (UTC)
He's going to be everywhere the next couple of years. I feel like one day I'm going to come home and he's to be sitting in my living room and quite frankly I would not be mad at that.
meredydd 1st-Feb-2013 09:14 pm (UTC)
When you find out where to put our names on the roster for that, let me know...
bprorsum 1st-Feb-2013 08:35 pm (UTC)
Gays are the best.
vickyblueeyez 1st-Feb-2013 08:45 pm (UTC)
Finally found the Feb issue of Empire magazine with him on the cover.
anime_fanatic19 1st-Feb-2013 08:45 pm (UTC)
I really want Cucumberpatch to play this role, I think it could be definitely amazing
scaredsquee 1st-Feb-2013 08:46 pm (UTC)
he is so fucking hideous jesus fucking fuck.
x_butterfly19_x 1st-Feb-2013 08:50 pm (UTC)
ohh I like that they're making a film about alan Turing <3
classiqfemme 1st-Feb-2013 08:57 pm (UTC)
I'm thisclose to finding him, grabbing him by the ear, and dragging his ass back to London to film series 3.
Didn't Cumberbatch already play Stephen Hawking and Vincent Van Gogh? What's with him and geniuses?
lilyoda 1st-Feb-2013 09:15 pm (UTC)
Cumberbatch really likes playing the tortured genius/mathematician/scientist role so seems like a good role for him. Hope he can squeeze in Sherlock series 3 inbetween all these projects. As excited as I am for his other roles that's the one I'm anticipating.

meredydd 1st-Feb-2013 09:16 pm (UTC)
He's a fantastic actor and I'd love to see him in this film... He's quite good with geniuses, esp troubled ones...
zurbraran 1st-Feb-2013 09:21 pm (UTC)
So, he's officially been typecast.
nin_o_zara 1st-Feb-2013 09:25 pm (UTC)
Oh honestly...
I'm watching Spooks, and he's bloody in it! Treacherous little weasel.
beoweasel 1st-Feb-2013 09:30 pm (UTC)
And the part of Alan Tuning will be played by a lizard monster.
nebulous_mirage 1st-Feb-2013 09:36 pm (UTC)
so ummmmm, when was the last time he took a break?
prophecypro 1st-Feb-2013 10:06 pm (UTC)
Eggsbenedict cucumber just having fun out there
rolt_me 1st-Feb-2013 10:41 pm (UTC)
this'd prob be p good. I recently read a bio on von Neumann who, even tho lead a very much less dramatic life, would make a v good TV movie. it seems like the only mathematicians who get biopics are the crazy (A Beautiful Mind) ones or with a sobstory.
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