'Russia's Attitude To Homosexuality Is Terrifying'

Benedict Cumberbatch aims his steely gaze at a journalist who’s dared to suggest that legally enforced chemical castration as a form of punishment for a man’s sexuality is something we in the 21st century can’t imagine occurring today.

“Can’t we?” His eyebrow rises. “I don’t know. People are being beheaded in parts of the world because they’re gay. It’s barbaric to think of it going on now, here, in a western democracy, but you know, the birthplace of democracy, Greece, during its period of austerity has seen the rise of the Golden Dawn. Men and women are being beaten up in public because of being gay. Russia’s attitude to homosexuality is terrifying. This [The Imitation Game] isn’t a history lesson. It’s sadly, amazingly current and important to realise that people scapegoat minorities in times of hardship, in times of nationalism or fascism, any form, whether it’s political or social. We have to be on our guard for it.”

Cumberbatch, along with writer Graham Moore, director Morten Tyldum, and co-stars Keira Knightley, Allen Leech and Matthew Beard, are promoting the release of The Imitation Game: a film that is part-spy thriller, part-WWII biopic, part-LGBT rights tale, and entirely based on the real, fascinating, and ultimately tragic life of Alan Turing.  

“It’s such a unique and fascinating character,” Tyldum says of Turing. “You just fall in love with him and his story. He is an outsider. I wanted to make a movie about celebrating somebody who is different, about being somebody who is not normal and how important that is.”

Alan Turing, a young boy with a stammer, bullied at school for being different, was a genius. He went on to become a mathematician, a code breaker, a philosopher, and a pioneer in computer science. He pretty much invented the modern computer. He was also homosexual in a time when being gay was illegal.

Men and women are being beaten up in public because of being gay. Russia’s attitude to homosexuality is terrifying.

The film has a lot to pack in, which it does by moving in a non-linear time sequence between Turing’s youth and adulthood, mostly focusing on his remarkable achievements during WWII. It was during this time that Turing and his team of cryptoanaysts broke the German Enigma code – the code used by the Nazis to communicate everything from the weather to their battle plans – thereby significantly turning the tables in Allies’ favour, shortening the war by two to four years, and possibly saving us all from global Nazism. Sadly, in 1952 he was charged with gross indecency (read: being gay) and opted for oestrogen injections designed to lower his libido over two years in prison. He died of cyanide poisoning two years later.

An independent film on a small budget – so small that according scriptwriter Graham Moore they didn’t even have heat in the studio – Turing’s legacy seems to have moved anyone who was sent the script. As Tyldum enthusiastically explains, “Everybody we asked said yes to be a part of this. I got all my favourite actors, I got my favourite composer – Alexandre Desplat – who is the hardest composer to get to do anything because he’s always so busy, and he wanted to be part of it. We got Billy [William] Goldenberg, who just won an Oscar for Argo and we were like, ‘Ok, we can just pay you a fraction of your salary, can you come edit this movie?’ and he said yes.”

Even as Tyldum was trying to convince Cumberbatch, he found Cumberbatch trying to convince him. “He is very passionate about this. And it’s such a complex character; the strength, the vulnerability, the awkwardness of this lonely boy who lost so much. Benedict is able to portray all that at the same time.”

At times The Imitation Game is a gripping race against the clock as Turing and his team work each day to build a machine that will crack the Enigma code before the Nazis change it again at midnight. But it’s also peppered with plenty of humour which, Cumberbatch says, was as much about being true to Turing’s character as it was about making an entertaining film.

“People say how much did you invent and how much did you add into it? The fact is that it was all there,” Tyldum says, picking up speed with excitement. “The spy that MI6 knew about, he was there; the crossword which you see in the newspaper is the actual crossword that Alan Turing made when he recruited people to MI6. I mean just the idea of recruiting people to MI6 with a crossword, that’s crazy! But he did. He wrote a letter to Churchill, Churchill responded, this is all actual event. He got engaged to Joan Clark, he told her ‘I’m gay,’ she said ‘I don’t care.’ It was so rich, there was so much there. We wanted to make this movie as entertaining and fun as possible.”

That this is a special film for Tyldum’s cast is obvious. Everyone from Leech and Beard, to Cumberbatch and Knightley, speak of Turing with warmth and admiration, and of the societal circumstances that lead to his tragic end with distaste.

“When I read the script,” Cumberbatch says with furrowed brows. “I was amused and intrigued and flabbergasted and then confused and angry and very upset. When I was doing the last scenes, there were a couple of takes at the beginning of the day and I just couldn’t stop crying. And it wasn’t acting, or good acting, it was being very in tune to someone. It was near the end of me playing him so I felt defensive of him and reasonably close to him. It destroyed me and then I couldn’t lay the scene, I had to stop. It still makes me very angry. This guy is a national hero. He should be with Isaac Newton and Darwin as one of the greatest scientific minds we’ve ever had. A philosopher, a war hero, and a gay icon.”