Cumberbatch decodes Turing in ‘Imitation Game’

TORONTO—With characters like Sherlock Holmes, Julian Assange and Stephen Hawking, Benedict Cumberbatch has accumulated a filmography littered with high IQs.

Characters of analytical prowess and fast-deducting intellect have made Cumberbatch something like the ultimate quicksilver mind of the digital age—no other actor has made computation sexier.

Cumberbatch, relaxing in a Toronto hotel room, quickly points out that he has—like his spineless plantation owner of “12 Years a Slave,” or his painfully shy son in “August: Osage County”—played some “pretty dull, ordinary” people.

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch. AP FILE PHOTO

Yet, Cumberbatch is clearly drawn to highly complex, real-life characters under extraordinary circumstances—roles that demand technical preparation (an accent, a stammer), considerable biographical research and a precision of approach.

“Perhaps, that’s a fair one,” he says, turning over the idea. “Maybe I do. I think for the reasons people are attracted to those characters, as well. You can never fully understand them—there’s always a certain amount of enigma or mystery to them.”

Latest riddle

Cumberbatch’s latest riddle is Alan Turing, a hugely important figure to World War II code-breaking and a computer science pioneer.

“The Imitation Game” is about how Turing and others at Britain’s Bletchley Park solved the seemingly unbreakable Enigma code used by the Germans throughout WWII.

Winston Churchill said Turing made the single greatest contribution to the war, but his achievement wasn’t widely recognized until recently, when the code-breaker’s work was declassified.

“Considering all of that, why isn’t he on the front cover of every history textbook?,” asks Cumberbatch. “He’s a properly important figure in our culture!”

“The Imitation Game” is only partly a traditional wartime thriller. It’s also a tragedy of social close-mindedness. Turing was gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain. He was convicted of indecency in 1952, then chemically castrated. Two years later, just 41, he killed himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple.

“I see somebody who was tragically damaged and continually battered by an intolerant, nonunderstanding world—the very world he was trying to save and liberate from fascism,” explains Cumberbatch.

“The Imitation Game,” directed by Norwegian filmmaker Morten Tyldum, is an ode to outsiders. Cumberbatch’s Turing isn’t just different because of his sexuality, he’s utterly antisocial. Rarely making eye contact, etiquette disinterested the single-minded Turing. “I don’t care what’s normal,” he says in the movie.

His Bletchley collaborators also included Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), a rare female in his world. Knightley says the film “is about trying to celebrate differences, because of the tragedies that can occur when you destroy people who aren’t like you.”

Oscar contender

The film’s mix of historical drama with contemporary resonance has won it acclaim on the festival circuit, and positioned it as an Oscar contender. Especially lauded has been Cumberbatch’s depiction of a mathematical mind wracked by repression.

“He can play so many emotions at the same time. There’s strength and vulnerability. There’s arrogance, and there’s this lonely boy,” says Tyldum. “It’s not every actor that can play a genius.”

Knightley, a friend of Cumberbatch’s since the two worked together on “Atonement,” calls him “the sort of actor who never tries to simplify anything.”

“If it’s a complex person, he wants to dive into all the complexities, and try to get all the nuances out,” Knightley says. “You completely believe him in any of these roles—whether it’s Assange or Stephen Hawking. He’s very intelligent, but he’s got a curiosity you can see—and it burns through his performances!”

After “The Imitation Game,” the 38-year-old Brit, who recently announced his engagement to Sophie Hunter, is ready for a simpler “equation.”

“I’ve done evil. I’ve done good. I’ve done smart,” says Cumberbatch. “I haven’t done something sexy, really. I know Sherlock’s some people’s cup of tea. And, I’d like to do a romantic-comedy!” AP