Benedict Cumberbatch: Alan Turing 'would have shrunk with horror' at the Oscars 2015 furore

The actor was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the Enigma codebreaker in The Imitation Game

Jenn Selby
Tuesday 24 February 2015 15:07 GMT
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Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch star in Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game
Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch star in Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game

Stephen Hawking was among the first to congratulate Eddie Redmayne on his Best Actor win for his portrayal as him in The Theory of Everything.

“Well done Eddie, I’m very proud of you,” the physicist posted on Facebook.

“It’s not who he was, and I’m not at all either, but it’s part of my exterior as my job as an actor.”

Cumberbatch was nominated for his role as the Enigma codebreaker in The Imitation Game.

Asked how he felt sat in the audience and learning he hadn’t won the Academy Award for Best Actor, he answered, “fantastic”.

“Oh, I won,” he continued. “We all won. Everyone who’s sitting in that audience won. There is no such thing as 80 per cent of losers when it comes to being nominated for an Oscar, which is what you’re basically looking at if you don’t win an award. Probably more than that, my maths ain’t great. Unlike the character I played.

Eddie Redmayne gets excited by the word 'Oscar' on stage at the Academy Awards

“So the point is I’m there to be acknowledged for performing (the role of) a man who is exceptionally important to all of our lives, who is dealt an incredibly unjust blow in his life, and who met the end of his miseries with suicide, and we’re there saying things that he wasn’t able to.”

He went on to hail the win of The Imitation Game screenwriter Glenn Moore, who picked up the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was also honoured with a standing ovation for his moving acceptance speech admission.

“So, here's the thing,” Moore said on the podium. “Alan Turing never got to stand on a stage like this to look out on all these disconcertingly attractive faces, and I do. And that's the most unfair thing I think I've ever heard

“When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt I did not belong. And now I'm standing here I would like this moment to be for that kid out there who feels she's weird or she's different or she doesn't fit in anywhere - yes, you do. I promise you do.

“Stay weird, stay different and when it's your turn, and you are standing on this stage, please pass the message on to the next person who comes along.”

Moore adapted Andrew Hodges' book Alan Turing: The Enigma for screen.

He is currently working on The Devil in The White City, which will star Leonardo DiCaprio.

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