The Fifth Estate: Julian Assange reveals details of Benedict Cumberbatch letter

WikiLeaks founder wrote to the actor telling him the film was 'toxic' and based on a distorted version of the truth

Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate
Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate.

WikiLeaks has released a letter from Julian Assange to Benedict Cumberbatch, in which he asked the actor to drop out of a film about the organisation and refused to meet him.

Assange told Cumberbatch: "I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film."

Cumberbatch plays the WikiLeaks founder in The Fifth Estate, which is released in the UK on Friday.

He revealed last month he considered quitting the film after Assange wrote to him in January with a "very considered, thorough, charming and intelligent account" of why he shouldn't participate.

In the letter, Assange described the film as a "toxic" and "wretched", based on a distorted version of the truth.

"This film is going to bury good people doing good work, at exactly the time that the state is coming down on their heads," he wrote.

"I do not believe it is going to be positive for me or the people I care about."

Assange warned Cumberbatch: "You will be used, as a hired gun, to assume the appearance of the truth in order to assassinate it. To present me as someone morally compromised and to place me in a falsified history. To create a work, not of fiction, but of debased truth.

"Not because you want to, of course you don't, but because, in the end, you are a jobbing actor who gets paid to follow the script, no matter how debauched.

"Consider the consequences to people who may fall into harm because of this film."

He added: "I believe you are well intentioned but surely you can see why it is a bad idea for me to meet with you."

In September, the actor described Assange's correspondence as "a very considered, thorough, charming and intelligent account of why he thought this was morally wrong for me to be part of something he thought was going to be damaging in real terms – not just to perceptions but to the reality of the outcome for himself."

The release of the letter follows the leaking of the film's script by WikiLeaks last month. It was posted on the internet alongside a damning 4,000 word essay.

In a statement accompanying the release of the letter, Assange said: "Instead of the exciting true story, we get a film about a bland German IT worker who wasn't even there and a fabricated fight over redactions with the old newspapers and the state department saving the day. The result is a geriatric snoozefest that only the US government could love."

The Fifth Estate, opens this year's Toronto film festival this week, but has already received less than dazzling reviews.

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