A different Benedict Cumberbatch was seen in an equally different-looking King’s Cross station last October 20, Sunday.
Second World War Drama
The 37-year-old English actor’s upcoming movie, a World War II drama entitled The Imitation Game had already started filming. Here, Cumberbatch is set to play the character of math genius Alan Turing, the man who was responsible for cracking the Nazi German’s Enigma Code during the Second World War. Set to act with him as his “love interest” Joan Clarke in the movie is actress Keira Knightley. The two were even seen ambling across King’s Cross in between scene takes.
A small portion of the Victorian station was given a 1940s revamp with props that included leather trunks and old-fashioned luggage cases to make the biopic more WWII authentic.
Extras dressed as returning WWII soldiers were also sprawled in that revamped King’s Cross spot along with 1940-era policemen to add further authenticity to the picture. the said set had been made specifically for an outside scene which features the movie’s two stars.
Keira was also seen passing time with the film’s crew, all donning yellow jackets for identification, as they prepared for another take that wet and windy London day.
The Imitation Game is publicized as a nail-biting run against time amidst World War II’s darkest days. The said movie will also star Mark Strong, Rory Kinnear and Charles Dance.
Its arrival had followed an interminable pre-production, which within this time, Graham Moore wrote a screenplay that was adjudged the best un-produced script in Hollywood by Black List last 2011. Moore’s screenplay was based on the biography written by Andrew Hodges about the Turing, Alan Turing: The Enigma.
Eventually, the movie’s production started last September 15 and will involve shooting scenes in different locations across England, places that were key points in Turing’s life like the Bletchley Park where the mathematician worked throughout the war as well as Buckinghamshire town, Chesham and Bicester Airfield in Oxfordshire.
A Look at Turing’s Life
In spite of his success in breaking the Nazis’ Enigma Code, Turing was later charged with homosexuality, which was illegal in the United Kingdom until 1967, after he admitted to having a relationship with 19-year-old Arnold Murray.
At the ensuing trial, he pleaded guilty and when given the choice between imprisonment and undergoing hormone treatment to destroy his sexual urges, he chose the latter.
However, two years after doing so, in 1954, he was found dead by his cleaner. Post-mortem investigations revealed he died due to cyanide poisoning.
The mathematician-cryptanalyst’s life had been previously documented in a TV show entitled Britain’s Greatest Codebreaker with Ed Stoppard playing the lead character.