Amph Benedict Pumpkinpatch to play Julian Assange in film

So, apparently a film is being made about the egomaniac who founded Wikileaks, entitled The Fifth Estate. To play the Australian 'activist' Julian Assange, the director has cast well known non-Australian and rough-hewn block of wood Benedict Cummerbund in the role:



As you can see, there is no semblance to Assange that is achieved beyond putting a ridiculous wig on the actor, to replicate Assange's ridiculous hairstyle.

How exactly is the public served by this film? Will it be an insightful look at a modern phenomenon like The Social Network? Or premature and thus without purpose, like Oliver Stone's misguided (but well made/acted) W?

And were there literally no Australian actors who could play the role and you know... do the accent?

 

Source? Because I call photoshop on that picture.

 

Well he looks suitably rapey if nothing else. And I have enough faith in Cumberbatch's acting to do a decent job, irrespective of the accent.

 

Do you not have Google, Juliet? It's this magical thing that lets you search the entire interwubs.

 

I'm no fan of Assange, at all. He's a narcissist masquerading as an activist, and in releasing the classified documents he did he put lives at risk. There aren't many here who have read REFTELs at the Secret/Top Secret level before so let me state that anything TS that was released will contain reference to specific operations (it's unlikely you would cable anything that's using TS clearance wouldn't be sent over cable so names of assets in place wouldn't come out) and some local sources who would reasonably expect reprisals. Unless you have accessed cables (we used SATIN terminals to access them, so it's unlikely a Brad Manning type could compromise security in Australia in the same way) and used them, you have no insight into how recklessly dangerous the Wikileaks action was. I had access to and used REFTELs before, so I can't abide what Assange does, no matter how in the public interest Collateral Murder was.

So I agree that Cumberbatch has the chops to pull the role off. What I worry about is that the self-obsessed attention whore that is Julian Assange will be given a sympathetic bent in the films. He doesn't deserve it.

 

Well, a good, visionary director will certainly be of tremendous benefit to the

Er.

Well, at least the writer's done political drama before.

 

Lucius Malfoy called. He wants his wig back.

 

The Fifth Estate? CBC will not be pleased.

 

This belongs in the Sherlock thread

 

WILL CUMBERBATCH BE ABLE TO REPLICATE THE DISTINCT NASALLY TONE OF THE SOUTHERN CONTINENT?

 

No it doesn't.

 

If a Brit can play Superman, a non-Australian can play an Australian.

 

I...have no idea why I was quoted for this.

 

actually i think he's making a good "Assange face" there. post liked for "rough-hewn block of wood benedict cummerbund"

 

Ew.

 

American accents are easy for Brits and Australians. Australian accents are challenging for both. Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline have done good ones, but you end up with a vaguely ridiculous version of the broad Australian accent a la Monty Python's Bruces.

 

I imagine its just as hard as getting the right regional dialect of British/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/etc to get the right American dialect.

 

can't wait for this movie concerning assend bumberpast!

 

Watched the Wire?

 

sorry juliet, he's right.

 

No, actually I haven't, actually.

 

Australia has already done a 'biopic'

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I never watched it but apparently it wasn't that great.​

 

Didn't we already have a movie about Julian Assange? I think it was called Sky-something...Skyfall.

 

Have you ever heard Ewan McGregor or Jude Law attempt an American accent? You can come up with all the anecdata you want, Ender, doesn't make your statement true.