Wikileaks Is Now Leaking Julian Assange’s Heartbreaking Letters To Benedict Cumberbatch

By now, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s thoughts on The Fifth Estate — the upcoming Hollywood portrayal of his epic life story — are fairly well known. Recently, he’s publicly criticised the film’s director Bill Condon, claiming his intentions were to make him look like “a sociopathic megalomaniac”, and even leaked “a mature version” of the film’s script, claiming it’s “a work of fiction masquerading as fact.”

What we hadn’t received, though, were details on Assange’s rumoured correspondence with star Benedict Cumberbatch… until now. Overnight, Wikileaks posted an unintentionally hilarious missive on its site, grandly titled ‘The First Letter From Julian Assange To Benedict Cumberbatch’, like its a New Testament gospel or one of those church-y things involving “the Corinthians”.

The email — adorably double-spaced and eloquently worded like a sad love letter from a Civil War husband — is dated “15 Jan 2013”, and sees Assange turning down a romantic lunch date request from the similarly floppy-haired Cumberbatch, over concerns that his participation in the film may lend authenticity to the actor’s “talented, but debauched, performance that the script will force you to give.”

It is a heartbreaking letter.

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1. The opening ‘starf**ker’ part

Dear Benedict,

Thank you for trying to contact me…

My assistants communicated your request to me, and I have given it a lot of thought and examined your previous work, which I am fond of.

I think I would enjoy meeting you.

The bond that develops between an actor and a living subject is significant.

If the film reaches distribution we will forever be correlated in the public imagination. Our paths will be forever entwined.

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2. The sad ‘We cannot be friends’ part

But I must speak directly.

I hope that you will take such directness as a mark of respect, and not as an unkindness.

I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film.

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

I believe that it is going to be overwhelmingly negative for me and the people I care about.

It is based on a deceitful book by someone who has a vendetta against me and my organisation.

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3. The angry, fist-shaking ‘CuuuuuumberBAAAAAATCH!’ bit

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

It is going to smother the truthful version of events, at a time when the truth is most in demand.

As justification it will claim to be fiction, but it is not fiction. It is distorted truth about living people doing battle with titanic opponents.  It is a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice.

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4. The ‘I’m sorry, but maybe we could meet up for a coffee some other time’ bit

I believe that you are a decent person, who would not naturally wish to harm good people in dire situations.

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.

Your skills play into the hands of people who are out to remove me and WikiLeaks from the world.  

I believe that you should reconsider your involvement in this enterprise…

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

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I imagine a trembling lip and gentle tears streaming from Cumberbatch’s eyes, as he read this harsh rejection letter on that cold January evening. We can only hope that this scene made it into the movie, some kinda split-screen montage with Cumberbatch playing both parts. That would be so nuts.

In the meantime, read the rest of the thing here, preferably while clutching a kerchief and gasping ‘Oh my!” in a Southern accent at various intervals.