Last night, following the announcement of his wedding, Benedict Cumberbatch appeared on Jimmy Kimmel to promote The Imitation Game.
The actor told the story of how he found out he was nominated for an Oscar, and he also discussed the historic importance of Alan Turing. Not only did Cumberbatch point out Turing's importance to the LGBT community, but also his influence on the tech sector — Silicon Valley and beyond. After Kimmel said he hadn't known Turing before Imitation Game, the actor replied:
He's known amongst the intelligence community, amongst the sort of gods of the computer world, the Silicon Valley, he's known amongst LGBT groups… what we've hoped to have done with this movie is to basically broaden an audience and an understanding of this extraordinary man, who at a very young age invented computer science and the idea of computing… [in terms of government persecution,] This man was utterly wronged…If you ask anybody in Silicon Valley — Bill Gates down — they still use Turing's mathematics.
Cumberbatch also pointed out how Turing's cracking of the Enigma code is estimated to have ended WWII two years early. Check out clips of the Kimmel appearance AFTER THE JUMP…
