Benedict Cumberbatch is adamant an email he penned to whistleblower Julian Assange following his criticism of The Fifth Estate is \"the best pieces of writing I've ever done\". <\/p>\n
The Sherlock star portrayed the controversial WikiLeaks founder in the 2013 movie about the website's publication of thousands of classified documents. <\/p>\n
Before the shoot began, Assange wrote a letter to Cumberbatch trying to convince him to withdraw from the role, but the actor refused and wrote a lengthy, impassioned email in response explaining why he was right for the part. <\/p>\n
Telling Telegraph Magazine about Assange's letter, he says, \"There was a huge amount of passive aggression in that. I'm not stupid. I knew what he was doing; I knew that he was blindsiding me with praise, thinking my ego would be massaged by some fat, fictitious pay cheque or the idea of being 'a movie star' by playing him, and that would persuade me to be some talking piece for the State Department... <\/p>\n
\"I wrote back a very strong email that, unless he shows it, it will never see the light of day. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've ever done, I'm proud to say, and he was very polite in response. But I don't feel the need to publish that correspondence, and I'm not going to talk about it.\" <\/p>\n
However, it appears Cumberbatch is unaware that both of their responses were published last year (13). <\/p>\n
Assange has been living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012 after he was given political asylum following accusations of sexual assault and rape in Sweden. <\/p>\n
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