Benedict Cumberbatch humbly admits that he is not a genius

At TIFF 2013, you couldn’t swing around a Sherlock-issue trench coat without hitting Benedict Cumberbatch. The British star appeared in three of the most talked-about films at last year’s fest, including gala opener The Fifth Estate. This year sees TIFF tumbling down the back-slope of Peak Cumberbatch, as the spiky, angular It Lad stars in The Imitation Game, a film about English codebreaker and pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, who was tragically persecuted, and eventually chemically castrated, for being a gay Englishman in the 1950s. (The Queen, God save her, pardoned Turing in 2013, nearly 60 years after his death.)

B-Cums was present at today’s The Imitation Game press conference, alongside costars Keira Knightley, Allen Leech, Matthew Goode and director Morten Tyldum. Cumberbatch talked about not letting Turing’s fame cloud the film’s realism. “Celebrity isn’t a signifier of importance,” he said (while sitting on a dais in front of a crowd of reporters). “What needs to be investigated is what he’s actually achieved. What we wanted was for as broad an audience as possible to see it, so his legacy can be more well known.”

Cumberbatch was asked why he’s frequently chosen to play “smart” characters: hackers, computer programmers, master detectives, Star Trek supervillains and so on. “It’s very flattering on one account,” he responded. “It’s horrifying on the other. I’m very far removed from the intelligence I’m asked to portray.”

So, there you have it: Benedict Cumberbatch is not a genius.