With The Imitation Game out now in cinemas, star Keira Knightley discusses playing Joan Clarke and what drew her to the true story thriller.
Directed by Morten Tyldum (Headhunters), The Imitation Game stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, the mathematician and cryptologist credited with cracking the German Enigma code during World War II.
The film also stars Matthew Goode (A Single Man), Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Rory Kinnear (Skyfall), Charles Dance (Gosford Park), Allen Leech (Downton Abbey) and Matthew Beard (An Education).
Knightley's character, Joan Clarke, was another mathematician who worked with Turing at the British code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park and became his fiancée.
Read our review of The Imitation Game here.
How did you get involved in the project?
Keira Knightley: As soon as I heard that they were doing the film of it, I thought, 'Oh, if there is a part, I'd love to get involved,' not knowing exactly what they were going to focus on. I just wanted to be a part of it. When I first got the script, I loved it, but actually the role of Joan was a lot smaller in the initial script. I said 'yes' to that, I think for the same reason that all the actors are involved: just because they want to be a part of it.
How closely does The Imitation Game stick to the real events? And in particular, in relation to the character you play, Joan Clarke?
The film deviates somewhat, in Joan's story, from the truth of what happened. I think the truth of it, and you get the essence of it in the story, is that she was absolutely up against it, being a female mathematician at that point, to get a seat at the table that she should have been at. She was indeed Alan Turing's fiancée, but actually that wasn't how she got to Bletchley. They did recruit a lot of people for Bletchley like that, with the crossword, and I think that the writer and all of us felt like that was such an amazing and weird way to get people in. I mean that is absolutely incredible.
That's not how she got there; it was actually her Oxford professor that put her forward for it. That makes her story even more incredible - she had this top Oxford professor that was saying to the people at Bletchley, 'You need this woman,' and it still took her a year of doing much more of the secretarial work to get into the room that she should have been in, with Alan and the other code breakers. Then, once she was doing the job that she was meant to do, with all the guys doing the same job, she was paid a fraction of what they were.
That's still the feminist argument of today - it's about equality, equal pay, and getting a place at the table. As much as it is obviously better now, it's still a conversation that needs to be had.
Do you feel more responsibility when playing a real character?
I think there are always questions of morality when you make a drama out of something. It's never going to be completely accurate, but it is always something that you go, 'Can we make it as close as possible?' You do always try, and I think you could get a lot closer if this was The Joan Clarke Story. You could make a film about her, because she's fascinating, but it isn't [that film], so you always have to choose what you're focusing on. The focus in this is Alan, and you have to use whatever mechanism you can to further that.
Morally, I think there's always a question over it, but I think, as
an actor, you have to go, 'Well, my job is for this drama, and this is what we have to push'. I think the only thing you can do it just be open about the fact that this is a fascinating person, and that everyone should look her up and learn about her.
All of the characters in this are fascinating. The secrecy around the work that they did during the war was incredible - and the fact is that none of them had spoken about it. It was classified [as secret] until the 90s. So for Joan and the rest of them, you do this extraordinary thing, you have this enormous impact on the whole world, and you stay absolutely silent about the entire thing pretty much all your life.
Even when it was declassified, when people went round, trying to get testimonies from them, they found it really difficult to actually make them talk. I don't think they could believe that it had been lifted. Equally, if you've trained yourself not to, you can imagine that you'd lose the facility to even speak about it, in a funny kind of way.
Did Joan Clarke receive any recognition for the work she did on Enigma?
She did get the MBE, but I don't think that was really brought to public attention. I haven't read the very famous book that Enigma, the [2001] film, is based upon, but I'm sure she's within that, because how could she not be?
It seems surprising that there haven't been more films about this.
That's the thing that I remember when I read this article about it - just going, 'What the-?' and instantly thinking, 'Is somebody making a film of this?' Of course, I always think like that, but this story was just extraordinary.
Benedict Cumberbatch described the experience of shooting at the real Bletchley Park as "ghostly". Do you agree?
Yeah, it was. If you're doing anything like that and you go to the actual place, you always feel a bit like that, but particularly because it's not the big tourist attraction that perhaps it should be, in a funny kind of way. Even though it's so close to London, I'd never thought of going. For some reason it hasn't quite permeated. I think, again, it's a relatively recently that it's all come to light, and possibly you haven't had the number of people writing the books and being as interested as you will, but it's definitely worth a visit.
You first worked with Benedict Cumberbatch on Atonement. Was it good returning to that relationship?
It's always lovely to work with people that you've worked with before because you just have that lingo, and that quick, easy, rapport - particularly if you've had a lovely time working together. You can instantly snap into something.
We're mates, and we've sort of been mates since then, so it was nice playing the kind of friendship between Joan and Alan with a friend, because you instantly can tap into that energy. He was definitely attached when I got the script, and he was a huge reason to pursue it. I thought it was brilliant casting.
