Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different.
To me, Alan Turing was a mystery - it was sort of like something I needed to unravel. And he was also obsessed with puzzles. So I wanted to make the movie like a mystery, like a puzzle that you're piecing together.
It was one of those great miracles of history that they managed to smuggle an Enigma machines out to Britain just before they were invaded by the Nazis.
I thought I knew who Alan Turing was. I've always loved history, and I was actually shocked by how little I actually knew. I was amazed this wasn't common knowledge. Why wasn't he on the front covers of my history books? He's one of the great thinkers of the last century, and he was sort of pushed into the shadows.
I had been a lifelong Alan Turing obsessive. Among incredibly nerdy teenagers, without a lot of friends, Alan Turing was always this luminary figure we'd all look up to.
I felt like Alan Turing's story was such an important story to tell, and it was so wonderful to write the script and other people find it and say, 'I never heard this story.' It's such an amazing story that people don't believe it.
Alan Turing, to me, always felt like an outsider's outsider.
Alan Turing is such an amazing, tragic story.
I had first heard about Alan Turing when I was a teenager. I've known about him since I was a kid, and I always wanted to write about him.
'The Imitation Game' is a very British film.
I wrote about Alan Turing, the great mathematician and code-breaker. He was an absolutely different person, certainly more brilliant than I ever will be.
I was shocked that I knew so little about Alan Turing. Then I started to read about him, and I got a little obsessed.
He makes me laugh, Mick! He tended to turn up when we were having lunch and entertain us all. He bought an Enigma machine! I've never worked with a producer who was more famous than everyone put together.
