Benedict, who will play the role of Assange in the upcoming drama, told Vanity Fair that he was contacted by Julian because the Wikileaks founder did not want the Sherlock star involved.
This week, in a round-table discussion about the film, Benedict explained why he got involved in a correspondence with Assange.
“I tried to justify my reasons for doing the project,” he said.
“It mattered to me a lot that he felt so passionately. I wanted to persuade him that [my portrayal] was not necessarily going to be as bad as he feared it would be from the script he’d had leaked to him, which was a very old draft. I don’t think I had [even] seen it.”
The emailing went back and forth for the next few months “and that is where it ended”.
Despite Benedict’s attempts, Assange – who is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London – refused to give the film his blessing.
The Fifth Estate tells the story of the Wikileaks scandal, in which huge amounts of data kept secret by world governments were released on the internet. It is due to come out on October 11th.