What do you do if you're a celebrity constantly hounded by the paparazzi? Do you scowl menacingly at the cameras? Throw a can of baked beans at them a la Hugh Grant? Or, do you harness this attention for your own political beliefs like Benedict Cumberbatch? Between takes of filming the next season, the Sherlock star found himself besieged by photographers. In response to this, Cumberbatch produced four pieces of paper on which was written questions relating to the government's detention of journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner under Schedule seven of the Terrorism act. The first page reads, "Questions we have a right to ask in a democracy - Cameron, Theresa May, GCHQ, teachers, parents, each other …..", followed by the second page, "Hard drives smashed, journalists detained at airports…… Democracy?", the third page, "Schedule 7 Prior restraint - is this erosion of civil liberties winning the war on terror…..?", and the final page, "What do they not want you to know? And how did they get to know it? Does the exposure of their techniques cause a threat to our security or does it just cause them embarrassment…?"
We going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably not what the paparazzos had in mind for their money picture, but like that. The actor used a situation he has no control of and used it to question an incident that has confounded, and horrified people the world over. Not that we can be certain of Cumberbatch's own take on this situation, but we can see that he is keen to start a dialogue about it. It has made us pause for thought, that's for sure. (Buzzfeed)
Photo: Via Buzzfeed.
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