>> from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> benedict cumberbatch is here and one of the most talked about actors in hollywood.

he's won an emmy for playing sherlock holmes in the bbc masterpiece and a new movie called the imitation game. he plays the mathematician alan turin. here's the trailer for the film. >> this war, we are not winning it. if you speak a word of what i am about to show you, you will be executed for high treason. >> it's beautiful. >> the germans use it for all communications. >> everyone thinks enigma is unbreakable. >> do you know how many people have died? three while we have been having this conversation. >> i'm afraid these men will only slow me down.

>> you have six minutes to complete the task. five minutes and 34 seconds. >> you said under six. >> we are going to break an unbreakable nazi code and win the war. to pull this off, one actually has to be a genius. i will design a machine that will allow us to break every message instantly. >> they are not going to help you if they do like you. >> have you decrypted a single german message? >> you will never understand the importance of what i am creating here. >> if you fire, you will have to fire me. >> and me. >> you do not have to do this alone. >> what is going on?

>> he thinks one of us is a soviet spy. >> what if i don't fancy you that way? >> i will tell everyone. >> i am just a mathematician. >> sometimes people do things no one can imagine. >> it has been a good year to be you. >> it absolutely has. i have had a wonderful time both personally and professionally. >> do you go back to do richard the third? >> i'm in the middle of it at the moment. we are filming and as part of the bbc crown series with all the shakespeare history plays.

the films have been out and they've already transmitted the first three that are fantastic. tom huddleston with henry the fifth and we continue with henry the sixth. >> and who will be hamlet? >> i will also be hamlet. but not at the same time. >> every actor has to do it. >> it's always been part of it that is a certain attraction to me. it's one of those universal roles and richard the third is a great challenge for any actor. you get to know them very well over the course of the evening so there is an appeal to have that connection with an audience and explore what of you is

similar to the man. >> this is new york magazine. it says benedict cumberworld. it basically says -- you can tell by the picture what the phenomenon is. >> it's a great photograph. i thank them so much. >> the ones nearest the front have been camped out for hours. >> staged, obviously, but very fun to do. to an extent, it is an extraordinary thing. these are smart and independent girls and boys as well. and it's a thrill for me to bring these people to the kind

of work i have been doing. >> is there a common denominator? in your mind? >> there are comparisons to intelligence, the obvious outsider hero qualities. but i equally do the guy next door as i do a comedian in penguins of madagascar are playing a talking wolf. that's slightly different than alan turing. there is not one that stands out and defines me even though sherlock's success is extraordinary. it is shocking despite his iconic -- i always get this wrong but i was something like 96 -- it is the most portrayed figure of all.

>> you want to be true to the character and at the same time have your own interpretation. >> the huge amount of heavy lifting is done by mark and steven moffat. they invented the idea writing the doctor who series. both being fan boys of the original, they took great care. it is a fan phenomenon. a lot of crossover, and i have a fantastic blueprint.

dr. watson is an observant man, being trained to be even more observant by his friend. he observes his friend, his colleague, his hero, this extraordinary man with great detail. from every physical gesture to mood swing, you have this extraordinary map to plunder every time you go back to the series. >> was it inevitable that you were going to become an actor because of your parents? >> sadly. [laughter] it was a very expensive education. to be able to choose any avenue that opened up through that education but they would've been thrilled with whatever i ended up doing. they probably would've been happy if i been a doctor or lawyer or teacher because of something sensible. >> they knew the difficulties of being an actor. >> it is pathetic. you can't detail the scheduling of your own life, your privacies. all of these things i experienced growing up, but it's a very difficult appetite.

>> would you do it anyway in terms of the training or in terms of becoming the actor you have become? >> probably not. i used to ponder if i would've at a fun time of it if i had gone with it in my 20's and not gone to university. i am glad that i had the buffer of normality and domestic city even with two acting parents. i don't build walls. i do have to go around in cars quite fast in roll the windows up. but i think it is very important to normalize your life because you very quickly transition from being the observer to being the observed. >> observed as an actor? >> observing human behavior and being part of a public and aware of behavior and things going on you can take from your environment that people in it to being the main focus of attention.

>> that's exactly what i meant. you're constantly observing and looking for ideas that -- >> and even more when people are looking at you. there are ways of remaining anonymous and as sherlock says, being in disguise is the best way in some ways. i really enjoyed my further education amid some of my greatest lifelong friends and some fantastic experiences. and we all worked incredibly hard on the productions we put on. so it was my version of theater

which is still a system in england. very arduous, very difficult weekly rep system where you are getting ready to stage the other. three different characters in three different worlds and its this great stretch and training for practice. my schedule is a little bit like that but i think we have all experienced that. we put on a ridiculous amount of plays. >> what do you enjoy most about acting? >> does not a lot not to love, to be honest. i love the camaraderie. i really like the community. the compromises. working stuff out together. >> it is a collaborative enterprise. >> very much.

it you realize that when you are thinking people. you feel incredibly exposed and alone and god bless standup comics. i don't know anything more fearful than an open mic because the thing that brought you, in my instance, i had legions of people behind me that helped me win that award. >> standing on the shoulders of giants. >> and really hard-working individuals that come to work because they want to tell a story as much as we do or it is craft or a job. >> you don't want to let them down. >> i also love the community of actors in that community is a fantastic body of surprising talent. as musicians, artists, humanitarians as well. i like being engaged in the work.

i love bringing extraordinary stories and people to life and ordinary stories and people to life. >> how do you get their? when they called you, when your agent called you, did you know who he was? >> a little. it was a while ago and on television that i had the first stage play. >> you knew who they were talking about. >> i did not know that much about him. you read the script and you are engaged with this character. he's not asking to be liked and it is funny, witty in its intelligence.

and there is the mystery of the code and who this man is. and the eureka moment. and the tragedy of his demise. it the emotional impact of what happened to him and the excruciating reality of that is only magnified when you realize you did not know this. why didn't i know this? and it was a very big driving factor in what was a hyped script. this is for far-reaching people that read within the industry in the year and figure out scripts or vote for scripts to just position them as things that should be made that somehow got lost in development hell or whatever. so it came to me with all of that attached to it. i think it was the top of the list idea. it was a very different space, and english rose garden. so moved and incredibly angry. i thought, i have to tell this story.

this man is a hero. my father was a mechanic. and a war hero and his work with other great cryptographic -- some people estimated it ended two years earlier and saved 14 million lives which is an astonishing thing to comprehend. and afterwards, a man ended up being prosecuted for admitting his true nature after the chemical castration. the world that he saved closed on him and he saw no way out. >> the characteristic of him that you most wanted to get at? >> there is one. it there is a very clear one.

it's a difficult thing to talk about without sounding a little generalized that if the fact that he was utterly connected to his world. that he felt everything around him so keenly and he was able to be influenced by his environment. that was his relationship with joan clark and his first and life love with the boy he fell in love with at school. and that was real key for me as an actor to be able to understand. a clue to how to approach this. we celebrate the fact that he is different and he achieved extraordinary things despite the prejudices he suffered and his eccentric behavior which i think was born out of those things which were seen as a disability in those days. and i think every single time he has a challenge, to turn it to a good despite a throes of his body and mind being racked.

he was bringing this progressive thought. >> we get to know him when he is a mathematician. enigma is the thing the knot -- nazis use use and they can communicate to everybody within the empire without any fear of detection. >> we can all hear it. there's a line in the piece that any schoolchild could pick up the signal but you would not be able to translate what they were because every day they change the code and their work 100 and 59 million million million different combinations. they adapted it in a spectacular way that it needed to be for the machine and said we have to beat the machine with a machine. >> and there was rejection at first and he got churchville to sign off on letting him do what he wanted to do.

-- churchill letting him do what he wanted to do. >> you couldn't imagine this was a stronger command from the commander-in-chief. it was complete support. >> this is after he gets support from churchill. all around him, people did not believe he was on the right track and he had such confidence. a bit arrogance. wouldn't you say? >> yes, yes. >> churchill has put alan in charge. >> this is a terrible idea. >> i hate to say it, but yes.

>> they are positively poor codebreakers. >> you can't fire them. >> you just said i could. >> i said no such thing. >> go to hell. >> well this is inhuman. even for you. >> popular at school, were you? >> tell us about who he was and what was important, understanding what was going on there? >> i think at this stage, it's before joan clark is brought into the story who is another very humanizing influence in his life. he was an incredibly sensitive child, brought up by foster parents for a large portion of his early life. his father was stunned to discover that his son have a stammer. i can't imagine the difficulty that kids face now. it was not victorian but might

as well have been in its attitudes. the idea of him making easy social bonds with his peers was sort of nonexistent so he became very introverted and this lateral thinking. a peculiar but brilliant and unique view that he had on life and the world. then he met and fell in love with this older boy at school. his public school. >> brilliantly played. he is an extraordinary talent and i think we will be seeing more of him. it's a remarkably mature performance. and in that relationship, he discovered cryptography and his sexuality. two very key moments in his life story. the idea he could be celebrated and enjoyed for the fact that he was different and did not have

to worry about his standing. it gave him a great deal of confidence. the sort of confidence you see that he was entitled to a seat at the table. he would then channel into his work after christopher died. he evolved his thinking as an atheist and thought i can keep him alive through honoring his brilliance. i want to be that good a student so that gave us the work ethic. to make absolutely the most of his life and his brilliance was picked up when there were a lot of in exile. beyond that, use discovered very early on and in that space, he was very loved. there were people at loggerheads with him but what truly did happen was this friendship that blossomed into a love.

not a physical love but to -- two meetings of minds, both outsiders experiencing prejudice. >> played by keira knightley. ask she is astonishing in the film. she gets this quiet strength of a woman in a man's world fighting for a place at the table and equal play -- equal pay. she made me realize how he had operate within a team to achieve. >> which was essential to get the job done. >> i think he was much more of a team player in reality than an hour film. -- he is in our film.

people said he was a cantankerous old sod and other peopled that adored him and people that worshiped his abilities. >> and the stakes are so high. >> every day they were failing to win a war that was resulting in europe leaning towards an island. >> ships in the atlantic were being sunk and it present says you explained so well, the moral dilemma that comes. you want to break a code and you don't want them to know that you've broken the code. >> the titans of silicon valley technology that. >> they absolutely do. >> he wished that the apple logo would have been an honor of alan. >> steve jobs and his biography, he was talking about alan turing. >> he comes up with a test to

say how would we define a machine that could thank? -- could think. he said, you put a machine and a person in a different room and you feed them questions and if you can't tell the difference between the machine and the human did you have no reason to say the machine is not thinking and it is called the turing test. or the imitation game. this movie is great. here's the thing about him. his life was almost a reputation of the notion that we are different from machines. he was homosexual but he had to keep it secret when he was breaking german wartime codes. so he gets arrested for gross indecency, finally. he's given hormone treatments and it's really bad. he seems to ride with it for a

while but after he's written this notion, a few years later he bites into a cyanide laced apple to commit suicide. is that something a machine would do? it almost helps you realize the emotions that come with being human. they are fundamentally different these days than what a machine does. >> the famous apple, steve said no. but i wish it had. >> think about the fact that it was also a rainbow colored apple rather than this white one. it couldn't have been more apt. it's very interesting what he says. the emotional truth of this man, he was fascinated, illustrating what makes us different. and how thin those paper walls often are. and we should celebrate that rather than fear it.

and he was in an era where fear dominated and prejudice came about and he was persecuted for being different. >> did you find everything you could or was it some other way? >> there is no footage or recordings of alan turing. but you don't get the stammer with pictures. there are fantastic anecdotes and people that knew him in interviews and surviving family members that talks to me about what they remember but it was a clue into the humanity of the man. who he was as a person on a day-to-day basis, there was a story about him playing chess with his back turned to the board and delighted at his presence and not feeling like they were children. feeling they can be themselves rather than things that have to be quiet.

>> and the way he was relentlessly chased. they used everything they had to tear him down. >> and from the very beginning, it was a great period of conflict. and with extraordinary abilities, pulled into this geopolitical mess with a lasting he wanted to be was a political pond. he wanted to be a mathematician and a scientist. and in his private life as well. he just wanted to get on with his private life. the door closing all the time until he took his own life. >> is there evidence that he knew what he had achieved and knew its potential? >> that's a good question and i'm not completely sure of the answer. one of the things i am most

happy about is the moment where joan clark says to him at the end, you may wish that you were different but i can assure you that the rest of the world is incredibly grateful. cities would not exist, fields of science would not exist because of you. no one ever got to tell him that to his face and that is a great tragedy. >> the queen realized it. a terrible thing they did but long last, it was a couple years ago. >> the first pardon was 2012, i think. >> has been a joy. >> thank you very much for joining us. ♪

>> davis dawson was his assistant to the last two

decades of his life and in 2000 he started photographing freud at work and in the world. those were collected in a new book called "a painter's progress, a portrait of lucien freud." i am pleased to have both of them there. >> this is one-of-a-kind. it is unique. it you can't put him with the modernists or the impressionist. he was just a very great artist. he also had this extraordinary feeling may be inherited from his grandfather. but his earlier work, he was tremendously proud of his

grandfather for having discovered the secret of how to tell a male eel from a female eel. i met him at oxford. they came in to take a look at it. somehow or other, we became friends almost instantly. and he said come and have a drink at the cafe royal.

i went there and there was lucian standing on one leg like a stork. and all of the people there were syaing, "that's freud's grandson." and he was standing on it. and rather disturbed when we came and disrupted it. lifelong friendship. i saw a lot of it and it did a portrait. he always wanted to do my portrait and we had been talking about it for years and years. he said how long can you be in london at the time? i said, i can spare nine or 10 days but then i have to get back to work. he said i will try doing a portrait but i've never done anything so quickly. you just come back from new york and one of them was to paint the queen on him. we rehearsed a little bit on me and as he did the last brushstroke, the cap was outside waiting to take them to the airport. >> i want to introduce you to

david dawson, it was one of the most interesting days of my life where i went to meet lucian freud and we met at the studio and you were there. we had lunch the three of us and just the most engaging conversation with an artist i've ever had. we went back to the studio and i

pleaded until late that we should have a conversation. he thought about it, we've talked about it, and he said i can't do it. but it was a wonderful evening. i want to begin with this relationship between the two of you. you were working with his dealer. >> in london, i had studied painting. i had a job three mornings a week. that's how i met lucian. from the first meeting, he took my phone number and he phoned me every morning. he was interested in people. he would want to know everything about that person. and then james came to the end of the agreement. a great new york dealer.

>> what would you do for him? >> i was very much or run around boy. it was getting paint, get the canvases, set him up to paint. he was very keen on writing notes to people and i would go turn it by hand. we would have breakfast in the morning and then lunch. it was more sporadic and i would be there when needed. a 10 minute walk. >> you did not go home and take notes. you later took photographs that we will talk about but the relationship deepened and he called you an honorable man.

>> i was really taken with him and he was great company and i really value to my growing friendship with him. the idea of then running home and writing about it, it seems to me not the right thing to do. it is something that's part of me now. >> i did put him first. i was mesmerized. >> by? >> by the paintings. in his flat where the studio was, the doors were always closed. the studios are a very private

space. and there was a big painting, naked over the chair. and i thought that was the most remarkable event that happened to me. i thought there was such concentration in the studio and the real sense of it. he was 69 and the top of his game here. i could understand what he was doing but i was just mesmerized by it. i get it. >> you started taking photographs. >> it was six years before i set for him. we started this one painting and with my camera myself, i would just photographed the progress of the painting.

and as i pressed the button, lucian just walked through the doorway who had been out in the kitchen doing something. and because it was film in those days, i didn't know what was on it until after you got the film developed. there was this photograph of him walking through the door and lucian was the one that really found this very exciting, this photograph. and it was lucian that pushed it forward a bit. >> it was progress? >> it was about trust and respect, and our daily lives.

it just was how it worked in the studio. >> even the queen. you took a photograph of the queen. >> i didn't think you could not take a photograph of this event. it was the restoration studio. a very quiet nondescript room with beautiful over light. we thought i could do a painting here. >> and he asked you to pose for him and be the subject of his painting. >> it was so exciting to see how he painted. it was such a fascinating way. he would make the color and look really intensely at you.

then mix it again and slightly change the tone, and on a very handheld palette he would put one or two gentle brushstrokes and scrape all that paint that he spent five minutes mixing onto the wall and remix another color. >> he painted to the side. >> i could see what he was doing. if the canvas was smaller, you see the back of the canvas. all the paintings of me, you could see him working on the side. >> did you like what he did of you? >> i love what he did of me but when lucian was painting, he talked a great deal. whether he worked on your eyes or mouth or something, i had to be quiet and stay still but otherwise, he chatted away like crazy. and he had a fantastic memory for poetry.

he could recite shakespeare, you name it. songwriters. >> it was like a cultural reference. >> dirty jokes, limericks, god knows what. it would come streaming out one after the other. he didn't say it. he would work away very intently. then he would go back to humming a cole porter song. he knew the words of ever cole porter song. >> this is highland park studio? >> the beginnings of the first

portrait of me. i'm lying on the bed. he would work in a very small area and build it up to quite a finished stage. the whole of my head is built up quite strongly and he moved along the body. >> how did that happen? the photograph of the queen? >> i would go on each sitting and have everything in place. do you mind? >> how did the portrait of the queen take place? >> he had done the portrait of robert fellows who was the queen's secretary. they basically started chatting and thought the idea --

>> he only wanted to paint people that he liked. >> freud in 2005. >> this is a wild fox that was trying to be domesticated. >> right in the corner of this quiet park, none will look back.

-- where a nun would look after wild ponies. i thought wecould possibly work there. so we went down to meet the nun. they loved it. we set up and he's started painting. this is the celebration, volume three. >> that great room at the wives club is one of the most beautiful rooms in london. and he organized it. mick jagger was there. everybody got rather high and was rollicking all over the place. a rather sedate atmosphere at this wonderful club.

>> this is in the studio. this is how he worked. i would not tidy things up in any way. i would let him work how he wanted. looking for paints, it means scrummaging through all of this. >> you chronicled the progress of the paintings. >> working under the electric light, it was always a day painting.

>> did he ever come in during the night and paint over a day painting? >> he had such a strong self edit. physically he would put his boot through it. he always had two or three goes before he really got going. >> he was very energetic and would go for hours when some people can only go for an hour and a half and be exhausted. was picasso like that? >> picasso could go for hours

and hours but it was a very different way from lucian. picasso painted very quickly and lucian painted very slowly. that's an enormous difference between them. lucian took days and years to finish a painting. >> lucian was very tense and uptight when he was painting. he was -- was picasso like that? >> he worked very quickly. even the most complicated pictures and it was amazing how quickly they were done. and you go back three days later. lucian would take six months or 18 months. >> a very tight and nervous energy.

going right, a lot of the time, he felt it wasn't -- >> what was his judgment of himself? >> as a painter, he knew he had a great ability. any great painter has to have that confidence. but he really pushed himself to try to make something. i think he believed in a bit of magic in art. >> picasso? >> i think he just knew genius early. >> he was the greatest painter. he didn't doubt, he didn't worry. he just painted away one painting and another painting.

lucian would look at it for ages and then just sort of put one brush stroke on it and look at it again. >> having watched him, you could see him thinking things through. >> this is what i was looking at. i had my camera on the side of the chair. >> that is the portrait. in the last portrait he took of you? >> the portrait with the hound. it was a naked body with my dog on either side of me.

lucian felt it was there about and did not mind it being shown. >> it took years, that painting. >> it was an old man and it was pretty good. >> you took a bit of money from him in this estate. >> i keep coming over regularly from new york. >> i like being in plain air in a way, being in the environment and soaking up the painting. >> he painted every corner of my garden. which i love. he stays a week at a time and he will have three or four paintings going at the same time. he has to paint out the green leaves and turn them into autumn leaves. this constant change.

>> someone you know well? >> getting to know well. >> you will be influenced by lucian? >> he is in your head. in a good way. >> he was a remarkable man that had such open acceptance of everything and he will make his own mind up. >> why was that? >> i think because he played an enormous role in his art. i always felt that he needed david around.

i always felt that he needed david around. and david kept everything going, allowing lucian to paint as he wanted and take as much time. david was always in control of everything. >> he had to worry about nothing but painting. >> in my head. that's what i was trying to do. >> you have an exhibition now.

>> i did not want to do anymore exhibitions -- bang bang bang around a wall. i wanted to see how picasso got inside the camera and the trixie -- tricks he played on the camera and how he took control of the camera. >> where is it? >> the gallery on 21st street and it's on for another month. >> thank you. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ ♪

>> from pier three in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west," where we cover innovation, technology, and the future of business. i am emily chang. oil prices rebounded after hitting a five-year low. crude gained about 5% to close at $69 a barrel. commodities research had at goldman sachs says watch out if prices hit $60. >> i want to emphasize the $60 number also sees significant pressure on opec countries as well. $50-$80 is a wait and see. the low $60 creates pain for

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