Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon play two of the greatest inventors in history in The Current War. The historical drama film, directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, is set in the late 19th century and centres on the race to supply America’s homes with electricity. Famous inventor Thomas Edison wants to use direct current (DC), while George Westinghouse prefers alternating current (AC), which can light up a larger area and is cheaper. Edison however – credited with inventing the light bulb – is a master marketer, who is unscrupulous about exploiting other people and their work. He wants nothing to do with Westinghouse’s offer to team up for the good of America. The film also features other famous figures, notably Nikola Tesla, played by Nicholas Hoult.
The Current War
Different values
Gomez-Rejon’s interest in the film was sparked by Michael Mitnick’s script. He was struck, he says, by the creativity and drive of these men, and the fact that the great rivalry between them came down to a difference in values.
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (American acent): They’re self-made men, creative men, genius men... Edison comes from a world of almost spontaneous invention without really seeing the purpose for it first, as opposed to Westinghouse, who contextualizes something, [asks] how could it be great for society...
Topical themes
The concept of legacy versus fame is a topical one given the conflicting reputations of today’s tech celebrities. The film offers insights into the way character as well as context can inform business practices, as the director explains.
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon: Inventors are looking for solutions and solutions are permanent so there was something about the permanence and legacy. Certainly the rivalry between them was interesting but what did it say about the world and how we could, through invention and technology, be conscious of leaving it a better place than we found it.
Thomas Edison
The race to light up America was won by Westinghouse: alternating current was by far the better option. But Edison, through a series of flashy publicity stunts, and an unscrupulous smear campaign that sought to prove his rival’s technology uniquely dangerous, achieved the lasting fame he was looking for. Benedict Cumberbatch found Edison a fascinating figure, as he explains.
Benedict Cumberbatch (English accent): I was really drawn to someone who began life in a very humble way, traversed a great difficulty – his bad hearing – but used it to his benefit. A lot of what he achieved in his life was a furthering or a progression of other ideas, as well as his own unique and original ideas. And then the story itself seemed to me more about someone who chose not to hear a repeated truth, something that he couldn’t really afford to acknowledge because of how far down the road he was, and how that corrupted him.
Controversial
In biographies, Edison is often portrayed as a brilliant but power-hungry tyrant, who stole other peoples’ ideas. Cumberbatch spoke more about Edison’s fight for recognition.
Benedict Cumberbatch: What we see is a man who had achieved a great deal who feels assailed in the world. It was very interesting examining ideas of fame and how that can poison integrity, about how you can lose the ideal in jealousy and other emotions. That need to succeed, to win, to have control... it’s an ugly truth and yet it’s formed out of something that’s very human.
George Westinghouse
Westinghouse destroyed all the documents about his life before he died yet contemporary accounts praise his greatness and his humility. Michael Shannon talks about preparing for the role.
Michael Shannon (American accent): I considered his point of view and his way of being in the world. Alfonso found a book about George Westinghouse, a very beautiful little leather-bound, very old book, it was written by somebody who had a great deal of respect for him, and talked about what a great man he was and all of his accomplishments.
Nikola Tesla
The name Tesla is well known today. But the Serbian-born inventor’s speculative approach and unorthodox character alienated his contemporaries, and he died penniless. The actor Nicholas Hoult describes Tesla as a meticulous and paranoid genius.
Nicholas Hoult (English accent): His idiosyncratic nature and his obsessive-compulsive moments, his germaphobia, his imagination... all these things built him up to be slightly odd but also incredible in terms of what he could create... the foresight that he had and how selfless he was in terms of the work really being for the good. But he sees so far into the future that a lot of people can’t comprehend what he’s trying to express.
benedict cumberbatch - A Class Apart
Benedict Cumberbatch is a classically trained British actor who made his name on the British stage, winning a Laurence Olivier Award for his part in a production of Frankenstein, directed by Danny Boyle. After appearing in a number of prominent TV roles, he was brought to international attention in the series Sherlock, which was widely praised for its modern take on the famous detective, and for which Cumberbatch won an Emmy award.
It led to a series of roles in which Cumberbatch played intellectually brilliant but controversial or socially problematic figures, from the bad guy Khan in in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate. His role as the mathematician Alan Turing in the Oscar-winning The Imitation Game was critically acclaimed. More recently, Cumberbatch has appeared in the three-part miniseries Patrick Melrose, an adaptation of the autobiographical novels by Edward St. Aubyn, and in Brexit: The Uncivil War as Dominic Cummings, the British political strategist – and chief adviser to Boris Johnson – who was formerly the leader of Vote Leave, the official if law-breaking campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.