Julian Assange, the infamous face of international whistle-blowing, says his time spent in London's Ecuadorian embassy isn't all that bad, thanks to visits from friends Lady Gaga and Yoko Ono.
Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks, the tendentious non-profit organization that publishes classified information from international governments, has taken asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy for over a year to avoid extradition to Sweden. He faces extradition due to two allegations of sexual assault.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, his isolation from the outside world was reportedly ameliorated by visits from Hollywood friends Lady Gaga, Yoko Ono, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and actor John Cusack. Despite outrage from international governments and the U.S., Assange has many friends in Hollywood who view his controversial leakages of information as a necessary public service. Assange is just as big a fan of his celebrity supporters. "I'm a big admirer," Assange said about Yoko Ono in an interview with Australian publication "Who magazine."
Assange's well-known exploits will be the talk of Hollywood when "The Fifth Estate," a film chronicling the WikiLeaks story, premieres this fall. The DreamWorks and Participant Media films stars British "Sherlock" star Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange. The movie also stars Daniel Bruhl, who plays Assange's cohort Daniel Domscheit-Berg, as well as Laura Linney, David Thewlis, Anthony Mackie and Peter Capaldi. The film is based on Domscheit-Berg's book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website, as well as WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by Guardian writers David Leigh and Luke Harding.
Assange strongly condemns the film. "It is a massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff," Assange stated. Assange claimed that the movie also suggested that Iran was building a nuclear weapon, and that such a characterization was "fanning the flames" of a potential war.
The film will debut at the Toronto Film Festival on September 5, and will open in theaters in the U.S. on October 18.