As we discussed on Friday, the Sony Hack has gotten a new lease on life because Julian Assange has put the entire cache of documents into a searchable database on Wikileaks. Sony still isn’t happy about it, and their lawyers are advising people not to wallow in the information revealed in the hack. While the juiciest bits came out last December – and everyone covered it then – there are some newly discovered smaller gems of information worth some coverage. Like, Benedict Cumberbatch actually has a small part in the Sony Hack too! Huzzah. Apparently, Benedict met with Amy Pascal in January 2014 for what seems to be a general getting-to-know-you meeting about various future projects including Angelina Jolie’s Cleopatra project. Then Benedict’s agent contacted Pascal later on, raving that Benedict adored Pascal and that he would love to play David Bowie in the long-gestating Freddie Mercury bio-pic.

Pascal met with Benedict Cumberbatch in January 2014. A follow-up email from Tracey Jacobs, a partner at the United Talent Agency and co-head of its talent department, has the same found-poetry style that makes so many of the hacked emails such a bizarrely entertaining read:

Benedict loved you.
Hed be right for cleopatra and god knows what else. He mentioned something about bowie.
He loved you. And you? Xo

That would presumably be the same Cleopatra, starring Angelina Jolie, that was at the center of one of the more memorable exchanges of the Sony leak. While Pascal and producer Scott Rudin’s thoughts on that project are well known, Cumberbatch wanting in on the Mercury film is news.

Pascal then passed on the news in an email to Graham King, a producer of several Martin Scorsese films, including Gangs of New York and The Departed, as well as Argo and World War Z. She memorably refers to Cumberbatch as “cum batch,” an abbreviation that manages to be funnier than anything this parody name generator could come up with:

Benedict cum batch wants to play bowie

Graham’s response was… less than enthused. In fact, he seems to assume that Pascal hasn’t even read the script, penned by The Queen and Frost/Nixon writer Peter Morgan! Burn!:

He’s not a character in script.
Let’s talk after you’ve had a chance to read it.

[From Flavorwire]

Pascal then did read the script and sent an ALL-CAPS message with her thoughts on the project, temporarily forgetting about Benedict as David Bowie. But she still wanted Bowie in the script – her favorite song EVER (apparently) is Mercury and Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” I guess if Pascal was going to produce a Freddie Mercury bio-pic, she was going to make sure Bowie was in it come hell or high water.

As for Benedict wanting to play Bowie, even if it was just an extended cameo situation… honestly, I could see it. I’m not saying Cumby’s Bowie would be the best thing ever, but I could see it. For real. But Benedict in Cleopatra? Who would he play? MARC ANTONY?!

Photos courtesy of WENN.