Benedict Cumberbatch says he would fight religious extremists "to the death", particularly on the subject of the right to express one's sexuality. The British actor, who's making waves in Hollywood for his portrayal of the brilliant codebreaker and mathematician Alan Turing - who was persecuted for being gay - says he is determined to stand with the gay community.

Benedict CumberbatchBenedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing - whose life was destroyed by England's anti-gay laws

"People are being beheaded in countries right now because of their beliefs or sexual orientations," he told Out magazine. "It's terrifying. It's medieval - a beheading! I'd take up arms against someone who was telling me I had to believe in what they believed or they would kill me. I would fight them. I would fight them to the death. And, I believe, the older you get, you have to have an idea of what's right or wrong. You can't have unilateral tolerance. You have to have a point where you go, 'Well, religious fundamentalism is wrong.'"

Turing's life was destroyed by Britain's anti-homosexual laws of the time and he was injected with synthetic oestrogen to neutralise his libido, before being found dead from cyanide poisoning in 1954.

More: meet Sophie Hunter, Benedict Cumberbatch's uber-awesome new girlfriend

Cumberbatch said the new biopic, The Imitation Game, should read as "a warning that this could very easily happen again". He also dismissed the pardon handed posthumously to the code-breaker in 2013, saying, "It's an insult for anybody of authority or standing to sign off on him with their approval and say, 'Oh, he's forgiven,'"

"The only person who should be [doing the] forgiving is Turing, and he can't because we killed him. And it makes me really angry. It makes me very angry."

More: check out our Benedict Cumberbatch pictures

The Imitation Game hits theaters in the UK on November 14, 2014.

Watch the trailer for The Imitation Game: