'The Fifth Estate': Laura Linney on the profound impact of WikiLeaks

In The Fifth Estate, which tells the story of Julian Assange’s crusade to expose the dirty secrets of corporations and governments, director Bill Condon tries to tell the story from both sides. There’s the WikiLeaks team of Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl), who are taking down Goliath one cyber sling-shot at a time. And then there’s the scrambling U.S. government, represented best in the movie by a mid-level State Department bureaucrat played by Laura Linney. She’s important enough to be able to sign Hillary Clinton’s name on her briefs and smart enough to realize the danger that Assange represents — basically that the genie is out of the bottle.

In an exclusive video for the movie, which opens in theaters on Oct. 18, Linney, Condon, and Stanley Tucci discuss the government’s side of the equation — and how WikiLeaks’ actions impacted those literally and figuratively caught in the crossfire.

Click below for the video: