Benedict Cumberbatch reads a 17-year-old Tom Hanks’ letter

In 1974, five years after directing the widely adored Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American filmmaker George Roy Hill received the Academy Award for Best Directing for his work on The Sting, a heist film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford which in total won seven Oscars. Later that year, as the dust settled, Hill received an enthusiastic letter from a 17-year-old aspiring actor keen to break into Hollywood. His name was Thomas Hanks... Benedict Cumberbatch read this letter at Letters Live in the Freemason’s Hall, London.