He may have edged out more experienced film-makers such as David Fincher and Clint Eastwood for a best director nomination at this year’s Oscars, but The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum is still being forced to defend his film against accusations that it underplayed Alan Turing’s homosexuality.

Ahead of tonight’s Oscar ceremony, Tyldum has finally spoken out on the subject in a recently published interview with Variety. The Norwegian director denied that the biopic of the pioneering British codebreaker and computer scientist soft-pedalled the issue because of a fear of limiting the film’s box office, currently at $160m (£103m) worldwide.

“It was not because we were afraid it would offend anybody,” Tyldum said. “If I … had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he’s heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it — just to prove that he’s gay?”

“I’m not shying away from it. His whole relationship, how he falls in love and the importance of him being a gay man, was all about secrecy.”

Tyldum admits that Turing was engaged in affairs during the period covered in the film but believed that it wasn’t relevant to include any other references to this.

“He had some sexual partners, but it was few and far between. The only reason to have a sex scene in the film would be to satisfy critics who feels that every gay character needs to have a gay sex scene.”

The Imitation Game is up for eight Oscars, including best picture and best actor for Benedict Cumberbatch, who has used the film to support a campaign to get other gay men arrested during the same period pardoned for their crimes.