Conversations with Eddie Redmayne

good afternoon my name is Janel Riley I'm an editor of variety and I'm so thrilled to welcome you to the SAG Foundation conversation with Eddie Redmayne this is an actor who has turned in consistent fantastic performances in films as varied as My Week With Marilyn and lame is Rob and on stage and plays like red for which he received a Tony Award also the Olivier Award but this is America so we care about the Tony of course he is currently wowing audiences in his Herald turn as Stephen Hawking in the theory of everything please welcome Eddie Redmayne well we're out of time thank you so much for being here congratulations on really a run of great performances because this is a SAG audience I was like to start by asking how did you get your sag card how do I firstly thank you for having me um how did I how do I get my side' card I got my side' card um doing a film called the Good Shepherd which was my first um film it was basically virtually my first film I'd done of one film in the UK before and um it was directed by Robert De Niro and it was the most extraordinary cast in the world and I basically was so scared that the whole way through the film you just see me looking terrified and and I remember I was basically cast because I was playing Angelina Jolie's son and I was cast because I have big lips and and but it got me a sec cut so I was very very grateful for that were you Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon son yes Wow that's what they would look like if they knew well don't think they would be very flattered by that so I want to go back to the beginning I know you were born and I believe raised in London that's right but your family was not in the business when did you become interested in acting I not um so my family aren't in the business at all it was one of those things when I was a kid I just I did at school and I loved it and then when I was about things about 10 or 11 I they were doing Sam Mendes was directing Oliver in London at the London Palladium and I auditioned for that cuz I said to Mum and Dad I was quite so keen and I got cast as as workhouse boy number sort of 46 forward slash book boy I had one line it was books you order from the bookseller so anyway that's why I did that it was at the London Palladium which is just the most breathtaking West End theatre and just going through those corridors at night and being at a leave school to go and do it was it really it was properly magical and as I said was directed by Sam Mendes and even though I was blinking on this I don't think I even ever met Sam endures it remained and still remains on my CV for many years they until I actually had to go and meet some and there's one day and I was like I should probably take his name off my CV give and he'll be like really we've worked together so that's that's kind of where I got the bug I suppose Wow and we're at that point were you thinking of it as a profession or are you just having fun I was I was having fun and I then went to to high school and I don't know how many of you guys had a similar thing but I just had the most breathtaking teacher like a teacher who had been an actor and who arrived to teach at my high school and treated us as he knew as professionals and he taught me how to speak verse he cast me I mean but he did an adaptation of Passage to India and I was cast as adalah quested so I was cast as a girl and and then I was casted I did Shakespeare plays and playing people all outside of I suppose what our casting bracket is and and and it really meant you could see what your limitations were and try and fail at things and it really um he I then when I went to university I kind of it just gradually became a profession really and I have him to thank for all in you went to Eton College exactly yeah where you were just true your classmates with Prince William I was that was true I was classics Prince William I was also close mr. Tom Hiddleston who was that's more impressive forget William Tell SWAT yeah so slowly I can tell you that Tom I remember him he was we actually then went to university together as well and he's the most beautiful beautiful actor I remember seeing him in Arcadia Tom Stoppard play whilst at school and he just like blew it out the park is that an expression blew it out the water knocked it out the park wanted okay and he was just formidable um and so that school really that this teacher gave me everything and then when I was at Cambridge which I went to after school it was the 400th anniversary of Twelfth Night and Twelfth Night was commissioned by the the Middle's middle temple Hall which is like a lawyers in in London and they had commissioned Shakespeare to write that pay for this sort of beautiful old building and four hundred years on the Middle Temple that still exists commissioned the Globe Theatre to come and do a 400th anniversary production of that and they will look to do it all mail um as it had been done original practices and Mark violence was playing Olivia and they were looking for a guy to play viola and somehow I mean I was so ignorant I basically need to know who my crimes was right remember I mean I went for a drink in London and I was halfway through a bottle of wine and I got a call saying they want you to come for the last audition and I was like why you know and literally I remember they put us a skirt on me because I was a bishop I didn't we didn't really know who mark was was doing the scene he even took the copy of the text out of my hand and because I was quite pierced I was just sort of improvising Shakespeare because it's sort of scary prospect and and then and then I got the job and it was the most the most amazing thing and and so mark and actually the globe at the time had a verse coach and a voice coach in and Cambridge let me offer a term to go and to go and work there and so I always think of my drama teacher at school and then and then these guys as being the great the training though they were they were my training so at what point did you realize who Mike Riley's was I know I sort of was the second that we started rehearsals that I realized that this and he was beyond phenomenal and what's amazing is that production then went onto the globe in London and I went back to to University and it then toured America it then 10 years on went back to the West End the same production then went to Broadway he knows one and so I've been to see this same production which is the one that I started in and watching mark who I have worked with and played opposite over 10 years continue to find invention I had to continue to discover was a huge inspiration that idea that he wants to keep going back to this part because there is so much to mine in it and that that for me was pretty amazing and how old were you like 20 I had cost about 20 20 20 what I did yeah and I've heard you say or maybe this isn't true I shouldn't trust as I read on the internet trust every trusted so you have an alpaca farm yes just outside of Italy I heard that you say you feel that you didn't have formal proper training but I mean just working with Mark Rylance sounds exactly a master I mean so I didn't go to drama school but but as I those things were my training and I think that the slight I don't know how many of you guys trained but the slight sort of paranoia with acting that you never quite know how you always basically feel like you're kidding the world and you're waiting to be found out and but what it did make that paranoia made me try and be like sponge-like and and try and really try and observe the other actors I work with and one of the things I was permitted ly lucky with was from the word go I worked with some amazing actors and and trying by osmosis to pick up but but not just how how they work but also how you behave on sets how you how you negotiate your life work balance how you know really trying to learn from them which is what they really should teach a class in yeah yes yeah so what point did you realize I mean you had you went back to school after doing this amazing show and at that point did you know this was the profession you wanted to pursue I after that I got an agent through through that production and I knew that when I left University I was like again because I can't with parents who aren't really from that background and they were so supportive but they were like have you thought about producing I love this idea that anyone who's not in our industry think produces like uber-rich but I like so most of the producers that I've met quite a few of them are sort of struggling to put films together and you know but and have probably just as little stability as we do but um so I then took a year off after University knowing I had this great agent and so I went and worked in a pub in London and did like waitering service and I auditioned things and I went up to Liverpool and did a play and I thought Fuger play and then I came down to London and they were doing the premiere of a amazing play by Edward Albee called the goat and and that was with jonathan pryce who randomly had played Fagin when I did Oliver like all those years ago so and I got cast as the son I turned up on day one I was like John we've actually worked together before and he was like really and as I was in Oliver he was like really and he had like thousands of casts of kids that came through that you know and he was like what were you Oliver Dodger I was like I was workhouse boy number 46 forward slash book boy and he was like forgive me for not remembering and so so that was um that was where it started and that's such a beautiful play and actually a casting director called Amanda Mackie read in your newspaper read a review of the goat in variety and was casting the Good Shepherd in London and called me in for a meeting and yeah that's kind of how it's so you're welcome thank you very very much and what sort of career were you imagining for yourself I mean we were thinking you would just do theatre did you always want to do film no I was really ignorant and and I mean III started doing you know got into it through daily theatre and I remember one of the early films I did I worked with Scarlett Johansson uh number one day we're on set and she was going ed you know that bit in the big lebowski when this I was going haven't seen the pic of a school and she was like I know and then she was like well you know in The Godfather that bit when and I was I haven't even gone further and she was like okay right so she went around the crew and basically everyone in the crew had to write their list of top five films and she gave me this list I said you see coming from the family that I do like when my all my family are going to work and doing like if I were to say whether like what did you do today I was like I watched six DVDs like you know it wouldn't I just didn't it and she was like well that should your job and and until then I had sort of seen a theater as the sort of you know I would go to the theatre lots to but I felt like I didn't I didn't see the oh I didn't sort of wasn't educated in the value in the Canon of film and so since then and I have also haven't really done any film and and since then it's been one of the great experiences of my life is learning and my god it's been a learning experience I you know after the goat I didn't get cast in anything on screen for about 4 years because every audition I was performing to the back of the stores since I was like and so it has been a learning experience sure and I heard that in your early 20s you spent some time auditioning out here and you would constantly be in the same room as like Andrew Garfield and Jamie Dornan yeah that's true other unknowns ya know so we well there was a if we make it out here I think if you're allowed to get on the plane it's normally because you've been lucky and something's gone right in London and when there was a period where we were out here and we all had American agents and we were we just stay on friends floors and help each other with auditions and and and and because when you come to this city it's such an alien city you know particularly compared to London in the sense that there you can walk everywhere you can stumble across things whereas I feel like in LA you really have to know where to go and you have to drive everywhere and and and so we tended to stick together as a wee clan and it's where some my greatest friendships have come from um because also it's such a bizarre life that having friends who have also been through it or had the ups and the downs it's good to share so what do you think was the big turning point in your life I mean it could have been something as early on as Twelfth Night but I also know you know red was obviously yeah normos hit I mean it's interesting about turning point me yeah I think you can trace back everything and everything is I mean I I also was thinking about it the other day those films that all those jobs that don't necessarily work or don't find an audience I did a film called the Yellow Handkerchief about six or seven years ago and it was a little road trip film with Kristen Stewart and William Hurt and Maria Bello and I was playing this adopted Native American Indian from northern Oklahoma casting and uh and I was so you know and we had this amazing time in Louisiana and the film came out and no one saw it and and but we had you know but as you guys know you pour your heart and soul into every job and then some of them reach an audience and some don't but that's the came and went and it it actually when I was meeting James Marshall speaking to James Marsh who directed the theory of everything on the phone he had only seen sort of English period drama pieces and he was like you know ed is there anything you've done that's physically different from you all that year and I said well I did this film called the yellow handkerchief and yellow handkerchief was the film that got me the theory of everything yeah and it was and again because because there was a sort of as far as he was concerned there was it was so far from who I was and physically it was different from me and it was about jumping off a cliff slightly his I Oh like this guy was willing to take a wee risk so it's amazing how those things trying to find a key moment is difficult but they all end up sort of feeding into something and how are you auditioning during this time because it sounds like you were working fairly regularly I was I suffer from like severe nerves if I'm being honest I I'm not in like a stage fright way but like anxiety is something that I think it fuels us and I think it's good and but I was never very good at auditioning until one great moment I remember talking to the director Joe Wright and he had he was making Pride and Prejudice and he had come over here to audition girls for the to play the daughters and he said Eddie is so interesting the difference in the audition room between the UK and here and I was like how and he goes well in the UK actors come in and they nervously wait to be told what to do and then they do it and they do their thing and then you can see that there's that upset by it and then they said tail between their legs might have walk out whereas he said there was a and it wasn't obviously everyone but there was a difference in vibe in the states that some would walk in and go look I'm kind of nervous can I just run my lines and he'd be like okay yeah go ahead and then go okay I'm ready to ready to read try it and halfway through go so I've messed that up can I so again you know and this idea of like controlling the room and he said it was interesting because he was used to being on the front foot as a director and here he you know felt slightly more on the back foot though he would then but but what what it meant was is he felt he's more people left with him having seen at least a sense of what they could do because they refused to leave without having given it something and I went of course like that's that's what it takes is a no one the point of auditions are useless if if we leave going I gave nothing of what I can give and so from then on I've always tried to not leave an audition without having at least on let me try it one more time well let me have it let me give it a sense of involves occasionally being pushed out of a room gay we're already out of time now okay you just saw the advices don't leave that be exactly exactly if in doubt tenacity be stubborn yeah so I mentioned at the top of the show as we call the show that in 2009 you began your stage run of John Logan's red yeah um and you did it first in England obviously and it's just you and Alfred Molina on stage for the entire time and you're actually painting on stage oh I mean when you got the script I mean were you intimidated by it were you excited oh god it was I'm afraid that this was one of those disgusting stories of it just being a dream it was I by that point was doing a bit of film but doing some not very good work I wasn't I was becoming a bit disillusioned and I went to meet Michael Grandage who I don't know if you guys know there's one of the great stage directors in fact just directing his first film and I went for general meeting I thought and then he slid this thing across the table he said I'm doing this play it's about Mark Rothko it's a two hander I have love used to it I studied history of art university it was what I was passionate about the script that John had written the way that the script came about was beautiful he John Logan had been a playwright in Chicago then wrote one film and it was called any given Sunday I think so and then and then wrote extraordinary film subsequently and a few years on he would he'd been in London writing the screenplay for Sweeney Todd and working with Stephen Sondheim and Sondheim had said it's time you wrote a play again and John was living at the Covent Garden Hotel around the corner from the Donmar Warehouse he fell in love with that theater Rothko's were on display at time that and all of these things combined and he wrote this play for that space and gave it to Michael and when I read it I mean by went straight around the corner to hotel and the producer of the Donmar Warehouse saw me you know doing one of these and and it was just heaven it was about it's about everything that we do it about art versus Commerce it's about fire you know that one of the things I found riveting is Rothko would turn up to work you know how about trying to find form in the formless and what we do try to put structure on a structureless life like one of the things that Rothko would do is he would turn up to his studio in the Bowery in a suit every morning at 9:00 he would then put on his overalls he would paint till 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening get back into his suit and go home and I just thought this idea of a different art form you know but dealing with some of the same issues that we have was kind of riveting working with Alfred Molina who I don't know if any of you guys know him personally but he is genuinely the loveliest man and greatest dance partner in the world um and it we started as this little play and then we came to New York and I member just before we were rehearsing in New York I've been seeing a play off Broadway and this guy come up to me and gone you know I try to get play tickets for your play but I can't get anything until June and I was like well that's good we're selling and I said that to Michael Grandage and he was like that's lies we haven't sold a single ticket we're closing in a week and a half like you know look you know and and really on Broadway there is that you've hear about finance more you don't hear about that in London you hear what you know if you if you die you're out straight away and so gradually we open there's this little play and it just began to it was amazing people who owned Rothko's would come and see the play and we'd go and it was just a dream and also the amazing tradition there were two things this thing called a gypsy run they have on Broadway which is the last dress rehearsal you do all of the people from the Broadway community I don't you know come and watch it because they're doing plays so they can't come and see you normally and before I went on I was very nervous because it was the first audience we were doing within Fred said this will be the greatest audience of your life and he was so right the generosity of actors it was like the most extraordinary thing and it really was and then every at the tradition also that if you're famous in and you go and see a play on Broadway you go round and see the actors and so Fred's dressing room would be downstairs I'd be upstairs looking down to the things basically you know Meryl Streep and Steven Spielberg we're going looking down like a kid it was um it was the most amazing thing and actually went to see Emma Stone in cabaret two nights ago and and she was sensational weather lay but it was like going into that theater and seeing Artie who was our stage manager and seeing like the feel of that place it was electric so I did you go around the back afterwards and yeah I did yeah exactly exactly you know I was it was it was really really amazing yeah and what do you think the director had seen you and or knew you from that he was willing to cast you without an audition um for red yeah you know what actually was a play at the Royal Court with domhnall gleeson it was a play called now or later written by Christopher Sheen and we had done that I played the gay son of the President on election nights a really interesting play if you guys have read it some beautiful work in there and and Donal and I had done that and and he had seen that so that's how it came about yeah uh and read was your Broadway debut about first time performing in America and boy yeah it was yeah and for that you want a Tony oh yeah what was it like to hear your name called God the sweetest thing was my mum was my date and I and um I'd said to Mum they're a big deal here tiny zone televise everything and I'm like my mum can be quite sort of competitive and that's I was like mum they'll probably be a camera on a slight went and now when I don't win you know you can't turn them to me and go so I was like so we have to like you know when we don't we just smile and okay good she's not okay okay thank you it got to the moment and it was a total out-of-body experience and they said my name and I think my mum was so scared about doing the wrong thing that she just super that's quite a funny video on YouTube of like me going but listen mum just sitting the litter go away but it was so surreal and it was actually really lovely because Scarlett Johansson won that night for um for Best Supporting actually something or Best Actress and and it was her Broadway debut as well and as I said we had done this play and there is this weird thing where part of you is pretending to be a grown-up going yeah I'm doing a play on board the other part of he's got an ax 2 of us went out and celebrated in like it was like kids it was really a dream now did you find that experience open certain doors for you in Hollywood or was it still a matter of read by audition yeah I know it was always um so auditioning but I remember I auditioned from My Week With Marilyn in my dressing room when I was doing red I said put myself on tape so that that came from there it's all I don't know I think it's always about auditioning I anything in which you are trying to change people's perceptions of who you are you have to fight for and I find it weird with I have done films before that you've been offered but I find that brings language IIT because then you turn up on set on day one and you open your mouth for the first time you're looking for everyone's go really that's it that's open it there's at least if you've done it in an audition they have some sense of what you can do so no it's all wait I've always thought that if you're trying to push and shift what said a bit like what I did at school going to extremes or different places you do have to prove yourself I mean have you had any disastrous auditions hundreds I mean I don't know where to start I I had a chronically bad audition for The Hobbit is interesting which involved it was to play Bilbo Baggins yes snigger of laughter I thought it was a weird one to be asked as well they were clearly casting their lip very wide and but I did you know I again didn't want to go in and just just stayed audition so I spent a night before looking it I think was being Holmes thing on YouTube and watch because it was to play the young bit you know and I did all that I sort of walked into the audition Carson wrote sat down my name is Bilbo babies stop eating what I thought was like a really brave should she stop she stopped me before um before I'd even got a sentence out and was like own voice own voice I thought I thought it couldn't get any worse than their in a recent audition for Star Wars with a very wonderful woman called Nina gold who has great Carson direct who's been very supportive of me in passing it was I think it was you know you're not given the actual script of to audition with it was playing so and I just I did that thing I was saying before of refusing to leave the room until I'd done something but it was after ten different sci-fi baddie voices Nina was like you got anything else as I know yeah so I can I Camille I can list Millions okay yeah what are your all the different voices yeah I got it on a pretty catastrophic um you making me sweat so you mentioned My Week With Marilyn which was based on Colin Clark's memoirs yes you playing Colin oh and is it true I this is another thing I heard was that you had been a big fan of Dawson's Creek totally true yeah don't in house X I met Katie Holmes last night I didn't admit that to her I just had to hold my bite my tongue yeah so what was it like knowing that your Marilyn was gonna be well in from Dawson's Creek fortunately but I've met Michelle before I got cars and I um I announced pretty early that I was you know really into Dawson's Creek so I didn't then have like a really weird sort of stalkery experience no but I was saying to Casey who I met that day or two ago that we shot it in Wilmington North Carolina has anyone shot there they have these studios I think it's called Hollywood at the south and they have these studios there which are incredibly irritating the over a flight path so basically any film you make there you have to loop the entire entire film but it's where they shot Dawson's Creek and as you drive in there is like a painting a really bad painting of the four cast members of Dawson's Creek so I'd come into working on away but none of none of them came out of that painting that well but it was yeah and actually we have a question from Charlie who specifically I wanted to know how did you prepare for my week with marylin I mean had you played a real person who was still alive before no and na'ka'leen actually wasn't alive when we made the film no he had been a little bit but relatively recently had passed away the amazing thing about both My Week With Marilyn and a film I did called savage grace is there are books written by the protagonists or in this case of savage grace there were diary entries and and and it really is like a sort of manual in some way it was and Collins book was pretty detailed and he had written several books but at the same time I didn't feel the sense of responsibility perhaps that I did on the theory of everything to being to absolute sort of verisimilitude because because I knew that also the script was playing with things and to end and um but but but it was a wonderful resource it meant that I could and I could speak to remember there was a lady who had worked as the script supervisor on Prince and the Showgirl and there was many people I met but but but again I didn't think that there was anyone that I didn't think I had to be absolutely truthful and then there was one day on set when suddenly some Kurtis the director was like I now won't introduce you to Collette who is Colin's twin sister is and so I certainly wished I'd done a bit more um you know digging to meet the people and this is you know obviously a leading role with you know actors like Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh I mean was that intimidating at all see your name on the call sheet yeah if it was that you know the thing that I found really complicated about my week with marylin is that you know Marilyn and Olivier and and then Dame Sybil Thorndike Judi Dench's character and all of these characters are so sort of electric and alive and in some ways Colleen is the cipher you know he is the he's the audience's eyes into this world and I found it a delicate balance when you are not getting in the way does that make sense I just sort of wanted to be a way in which you're not so sort of sort of beige that an audience kind of get lose interest of it but at the same point really you are their eyes into these characters and so I've even though that you had a character went to eat in the school I went to went to you know in theory it should have been really easy I actually found it quite complicated that film because I I find it a bit I'm not playing close to myself I find a bit difficult and you mentioned before that you were you know spectacular ly well-versed in Hollywood films I mean did you could you see many Marilyn Monroe films no I hadn't and it was and it really was again that was an education but one of the things I love about what we do is people always go you know is there a specific part you want to play or I might know what I love is when when things come into your orbit and you then become an expert in that and you can immerse yourself in that world and beyond being an actor it educates you in in these different you know whole work a whole different worlds but but the amazing thing about that film was also that you know Dame Sybil Thorndike who was renowned for being one of the most generous people and kind and no one would misbehave in her presence because she was just so brilliant and then you have Dame Judi Dench on set who has exactly that's a you know I got I would basically sit there every day and another Knight of the realm would come and do like a day but it was just talked about trying to so soaked up by osmosis other people's were you know from Ken Branagh to Derek Jacobi to Simon Russell Beale and then and then Michelle you know is formidable it was really a great experience and you followed that with the big screen adaptation of Lena's Aram I do speaking of audition stories I think this one was very unique as well this is true I still I had this was odd it was I was in North Carolina doing that that that film and I'd seen like I'd seen them as Rob when I was about seven or eight and I'd wanted to be Gavroche basically I just thought that you know this searching and that he's just a legend he he goes makes dens in the barricades and who doesn't want like a den in a barricade like the greatest thing ever and so when I heard they were making a film of it and that Tom Hooper who I'd worked with before was directing it I thought screw it and I put on my iphone which I think has changed our our audition process a bit now I don't know how you guys find but I just I basically was dressed as as a meth addict cowboy in a field in North Carolina and I just sang this song and sent it to or sent it actually to Eric Foner and I didn't personally send a ferret on about be quite precocious sorry I felt as a producer but it was said I own there and that was the start of the became a hilariously sort of American Idol style audition process and shudder the force of it but it was quite a full-on audition process but an amazing one you didn't think to change out of your character's clothes or do it well why not why not I mean was no I think I think said meth addict cowboy was just wearing a black shirt so it didn't it didn't look too I didn't know with a Stetson or like a or twine or twice no no twine and you mentioned I mean at what point did you know that it was going to be sung live mm-hmm I think from the outset um had had said that that was his intention and that's what I found riveting and and what was interesting was having I was a singer when I was younger but hadn't sung for many years but had done and knew the musical quite well but that having worked a bit in film I found that idea intriguing but what was most complicated was the last audition for it so I'd done lots of auditions for Tom you know in front of the camera but in the last audition was this American Idol style thing where the producers from working title Cameron Mackintosh who produced the musical claude-michel schönberg and Alain Boublil who wrote the piece was sitting a you know the back where you guys are in on a behind the table and then there was a camera in my face here and you're going oh this is interesting because who do I play to like because my instinct is hear it but I also know that the reason these guys are here to hear that their score can be served and that it can be so I didn't know which audience you were playing to and it was a complicated one to negotiate that bit but it but but kind of intriguing and it made the the process of filming it was just when I look back on it you know you it was like doing a normal day's filming you never knew when your solo was going to be and so you had to be vocally on form from 5:00 in the morning till you know and it was it was pretty intense was it I mean those sets looked miserable just to be in I don't know if that's just the magic of Hollywood yeah or was it looked cold and drafty and miserable yeah Tom likes to do that it likes to keep people awake and alive but poor um God poor Hugh Jackman he was such a trooper I remember there was a day when he had to carry me through mud and or not mud sewers and they'd literally built these sewers I was freezing cold and um there was an option of a sort of double like a like a sort of fake me that was a bit lighter but Hugh being a trooper refused to use it and I think Tom would have allowed him anyway so I spent that and it was funny because Hugh saw the theory of everything the other day there's a moment in that film where my character is carried by someone else and when Hugh came to see me after having seen the film the first thing he said as I sympathize with him like you know you look like a skinny run but like actually you have like heavy bone density or something like a super substantially heavier than you look so so porky you had to like but I was like but you you'll renowned for being unlike benchpress tall buildings like sure go no no one's feeling sorry for Wolverine what do you think is the secret behind the enduring appeal of that show that's a good question I well I think I think that there are I think that the characters in it there is something for every generation I mean literally I have mates who saw the thing age 9 or 10 and wanted a bit Gavroche and then there are young girls who want to because eat and then as you sort of go through adolescence everyone relates to Eponine and Tim you know and I'm quite sure who relates to Marius but usually running through the streets singing at top of your lungs but at but there is also there's a universal story there and it is I mean Tom would always describe it as an anthem for the dispossessed and I felt like there is the extraordinary thing in Victor Hugo's book is there is such Humanity in it um and also some quite good music tunes and again a hugely intimidating cast Hugh Jackman Russell Crowe I mean I don't know how you get through takes with Shastra baron-cohen yeah without crack oh you don't yes I see your guts um yeah that was it I mean that was a dream but what was it amazing about that was it wasn't because none of us had done even the guys who did you know do musical theater no one had done this live singing thing before and it brought us all down to a level and you would go you would you know Annie Hathaway would do her song quite early on and then she'd come back from the trenches and be like okay so this work this doesn't work so much everyone was like helping each other with with with techniques and ways of working and and it was a great you know really a level F and and of course you did occasionally pinch yourself there was one scene early on where it was it she Amanda Seyfried Hugh Sasha Helena Bonham Carter Russell Crowe it was really special Oh which of course brings us to the theory of everything I know competition was really stiff for the role of Stephen Hawking but how did you become aware of the project and what attracted you to the film um what I I was sent the script and I read it and I thought it was going to be a film about Stephen and I read this incredibly complicated and beautiful love story and that was about two formidable people and I hadn't read anything like it and I and and it wasn't a fairy tale it will see I finished the script uplifted but kind of questioning myself because what what we've gone through was something that was was intricate and detailed and and and not fairy tale-like and and then I heard James Marsh was directing it and a man on wired and have you guys seen that but that film had just blown my mind because there's a moment in man on wire where this whole group of friends get this man you know give up their lives to to create a circus under which this genius philip petty can walk across the Twin Towers walk between the Twin Towers and after he does that he comes down and there's a hero's sort of welcome and he sort of all these groupies are there and he goes straight away and sleeps with one of the groupies and and you see you see his friends being interviewed by James afterwards and one of his best mates has asked you know who's given up everything payments like you know did you know presumably you expected how did that feel when he did that and you see him go on of course we all knew you know we all knew that he would and you just sit suddenly see him break a bit and he realized that actually the betrayal of friendship was so extraordinary and and actually that's what the film was about it was and James had subverted this and I just thought the idea of that director who has that clarity of observation directing this film which again seemed to be subvert 'interesting so I pursued him and I got a manage to get on the phone to him he listened Copenhagen and I did that thing that I think quite a few of us do when you're auditioning for jobs in fact I saw Angelina Jolie on Jon Stewart last night talked about this very thing of how how when you get on the phone to try and get a job or you do a job interview and you talk really confidently as if you know exactly what you're talking about and and you try and persuade people yeah I totally know how it go about this and then you get cast or in her case you know you get come to it and then you suddenly have a crushing reality that you have to do the thing and how are you going to go about it and and that's what happened basically but so I had the phone call and then James flow of it and and I think he was meeting with other actors and we went for a throw to a pub but about 2:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday and he said what are you going to have to drink and I just started sweating it was like what am I offered to that is he the sort of director that wants someone to have alcohol 2:00 in the afternoon he's like II want to sort of cool trendy actor or if you want like a really earnest like hard-working actor and so I was like this is a this is a lose-lose situation so I sort of went I'll have a beer and and he went okay Eddie I'll have a beer I'll have a coffee and so basically what then proceeded to happen is he had about six coffees six espressos and got wired I had six pints and got drunk and there's a recurring theme here that basically I get jobs through being pissed which is probably not to be encouraged but somewhere along the line I think we realized that we had similar like you know similar passions about this script and similar fears and and that the idea in these things of just of holding each other's hand and sort of jumping off a cliff and I'm so grateful to him for it because he really took a gigantic risk I have another audience question really nice handwriting um from Megan Sheehan I read your work with the dance coach to be able to sustain the skewed body angle Stephen Hawking deteriorated into that's true what kind of training did you do day to day and did it work pS incredible performance blast oh thank you thank you so much um so when I when I got cast I knew that we weren't gonna be able to shoot chronologically and so I thought how am I gonna and and also I knew that for Stephen the disease couldn't be less interesting like he has no interest in it and I thought that when I read the script this wasn't a film about a disease it was a human story and a love story and so my instinct was like what can I do that will mean that the physicality doesn't become the thing and how can I learn these physicalities and the accuracy of what the disease is well enough that it doesn't affect my work basically and so I thought and I had seen on my Week With Marilyn Michelle had worked with a movement coach and a vocal coach she had gone back to this sort of old-school model of working with and I thought that might be a wise idea so I met some dancers and I met this woman called Alex Reynolds and I didn't know what to ask them in the interviews I didn't really know what I was looking for but Alex was interesting because she wasn't like oh and you put yourself in this position she was like she would talk about mercury she would describe my pelvis as mercury or vibe and it was finding like something sculptural but that was emotionally interesting as well and it's well I then we started working together and I went to this airless clinic and she would come every week or two for four months and meeting people and learning about the specifics of the disease but then trying to feed that weave that into our story and really be rigorous with Anthony and and James and see the writer and James the director about how we could chart this specifically and then I try to learn the physicalities like you would a dance and in that same way that when you when I start learning the steps of Dance I'm a Houston start another absolutely catastrophic Lisa starts and when you try and learn the steps of Dance you for me it's very awkward but once you really know them once they're in your body then you don't even have to think and you can you can express within the confines of those steps and and so that's what we did and I tried to learn the physicalities and the vocal side of it and cohere those things so that when Felicity and I came to working together I didn't have to think about them and I wasn't thinking what's my you know has my right finger lost it you know you could just play the human story but I understand it was still really hard on your body like you sort of messed up your body to a certain extent you're in a lot of pain yeah I'm that well the the other thing was that this dancers school Alexandra Reynolds suggested that I went to a osteopath and so for the whole pre-production of those four months I went to an osteopath and he was hilarious speckled an amazing guy and he gradually as my body started shifting a bit I became like a case study he was like well this is interesting I think I'm going to write you up like right as like right and I was like that's not what you want to hear from your ostia Beth what we want to hear from you osteopath is everything's fine your spines totally normal you don't want to hear italians a sort of s-shaped sort of Ranas but he but there was a physical that the most curious thing was that the more still stephen was the more energy it required because when he's moving very little in the film it's not that you're relaxed actually you're contorting these muscles into still places you're controlling the blinking speed and where the breath is coming from and and so the interesting thing was that almost the less movement he was doing the more energy it took um and that was it was physically um complicated but also having spent four months meeting people who are suffering from ALS you were so conscious of the fact that every day you were able to get out of the wheelchair and that many of the people who had been like you know generous enough to invite me into their homes you know couldn't so there was always that sort of clarity of how lucky you were as well and you finally got to meet Stephen Hawking shortly before filming again this is true and this is true he was um he was promoting he had a documentary at about the same time so he was very very busy in the lead-up to the film and so I only got to meet him like four or five days before before we started shooting which was complicated because when you've done all that research and also you've had to chart what the what you think that the I suppose in some ways where the arc of the character will be in order to be able to be prepped to start work on a Monday like what if you meet him and you realize you've got it wrong and that was the thing that both Felicity and I cuz she met Jane lace well would you know anxious about and the most wonderful thing when we met him was that the overriding thing was nothing to do with the physicality of it was just was just his character like this extraordinary force of personality amazing amazing wit and a kind of I describe it I describe it as this Lord of misrule quality there's something like I had it up on my trailer was it was a image of a joker in a pack of cards with a marionette because there's something about him that's mischievous and he has his glint in his eye and when he he also controls a room like because even though it's difficult thing to communicate you really sense his power so so that was actually was character stuff that I ended up taking away from that meeting that was so important and the um what was it like when he saw the film I mean that's got to be the only review that matters I mean so I saw him just before he went to see the film I was rehearsing for a new film I'm doing and I said to him Steven I'm really nervous but let me know what you think and he took a while because he just uses this muscle now to communicate so it took him like maybe seven minutes to write his response and he said I will let you know what I think good or otherwise I said thanks Steven if it's otherwise maybe let's just stick to otherwise like I don't need all of the specifics of everything um but subsequent to the film he was incredibly generous and and the most wonderful thing was when we had made the film I had all this documentary material on my pad and I was being sent the dailies every night because James had allowed me to see the dailies in order to really chart the thing which was an interesting thing in itself I'd never done a film in which you see every bit of footage you know and and the makeup and costume department had done such a great job at getting me close to looking like Steven and he sort of begin to hope that these two things of the documentary and the reality are going to merge because they're never going to do that but when we made the film Steven owns the copyright to his voice and um and and when we've made the film we'd use this kind of approximated synthesized version of his voice and then after seeing the film he offered us his voice and so that the voice you hear in the film is his and it was amazing how you know if your dream is to get those two things to merge that it just pushed it that tiny bit closer together and it's very special how come he couldn't get a British voice well it's so interesting because you know that technology was so was embryonic when he took it on and then he gets become iconic in relation to him and the answer is he could totally have changed his voice but he chooses not to because that is his identity and had the most riveting experience sealed day this is one of the great perks of this particular job is I went to Intel in San Jose and the Intel work with Steven and work on his his the technology between his eyes and communication and working with this group of scientists there them explaining to me how they're using and they've just had a great breakthrough which is hopefully going to help people with ALS to communicate amazing and I know that you met you mentioned you met with a lot of families that have people who suffer from ALS was there anything that you really took away from that specifically that informative performance well there are lots yeah I mean that were um there was I was one gentleman who I met who the day that I met him at the clinic he was there with his wife and he had um he had come down the night before he had almost choked to death and he had gone to ER and it had been serious like really serious and then he'd walk down the following morning and the first thing he had said is I wonder what death-defying act I can do today is that was his opening gambit and that what you know it really did show this constant finding the optimism and the humor the other one which actually was a from a documentary piece about ALS was this moment when this woman was there with her husband who had LS and he was almost in Stevens position he really couldn't move much and she was being asked you know what is what is the worst thing about your husband having errors and she was so Brian she's like oh my god do not know where to start uh and she went from this huge smile to then breaking down and it was totally it was just so heartbreaking to watch and you then watched her husband try to move to hug her to hold her but he couldn't move and so there was this extraordinary thing where even though she's breaking down she goes in to hold him almost to look after him in this moment moment when the end and for me it caught in a minute of documentary this thin the essence of them of what the reality of that disease is and there's a moment in our film when the the to Stephen and Jane part ways and when we were shooting that scene I was quite emotional and snot was coming out of my nose and the and and felicity even though he's just broken up with her just instinctively when she's broken you know just instinctively went and wiped my nose and like sort of held me and it was a when I saw the film I was just so relieved that we because I was like if we can't capture in two hours what this documentary is caught in you know in three minutes you know and and so I was thrilled that I thought we got close to that somehow have another audience question I'm from Hollis and W chambers so are you British - okay right night Hollis I want your name how do you find yourself again after absorbing a role like Stephen Hawking Oh true on Saturdays I've always thought that I'm I've always been something that jumps from job to job and and I don't mean that as in like go from job but I'm okay at shedding I'm not I don't feel like a carry baggage and and this one was different for that I haven't worked since and it was about a year ago it was about I about finding your own body weight again finding your own um your fat like what I found complicated about this film was we were making it in London which is where my family are and my fiancee and everyone and and your friends but the rigor with which the work was on this you're not there emotionally you're actually working six days five six day weeks you're working incredibly intensively but your family and friends sort of think you're around and you sort of think you're around so they'll go what are you doing for dinner on Sunday like I'd love to come and he goes to Sunday and you finish late and you go and actually you end up upsetting them and yourself and and it got to the end of this job and I I needed a wee break and for me the only way to do that it's just his friends and family really and um and I'm trying to think I think I went on holiday as well it took quite a long holiday by the way I know you're friends with Benedict Cumberbatch who played Stephen Hawking in a Jess problem anyway yeah hahaha can you imagine um I mean did you ask him for any advice I'm playing the wrong I didn't so been played um Stephen in a TV thing about called Hawking I think was about ten years ago and it was directed actually by a wonderful man called Philip Martin who's also friend and I had missed it when it first played and when I and Ben and I were actually in the other Berlin go was the film which I work with scarlet with and Ben and I were the various husbands of scarlet johansson in that thought and we had met then and I he is a great friend and an extraordinary actor and when I was cast in this I knew he he had been sensational from all accounts in that film I had to make the choice do you watch it or do you not I basically just know myself well enough to know that if I watched it I would try and Nick the best bits and and so I didn't watch it and I and I haven't watched it whilst talking about the film still but I can't wait to watch it and we had a lovely moment the other day the first but was also lovely was we were we he was shooting the imitation game and we were shooting the theory of everything around the same time and they were in came I think they're in Cambridge for a bit and we were and um and we would just take like random photographs I was like a pluck of Alan Turing at at in Cambridge at a photo and said and then there was just one scene in Hawking which we shot at this school which was Benedict's old schools I was there dressed as like the young Stephen Hawking and the cameras were inside the room and I was starting outside the room and they were like roll cameras and I was there with the glasses on and they were this board like an awards board of and and written carved into there at my eye height was B Cumberbatch out came the phone selfie so Lobby so you haven't done a film since wrapping this so what is up next I hope what nice rom-com oh my god no I'm doing a film called the Danish girl which is being directed by Tom Hooper and that's about well I exercise aiming to that world and um it's a film that he's been wanting to make it but it's been around they've been trying to make it for a film for over ten years of him different cast attached and it's a true story about these two artists in Copenhagen in the 1920s called Gerda and I know Vayner and I now became one of the first if not the first people to transition became a woman called Lili Elbe and it's a beautiful love story and a story of identity and it's I hope it's going to be it's a really special special story um and so I'm just starting work on that at the moment yeah and are you playing Lily I'm playing yeah I'm playing Lily yeah so back to the dress where you began yes you know it all comes water well several know it's been so interesting just starting work it meeting people from the trans community really trying to to and also go into the art world it's been I think I think it's I hope it's a special story so it's been fun or a huge investigation so far so I can't wait to see what you do next thank you so much you

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 124,325

Rating: 4.9715977 out of 5

Keywords: Actors, The Theory of Everything (Film), Acting, Les Misérables (Film), Foundation, Eddie Redmayne (Film Actor), SAG-AFTRA, Screen Actors Guild Foundation, The Danish Girl (Film), SAG Foundation, Conversations, The Good Shepherd (Award-Winning Work), SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Q&A, Interview, Career

Id: LVcOFXSJwc0

Length: 57min 28sec (3448 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 08 2014