Any attempt to play a real person onscreen comes with its challenges. To become legendary physicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything," however, Eddie Redmayne ("Les Miserables") had to do something like five performances in one. For the film opening Friday, Redmayne not only needed to master Hawking's personality, mannerisms and ambition before being diagnosed with motor neuron disease (ALS) in his early 20s, but the progressive impact of the disease on Hawking's face, hands, voice (which he eventually lost following a tracheotomy) and body. Not to mention the added pressure of Redmayne knowing the man he was portraying would see the finished product.
Many already are predicting an Oscar nomination for the performance, for which Redmayne spent three or four months meeting with a specialist and patients at a London ALS clinic. He also worked with a choreographer to "find a way of being specific to Stephen's physical decline" and an osteopath to guide him throughout filming. At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the 32-year-old English actor told RedEye, "The most interesting thing is as his body becomes less mobile, you are actually more energized from the performance point of view because you're not just sitting. You're actually finding filling positions, and his muscles in the face, they don't relax. It's about finding whole new ways of [using] those muscles that can still move, activating them. Weirdly, the most energizing moments of the film for me were when he was moving the least."
There was a lot of pressure and stress on you for this role. Is there an untold story about a nightmare you had or how the stress was weighing on you?
I could write you a book of those stories. I suppose the worst for me was the night before we started filming. Because we weren't shooting chronologically; I was jumping into different physicalities within different days. And our first weeks filming was the exteriors in Cambridge, so we were shooting at Cambridge University. And on our first day filming the first scene was actually the scene that's in the poster, so they're young and he's healthy and footloose and fancy-free, and then at lunchtime I was on two walking sticks, and then in the evening in the second wheelchair. So in one day it was putting all of those broad strokes of what the physicality was down, and I was so anxious the night before that it got till like 4 in the morning and I still wasn't asleep. I was going, "Do I take a sleeping pill? I'm being picked up at 5, then I'll be completely groggy," and I was having a complete meltdown. It was the only night of my life in which I've not slept at all.
You pulled an all-nighter before starting to shoot?
I pulled an all-nighter. But weirdly one of the scenes was quite emotional, and I wonder whether the fact that I was so exhausted meant that it was easier to access that. [Laughs.]
So you never had this experience on a different film with preparation that way?
I mean, I've prepped in different ways. "Les Mis" was months of vocal coaching and trying to get those muscles working in order to be able to sustain them. And that's the interesting thing about making films: It's not about doing one take. It was the same with the physicality in this. You have to, as you were saying, be able to sustain it over [an extended] period. And every job comes with its challenges, but something about playing someone who is an icon but who's living and who you know will see and judge the film, that was just that extra sort of weight.
Were you ever so deep into it that you had to ask yourself, "How do I usually do this?"?
I did find it interesting-I'm not a method actor but aspects, it tends to be my girlfriend who will point out those physical elements that remain of the character.
Like what?
In this it was just hand stuff actually. The hands became a really important transition for me. And she would just notice that the way that I moved my hands would slightly alter. And then a month or three after the film it sort of goes [away]. I try to have a bath at the end of each day and literally wash the character off and get ready for the next scene.
In fact, you said recently you're never happier than when you're in the bath. Max Irons said something like that as well. What is it with English guys and baths?
Oh, did he? I don't know. I really don't know. It's a time for thought and for contemplation. I mean it as far as with characters, when you're playing characters, often you have makeup on you and even if you've cleaned that off at the end of the day there's weird glue and all this stuff and somehow getting in the bath, I don't know, it's a very cleansing experience. [Laughs.] I don't know. We're weird. I apologize for the Brits. We're very odd.
It seems you're your own worst critic and only see what's wrong. Is it any different with this performance?
Do you know what, it's actually worse because on this I had all these documentaries of Stephen on an iPad and you would do all the work, but a lot of it would involve you by yourself in front of a mirror with the iPad really replicating some of his mannerisms and his character. And on this film, because we were shooting out of sequence, James [Marsh] the director allowed me to see all the rushes, all the dailies, to be able to trace the performance. Ultimately I suppose [in] some mad place in your mind you hope that you can get to absolutely believing that you are that person, but ultimately each day I'd be comparing the dailies to the footage and you never quite meet it. So it's ultimately hugely frustrating, but one of the great aspects of it for me was after seeing the film Stephen gave us his voice, and we'd used this approximation whilst filming it and somehow using the slight difference in timbre when we used his voice to me elevated something, and I found it really moving, inching toward getting closer to [him].
You've said that you found the more confident people are in their own intellect, the less they show it off. Can you give an example of a time when people really are not confident and seem to show it off?
Myself! All the time! [Laughs.] No, a lot of the people I was at Cambridge with, when you're young in particular as well when you're trying to work stuff out and trying to push your mind to study at levels that you haven't done before-I think a lot of life is playacting, aspiring to levels above what we can do, but there seems to be with those great minds a sort of innate confidence that's always intriguing to me.
But most people if they learn a new word on the calendar that morning they'll need to use it in conversation.
Definitely. And I often use it incorrectly. [Laughs.]
Probability game: From 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), Eddie Redmayne ranks the probability that ...
He'll go on vacation before the end of the year: 10
The Cubs will win the World Series in the next 5 years:"I'm so ignorant, I'm going to go 10!"
The entire U.S. legalizes marijuana in the next decade: 3
That he'll ever adopt a farm animal: 7. "Probably a horse. I learned to horse ride for a film once because I lied about riding so they sent me off to horse camp. So I quite enjoy riding."
He'd ever play a baby:"'Three Men and a Baby,' I love that film, but that's a voice so that probably doesn't actually count. Although I've got this new thing called 'My Pet,' an app in which you basically animate your pet and maybe there's a baby equivalent of that, so maybe in my own world I could animate a baby face [Laughs]. Go on to the next one [Laughs]." [RedEye: That sounds like a five?] "[Laughs.] That sounds like a five!"
Appear in a Tyler Perry movie:"Oh, God, maybe a 5. If he'd have me."
Win an Oscar:"Oh, God. A zero. An aspirational zero. [Laughs.]"
Watch Matt review the week's big new movies Fridays at 11:30 a.m. on NBC.
mpais@tribune.com
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