Video: Eddie for GQ on his most iconic characters

Eddie Redmayne revisits his most iconic roles in Les Misérables, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Good Shepherd, Jupiter Ascending, Savage Grace, The Danish Girl, The Theory of Everything, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
The video on the GQ website with full transcript

The video on my YouTube playlist

"I had my last screen test in New York the day before I started rehearsal in Australia for Like Minds. So, I took these sleeping pills. I had to go straight off the plane to go and rehearse with
Toni Collette, and I had a cup of coffee, two cups of coffee, in order that I could be present in the rehearsal. In the second
day of rehearsal, I arrived, and halfway through the day, she
was like, Eddie, it's really nice to meet you properly because yesterday you were insane. You were literally a crazy person."

Les Misérables. ."..It was an interesting experience, that.  You have this earpiece in your ear and there's a pianist playing into your ear, but what they record is totally live. So, if you're on set, it's kind of ridiculous 'cause all you hear is these people singing random without any accompaniment. But what was also quite tricky is they were always gonna replace that tinkly little piano you could barely hear in your ear with a huge orchestra moment. But at that moment, his character's singing about the death of his pals, and it felt that the way into that shouldn't be ♪ I'm about to sing a song ♪ It should be more like him just thinking the thought process. God, that's pretty intense."




Eddie made his Les Mis audition tape on the set of  'Hick', dressed as a Texan cowboy.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age. "If you're a British actor, you're gonna have your period drama moment. The reason some British film does well, basically, is we've just got a massive history of stories and of kings and queens and royalty. So, if in doubt, we just sort of dig into that. No, I got to work with Cate Blanchett on The Golden Age and I basically had very little to do except at one point run into Ely Cathedral and scream whore really loudly at Cate Blanchett.  But I'll never forget watching her on that set, and she, this was the sequel to Elizabeth, and she was so formidable in that film. I remember seeing her on set and she was sitting there with just her earphones in and she was just going tea, tea, round, royal, literally working on her dialect, and it was just, as a kind of work ethic thing, I was like wait, no, but haven't you flippin' won the Oscar for that? You've got this down, Cate, you're fine. But watching those people that you admire. You sort of see them in the films and you see them on the red carpet and you forget that in the midst of that is a staggering, wonderful, hard worker. And the greats like Cate never stop."

The Good Shepherd.  "I did my audition, ...It was in London. It was years before it got made, and at the time, Leonardo DiCaprio was playing the role. I was sitting waiting as other actors went in and someone passed through the doorframe. And I said to the casting assistant, who's in there?  And there were like well, Bob, obviously, and Leo. And I was like what? And he's like, yeah,  you're auditioning with Leonardo DiCaprio. And about two minutes later, I was there doing this intense scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, playing his son, breaking down on him. He was sort of hugging me. I had this time out moment in which I was suddenly looking down on the whole thing going that's Robert De Niro and that's Leonardo DiCaprio and I have no idea what's going on. So, it was, yeah, it was quite an intense audition process, but it was amazing. I just liked nuzzling into Leonardo DiCaprio's armpit."

Jupiter Ascending. "I remember watching Cloud Atlas with Kate Mara and I think Rooney Mara in the cinema and it just being the most extraordinary, bonkers thing I had ever seen, as was Jupiter Ascending. I feel like we have this spread in England for toast which is called Marmite, and the ad slogan is you either like it or you hate it and I've thought of myself as a bit of a Marmite actor. People seem to either enjoy what I do or loathe what I do, and those people that loathe what I do, Jupiter Ascending tends to be their favorite of my performances. So, I won a prize for it for the worst performance of the year, so yeah, it was a pretty bad performance on all accounts. In Jupiter Ascending, my character had had his larynx ripped out by this wolf man. And so, I made this slightly bold choice of, which I thought was right, of talking like this for the whole film, which I felt sort of suited the costumes and the extremity of the world. But in retrospect, it may have been too much... But I love the Wachowskis 'cause I've never felt so free on set..."



I loved your performance Eddie, I think it was the best in the movie.

Savage Grace. "Savage Grace is a film that not many people have seen, but weirdly was one of the films I'm most passionate about. ... I think of, genuinely, of all the films I've ever made, I had the most joyous experience. It was set in Caracas, London, New York, Paris. All of it was shot in Barcelona in the extraordinary heat and made for very little money. Spanish crew, wine at lunch time, and I remember it being a really wonderful time. Spanish actors as well, Elena and I and Unax Ugalde."

The Danish Girl. "While we were doing Les Misérables, Tom had said I've got this script and I'd love you to read it, but then it wasn't possible because it wasn't possible to get financed. ...And then, fortunately, Theory of Everything came out and it meant that because we were all commodities, as actors, you're only basically your value had suddenly shot up a little bit as a consequence of the success of Theory. And so, we got to make that film, and that was an extraordinary thing because the people that I met prepping for that part, people from the trans community, the amount I learned, sort of mistakes I made,all of it has been a very formative thing, an amazing thing. But it was an intense film to make. ... Just before our film came out, Caitlyn Jenner had been on the front of Vanity Fair, Laverne Cox was on the cover of Time Magazine, and it felt perhaps that it was time for trans people to be telling their stories. And there was a certain amount of backlash, which I felt from that which I understood and sort of agreed with. But what was interesting is I sort of committed to it quite a long time beforehand, but yeah. It's a complicated experience because I learned a lot and I met extraordinary people and I still haven't necessarily reconciled whether it was the, yeah,whether it was the right thing to do."

The Theory of Everything. "...there was a point when we were promoting Les Misérables where I got a call from an agent being like, they want you to go to Japan for the DVD release, and I was like, oh, I was working a ton. I was like, I don't know if I've got time, really. And my agent was like, no, no, no, it's Working Title...you should go in order to keep these guys happy...So, anyway, I went to Japan...I came back and my agent's like oh, there's this amazing script about Stephen Hawking. I was like, wow. It's being made by Working Title. I was like, amazing, love it. Can I have a meeting? They were like yeah, no, they don't wanna meet you on it. I'm like, wait a fucking second. I literally just flew to Japan in order to stay in with Working Title. Surely I can get a meeting. I think we just used guilt to strong arm the meeting, and fortunately, six or seven other actors who I really admire had tuned down the part. And I met with James Marsh, who is a wonderful documentary maker, and he didn't make me audition. We talked about it and he sorta gave me this part. And when you have that experience, you have sorta complete euphoria  followed by utter utter horror fear of because I didn't audition for it, how does he have faith in me? Because I have no idea whether I can do this... If you're playing a real guy who would see the film, and it is renowned for not mincing his words, and his whole family would see the film. There was basically no question but to just work your balls off, which is what I try to do. .."

Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them. "I read the first few books because my brother had loved them and was completely enticed by them. So, I kinda loved them and then I used to go watch the films every year because it felt like escapism, and yet, you also... All the characters would kind of touch you, so I was a fan. But the way in which this film came about was kind of the most secretive. So, my dad and my family all work in proper jobs and my dad has a briefcase, and so I had decided that I, a briefcase would be my set bag, the thing I took to set with all my work to try and feel like I was doing a proper job, and I had this call that David Yates' director wanted to talk to me about an unknown project. And we kind of went to this club in Soho and it was next to a fire and it was like something out of Potter. And I arrived with my briefcase and he started telling me this story that JK Rowling was writing about this character and about these creatures and about this case, and I gently found myself sort of shoving this thing aback, my case under the table, because I didn't want him to think that somehow I'd come dressed as the character, which quite a lot of actors do do and I don't think is necessarily the wisest thing. Anyway, I actually got cast in it and it's been the most.. It's been a shed load of fun."

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. "They invited me back. The great muses on the back of her Fantastic Beasts book that Newt wrote. It was like, eh, he lives happily married in Dorset. You never know with Joe. She could take it anywhere, but at least he survives for a while. And coming back for number two is amazing because I got to work with Johnny Depp and Jude Law, and those are guys that I grew up kind of loving their work. So, they have amazing puppeteers who come and they sort of show you what the creatures do and how they move, and then you kinda look at the director and he's like I'd rather now those guys leave and you imagine it. So, particularly with Pickett, who's this little bow chuckle figure who kind of... I'd be on the tube in London and I'd just imagine talking to him, and I do that quite a lot with accents as well. I'll sort of record them on my phone and listen to them. And then occasionally now I realize that people are taking photos of me or recording me while I'm chatting to Pickett with my imaginary friend. And I don't know, it's all kinds of sad and weird and damn deranged."