Breathtaking photos and interview in The Guardian

The Observer: Eddie Redmayne: ‘I loved Harry Potter, so I don’t want to screw up’

Interview by Tim Lewis, photos by Nadav Kander - lovely sunday read here

You can read about Eddie's first audition, what changed in his life in the past four years, riding the 

tube, the baby sleep plan, the pressure, the hardest work, and how can he silence the noise...

“I had let my mind fantasise before and it was cut so bluntly short,” he explains. “I’ve never actually spoken about it, but I wonder if, over years of doing auditions, I’ve stopped myself allowing to believe the dream. “Even in the run-up to the Oscars” – he whispers those last two words like he’s faintly embarrassed to be overheard – “it’s a horse race, and I knew I was in the running, but I’d not allowed myself to believe that it could happen. And also I thought Michael Keaton was formidable and I loved that film [Birdman].”

Eddie Redmayne - Photos by Nadav Kander for the Observer (x) via

“I’ll always find the things that make a role complicated!” he smiles. “I was in Budapest shooting Birdsong and Tom Hooper” – who directed Redmayne in The Danish Girl and Les Misérables – “was making a commercial over there. We went for lunch one day and Birdsong was such a rigorous shoot, incredibly intense hours, jumping between time frames, the First World War, and I said to Tom, ‘This one’s the hardest. This really is.’ And Tom turned to me and said, ‘But aren’t they always the hardest?’”...

“For this, it was working with a lot of invisible creatures that weren’t there and trying to find a way to negotiate that. And Theory and The Danish Girl were both eight-week shoots and this was a six-month shoot, so it’s the difference between a sprint and a marathon. So there were moments on this where I was like, ‘No, no, no, this is the hardest.’ 

I think it’s probably just human nature.”...

“As far as getting out of your head, when you’re playing the piano your focus is so all-consumed by trying to get that flipping note right that you can’t think of anything else. Similarly when you’re drawing something, the focus between what’s there and the paper and what it is you’re trying to recreate – everything is the opposite of freed. It’s very much restrained, but sometimes I find that quite calming.”...

Update 12 April 2018: Nadav Kander photographer's TBT post on Instagram:

"Eddie Redmayne last year. I remember the shoots best, where the conversations 

were relaxed and enlightening."