This cut contains the parts of the show in which Anikó Návai chats with Eddie Redmayne
about politics and lockdown. The first segment of the latest episode of Hello Hollywood
was about The Trial of the Chicago 7. She also
talked with the director & screenwriter
Aaron Sorkin and Frank Langella who plays the judge in the movie. Her interviews are
always special. Eddie is relaxed and cheerful because she's a friend. She's a journalist and
TV presenter based in Hollywood. She knows all the stars well and is the only Hungarian
member of HFPA, the organization that instituted the annual Golden Globe Awards.
Video credit:
Hello Hollywood TV program about movies
on Life TV Hungary (on 1st November 2020)
Interview by Anikó Návai
Eddie, when was the first time you heard the word politics?
"I think it must have been... you know I grew up in the UK in the 80s and Margaret Thatcher
was around, and it was very a kind of rigorous time politically and heated time, so I remember
sort or 6, but I don't think I... I mean I understood very little that um probably let's say 8 or 9.
I think that's the thought I was sort of politically aware at 5 or 6 is ridiculous. Let's say 8 or 9.
When did you become conscious politically?
I don't think I can answer that. I don't think it comes in a specific flood of a moment. It's
something where the concerns that you have, the concerns that people around you have.
I remember sort of with the Iraq war and with Tony Blair and that moment being the hulk
and weapons of mass destruction being incredibly shocking and realizing...
I think as a child you sort of believe that politicians know what they're doing and the
system is encouraged to make you think that. I think as you get older and... some of the
people rising to power are sort of your age, it becomes more scary because you realize
how little you know, and quite often they expose themselves, how little they know."
How political are you now? "It's a very good question. I believe that advocacy is something
that you work on sort-of daily. I consistently kind of question myself. I was talking earlier
in the meeting about, as someone in the public eye, we're in this sort of world now,
where there is a sense that as a celebrity or someone ... your voice perhaps over-amplified.
And with that, I think you have to really question what you speak up about. So I ask myself
basically every day, and I believe that we should and can all the advocates in our own way,
but I try to generally do that in a grassroots way, in a way that for example you know I
obviously through playing Stephen Hawking I met many people living with Motor Neuron
Disease (ALS). Now in this country, I'm a patron of the ALS Association, and during our
lockdown with COVID there was this list of people who were on the protected list, with
people who were very vulnerable, and people with ALS weren't on that list. And so then
I wrote to my local politician, through the charity I tried to speak to and lobby people into
or to encourage people ... but that was just on a human level. I try generally to keep my focus
on my work because I find that there can be hypocrisies like we're very fortunate actors in
the public eye, I have a very lovely life and I don't like being talked down to by people who
aren't specialists in that subject. That being said when I see other people who are amplifying
things that I don't believe in and I think of doing harm, I will add my voice for that.
That's probably quite a messy answer which is perhaps one of the things that I found so
important about this film is that Robert Kennedy Jr said this kind of a riveting thing that
basically, democracy is messy you know and it's hard, and it's something that is kind of...
I think that this film sort of shows that. It's something that you've got to kind of fight for."
Let's talk a little about the lockdown, about you and kids and Hannah. How did the
whole thing go? "We have a little farmhouse in the countryside. We have chickens,
Hannah is an amazing gardener, so we basically were quite self-sufficient. I've
always like had a little inkling of a dream. My favorite book when I was a child was
this book called Mr. Tick the Teacher, which was a book about a couple who had
six children, and they had a little school, and they only had their kind of six children
in the school so this was basically and they were teachers and cooks and everything
and this was kinda my moment basically with my four years old daughter to be
Mr. Tick the Teacher... And it was amazing because I got to be there when she
first began to read and I got to ... now that being said we also had our hands full
completely it was... it's been you know until my children have just gone to
school but it's been exhausting but we've been very very lucky..."
"...I miss Hungary. I've been thinking about it a lot recently because I... I spent almost a year
living in Hungary when I made two television series (The Pillars of the Earth and Birdsong)
in Budapest. And I miss that city a lot..."
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