Conversations with Eddie Redmayne (2014)

Career Q&A with Eddie Redmayne. Moderated by Jenelle Riley, Variety.

Eddie Redmayne was nominated for BAFTA’s Rising Star Award in 2012 for his continuing body of work. Subsequently, he shared a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination with his fellow actors from Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The Working Title movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning three; and won three Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture. For his performance as Marius, Mr. Redmayne was nominated for an Evening Standard British Film Award and an MTV Movie Award.

He has starred in several other films, including Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn, starring as the “my” part of the story as Colin Clark opposite Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe; Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace, opposite Julianne Moore; Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age, also for Working Title, opposite Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I; Gregory Read’s Like Minds, with Toni Collette and Tom Sturridge; Udayan Prasad’s The Yellow Handkerchief, opposite Kristen Stewart; Justin Chadwick’s TheOther Boleyn Girl; Stephen Poliakoff’s Glorious 39; Timothy Linh Bui’s Powder Blue; Christopher Smith’s Black Death; Derick Martini’s Hick; Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd, as the son of the characters portrayed by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie; and Andy and Lana Wachowski’s upcoming sci-fi epic Jupiter Ascending.

The London native has also attracted attention on stage. For his Broadway debut starring as Ken opposite Alfred Molina as painter Mark Rothko in John Logan’s Red, directed by Michael Grandage, he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play; the production won six Tonys overall, including Best Play. Mr. Redmayne also received a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination; for the production’s previous staging in London, at the Donmar Warehouse, he won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor.

His other U.K. stage work includes starring as Shakespeare’s Richard II, again directed by Michael Grandage at the Donmar Warehouse; in Christopher Shinn’s Now or Later, at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Dominic Cooke; and in Anthony Page’s Almeida Theatre staging of Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia? The latter production earned Mr. Redmayne the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award and the Evening Standard Award for Outstanding Newcomer.

His notable television credits include starring in the BBC miniseries Birdsong, directed by Philip Martin; Tess of the D’Urbervilles, directed by David Blair; and The Pillars ofthe Earth, directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan. His first miniseries appearance was in Elizabeth I, also his first project with director Tom Hooper. Mr. Redmayne's next movie, The Danish Girl, reunites him with director Tom Hooper.