The Guardian Interviews Eddie Redmayne on ‘Fantastic Beasts’ and the Challenges of Acting

Yesterday, The Guardian released an interview with Eddie Redmayne, on the pressures and rewards associated with an acting career, and his experience of being a part of Fantastic Beasts.

The Guardian asked Eddie about his Oscar, won in 2015 in the category of Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything:

“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 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].”

Les Miserables, The Dutch Girl and The Theory of Everything were all very different roles, and Redmayne’s been exposed to a huge pressures and challenges as an actor, however, Fantastic Beasts is now a five-part series. The Guardian wanted to know if Eddie is feeling the pressure:

“Well, I feel the thing has been sold as Newt Scamander at the front, but it’s actually a quartet: it’s Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler.

“Do you feel pressure? Of course you feel pressure. Also, particularly because I loved the Potter films. There was something so warming about being able to dive back into that world every year or two. And if you’ve enjoyed something, you don’t want to be the one who comes in and screws it up.

“But pressure’s there with every film,” he continues. “With The Theory of Everything it was knowing Stephen and Jane and the family would see the film. With The Danish Girl it was all the people that I’d met in preparation for the film who came from the trans community. It’s pressure here of a different type, which is called hardcore fandom.”

Not forgetting that Eddie now has a child, and had to go on paternity leave which ended as promotion for Fantastic Beasts began, the process of publicising the film is bound to be disorienting for him – the Global Fan Event, Comic-Con, the worldwide premieres in London and New York this week and next week – fan interaction never ceases!

“That was so intense,” he reflects [on Comic-Con this summer]. “The whole situation is created like you are meant to go on like a rock star. I remember feeling really nervous beforehand, waiting in the wings, and [co-star] Colin Farrell was giving me a little back massage going, ‘It’s going to be fine, Eddie, it’s going to be fine.’”

On the challenges of filming Fantastic Beasts, compared to other challenging films he’s starred in:

“Redmayne winces. “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 well as being a fantastic, award-winning actor, Eddie is also apparently into drawing and playing the piano:

“Particularly at the moment they fill quite a large part of my life,” he says, and he has a grand piano in his flat in Bermondsey, south London. “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.”

Read the full interview by The Guardian here!

Feature Image Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP