Eddie Redmayne dived into science for his role in The Theory of Everything
Portraying genius physicist Stephen Hawking proved the biggest challenge yet for rising British star
If you'd only ever seen Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything, you'd be hard-pressed to identify the lively looking figure relaxing in a suite in New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel as he awaits the next interview. That fact is something that pleases him greatly. For in an astonishing transformation, the fit-as-a-fiddle actor turned himself into theoretical physician and wheelchair-bound motor neuron disease sufferer Stephen Hawking.
The challenge for the 32-year-old Redmayne was twofold. As if it wasn't difficult enough to portray one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the last half-century, he had to work out ways to express emotion just by moving an eye - as the debilitating disease progresses, sufferers gradually lose the ability to move their muscles. Hawking also lost the ability to speak after a tracheotomy.
Although the actor actively pursued the role, he was still unnerved by the task that faced him when he won it.
"I felt I had a huge responsibility to Stephen to get it right," he says.
He needn't have worried. Redmayne's transformation was so complete that even Hawking himself did not complain.