Eddie Redmayne Relies on Instinct
The Oscar winner and Tony nominee reflects on two decades of shape-shifting performances, and the pivotal role that changed his approach to the craft.
PHOTOGRAPHY Charlie Gray
STYLED BY David Bradshaw
For two decades, Eddie Redmayne has crafted an extraordinary career that is marked by versatility and evolution. From his turns as Marius in Les Misérables and activist Tom Hayden in The Trial of the Chicago 7, and throughout the Fantastic Beasts saga, Redmayne has consistently sought roles that challenge and transform him. His dedication to character preparation—whether learning sharpshooting for his role in a spy thriller to spending months with vocal coaches for his Tony-nominated role in Cabaret—reflects an actor who thrives on the meticulous work behind each performance. The experience of his portrayal of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 2015, gave him the confidence to demand the full preparation time and resources he needed to fully inhabit his character.
Coming off of a Golden Globes nomination for the Peacock series The Day of the Jackal, in which he portrays the infamous hitman known as the Jackal, Redmayne sat down with L’OFFICIEL to reflect on his career in the theater and on screen, fatherhood, and his home town of London. Keep scrolling to read the full interview.
L'OFFICIEL: You started acting over twenty years ago. Which roles have defined your career?
EDDIE REDMAYNE: When you start acting, you're just trying to get work. And if you're lucky enough to get a job, you take it and do it. Things changed for me when I filmed The Theory of Everything. The director, James Marsh, told me right away that the film would, in a sense, live or die based on my performance, [so I was able to] ask for what I needed. I worked with a coach to understand how I should move, and with another to understand how I should speak. I asked for four months to prepare. From that moment on, and after the film's success, it defined the method with which I approach my roles.
L’O: What drew you to The Day of the Jackal?
ER: I like the idea of portraying a character for 10 hours [over the course of a TV show season], exploring every aspect of their personality, especially when they're as enigmatic and multifaceted as this one. One of my favorite things about my work is the strange things you learn while preparing for a role. In this case, I spent a lot of time with a military intelligence specialist. He taught me various techniques for using car mirrors and shop windows to detect if you're being followed. We did exercises in central London, where he would send me WhatsApp photos of people I needed to tail, and of others I needed to avoid. He taught me a lot about self-defense using phones, and about how to disappear while remaining in plain sight. He also taught me the art of sharpshooting, the complexities of the craft, at Bisley, a shooting range outside London. Then there was the language issue. I don't speak German or French, and I had to learn a bit of both.
One of the things that attracted me to The Day of the Jackal is that the character is very attentive to his style; he's a bit of a peacock. Speaking with Natalie Humphries, the costume designer, it emerged how important it was that he changed every time you saw him. And I suppose some of his tastes coincided with mine. I'm referring to Savile Row tailoring, like Drake’s; I think of a beautiful pair of sunglasses from Jacques Marie Mage. In real life, I like to experiment on the red carpet. The older I get, the more I realize it's a moment of pure theater. And it's very fun to be able to play with it and have the chance to meet extraordinary designers. Whether it's Sarah Burton, whom I've known for years and who is a good friend, or Alessandro Michele of Valentino.
"The film would, in a sense, live or die based on my performance, [so I was able to] ask for what I needed."
L’O: You continue to alternate between cinema and theater. What do you particularly enjoy about the on-stage experience?
ER: One of the things I love about theater is that you never quite get it right. You're throwing something into the ether and you're trying to... it's like trying to catch a butterfly; it's practically impossible, but the beautiful thing about theater is that you can come back and try again every night. I just did Cabaret in New York for almost six months, and people would say, How can you do the same thing over and over? The answer is that every night you have a different audience. Because it's live, everything is alive and moving and inconsistent, and you're always responding to the specificity of that moment, and the connection you create with the audience is always different. But this search for something, I would say the pursuit of perfection with the awareness that you'll never reach it, is what drives my addiction to theater. And then in theater, you also have control over your performance, while in film and television, you perform your version, but essentially the result is a dance with the editor and director and many other people.
I found the challenge of doing months of performances of Cabaret in London and New York stimulating, even though I had to prepare a lot physically and vocally. I regularly went to the ENT [Ear, Nose, and Throat] doctor, and ended up on steroids and everything else, but I managed to complete the tour without canceling too many shows.
L’O: Is there a role you'd like to play that you've been thinking about for a long time?
ER: You know, I don't have an answer to that question. I like being challenged, and I find it more interesting when others see something in me that they think I might be capable of. When I read a script, I choose instinctively—I need to feel that gut sensation that tells me: I have to do this.
L’O: Which directors do you have a special relationship with?
ER: Tom Hooper has directed me three times: in the television series Elizabeth I, with Helen Mirren in the lead role, one of my first jobs; then in Les Misérables and in The Danish Girl. Working with the same person, with great mutual trust, makes everything faster. But one of the directors who inspired me the most is Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm, who directed me in The Good Nurse. He's a screenwriter and director with such a specific vision of the world that I really enjoyed.
"One of the things I love about theater is that you never quite get it right."
L’O: Which directors have you never worked with but would like to?
ER: Many. Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Paul Thomas Anderson, Luca Guadagnino, Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines). I could go on.
L’O: Are there actors you admire who have been role models for you in some way?
ER: Over the years, not having gone to acting school, I've always been aware that I was doing something for which I wasn't fully qualified. Because of this, I've always absorbed like a sponge how other actors work. One of the most exciting experiences from this perspective was Aaron Sorkin's film The Trial of the Chicago 7, with a cast of actors of every kind, method, and style: Mark Rylance, Jeremy Strong, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton. And since most of the film was set in a courtroom, it was almost like watching them in theater. I like observing not only people's working methods but also how they behave as human beings, how they try to manage the strange balance between work and private life typical to being an actor. And I'm fortunate that many English actors I started working with, and consider friends, are still working. We find ourselves talking less about work and more about life, about how to live as normal and happy a life as possible, despite the strangeness and eccentricity of our profession.
L’O: What do you like to do when you're not on set or on stage?
ER: I've been away for a year and a half; I was in Budapest and Croatia filming The Day of the Jackal and then I was in New York. Now that I'm back home in London with my family, it's the everyday things I love. Taking the kids to school, and playing tennis together. We like doing sports as a family, and going to museums. I like painting. I play the piano, not particularly well, but I really enjoy it. I like cooking. In short, I like being a husband and a father.
L’O: How has being a father changed you?
ER: I think you become much more aware of the passage of time and, as far as I'm concerned, you desperately try to be present in the moment you're living. Particularly with my work, which is a sort of nomadic existence similar to that of a circus, where you can go away for long periods.
" In short, I like being a husband and a father."
L'O: What do you love about life in London?
ER: I adore this city. When I go away for a long time, coming home gives me incredible excitement. I like the theaters; we have extraordinary art galleries. I like how South Bank has changed. You can walk along the Thames, passing by the National Theatre, and up to the Globe Theatre and St. Paul's. I lived in Borough, where the food market is. Traditionally, I think the English had a bad reputation when it came to food, but London has improved enormously, and there are some fantastic restaurants.
L’O: When you were a child, did you want to become an actor?
ER: I don't come from a family of artists, but I loved music and songs from when I was very young. My parents often took me to the theater, and I remember once, after seeing a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, I went on a kind of backstage tour of London's National Theatre and was completely captivated. Then, when I was about 10, I was cast in a production of Oliver, the musical, and found myself skipping my math lessons at school to take the Underground to the London Palladium, one of our most famous theaters, and being paid to do something I was passionate about. At that age, it had never crossed my mind that it could be a real career possibility, and even today I continue to be amazed that it actually became one.
This story is part of the L'OFFICIEL April 2025 Hommes issue. Buy it here.
GROOMING: Petra Sellge THE WALL GROUP
PRODUCED BY: CEZAR GRIEF
LOCATION: Repton Boxing Club, London
