Adam Woodward
Friday, November 25 2011 16:5911 GMT
Having already established himself on the theatre circuit, Eddie Redmayne is set to become one of British cinema’s most distinctive faces. Before appearing in Abi Morgan’s Birdsong next year, Redmayne can be seen in My Week With Marilyn, in cinemas November 25, as Mrs Monroe’s wide-eyed assistant Colin Clark during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl. LWLies sat down with Redmayne at an East London coffee shop recently to discuss his career trajectory.
LWLies: You’ve been back and forth between the US and the UK recently, been to any good festivals in that time?
Redmayne: I don’t get to go very often. Do you get out to many festivals?
LWLies: A few. Cannes for a couple of weeks in May, handful since.
Two weeks! Bet you came back and needed a holiday…
Something like that. What about you, do you find yourself wanting to go to more and more festivals?
Redmayne: Yeah but to be honest I find that side of it a bit of a clusterfuck. But I went to Toronto with a film called Hick. It’s by a guy called Derick Martini and it’s basically about this little girl in Nebraska who comes from this white trash family. She’s 14 years old on that weird cusp of adolescence, and she has fantasies of going to Las Vegas and becoming a celebrity. And so she runs away from home and gets picked up by – in a slightly heightened Wizard of Oz fashion – by this Texan cowboy with a limp, which is what I play, who seems nice enough… You pretty promptly realise that he’s not all there and she winds up getting chucked out of his car and finds herself pairing up with Blake Lively’s character, this white trash meth addict. My character, who’s called Eddie, comes back and develops this weird kind of friendship with her that turns sinister.
It was an amazing experience because Chloë Moretz plays the girl and she’s fucking formidable and so much fun to play alongside. She’s this weird hybrid of being like… there’s nothing about her that’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just the fluke of youth’, you know, she’s a serious actress, but she’s also a 14-year-old girl. Here, in England, I do a lot of theatre and period pieces and it’s fun to have another life over there.
You’re fairly well known over here, particularly on the theatre circuit. Is it fun escaping to somewhere where you’re still something of an unknown entity?
In the States as an actor when you arrive no one knows what you do, because you’re English, it’s tough for people to put you into a casting bracket, which is what American producers love to do. They put you up for everything, so in the States I’ve gone from Savage Grace playing a very wealthy, gay young man to playing a limping Texan meth addict. That’s what’s fun for me… whereas so much of our industry is period drama driven or casting to type, it’s a release for me to scare myself and challenge myself. It can be terrifying, but it makes you stretch the parameters.
And you into acting through the theatre circuit?
I did, I did it a lot at school and really enjoyed it, and then when I was university it was the four hundredth anniversary of Twelfth Night and the Globe theatre were looking for a young guy to play Viola. I did a lot off the back of that and got an agent and it was one of those things that I loved doing but didn’t really ever know whether you were really allowed to do it professionally. So I took a year off after uni and gave it a shot. I started in theatre because that was all I knew, and it’s been exciting for me to stumble into other aspects of acting.
Has it felt like a quick transition to the screen?
It’s interesting because I sort of feel that but then I actually look back on it and I started in 2004 and it’s been six or seven years, you know. And it’s been a massive learning curve, particularly with film. The culture over here is that you go to drama schools, agents come to the drama schools and you’re then working in television and theatre and then you get a break and maybe go to America. Whereas in America it starts more in the commercial world, doing ads and TV, so I think that British actors, much more than American actors, have to learn film acting. Most of us start in theatre, and it’s a very different thing. You try to learn through the people you work with.
Let’s talk about My Week With Marilyn. You play a guy named Colin Clark…
That’s right. Alan Clark, the politician was Colin’s brother, and their father was a man named Kenneth Clark, one of the great art historians, an incredibly eccentric chap. They were new money, but they lived in this amazing castle in Kent called Saltford Castle, they were very bohemian and because of that artistic background the family hung out a lot with Margot Fontaine and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. What’s interesting is that Colin Clark went to Eton and had a very privileged upbringing but, at a time when everyone at Eton was fishing and shooting, here was this art historian’s son who never quite fitted in with his public school background. He was surrounded by these massive characters, and as a pretext that lead to him working in the film industry.
Through his parent connections he got a job as a runner on this film The Prince and the Showgirl, and it’s extraordinary because in one sense you’re the lowest of the low but at the same time you’ve got unprecedented access with the talent. You’re privy to conversations far beyond your status. So this film, Prince and Showgirl, was meant to be the meeting of the greatest actor in the world and the greatest film star in the world, both of whom wanted what the other one had; Olivier wanted to be a movie star and Monroe wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. In theory it was perfect but in practice it was a complete disaster, and her behaviour is well documented as being incredibly late the whole time – despite it being her money that was funding the whole thing – doped up to the nines on sleeping pills after having just married Arthur Miller and having by all account quite a rough time with him. It’s not a classic but it’s worth having a look at.
Everyone on set hated her because she was always late; there was a massive animosity towards her from the British crew. Yet despite all this there is no question that she steals the film whereas Olivier looks kind of mannered and stilted. So I think within the story the crew and everyone found her excruciating, but this guy, in getting so close to her, saw that her behaviour was influenced by what was going on in her private life. Having been brought up around all these people in this privileged youth he wasn’t intimidated by her and ended up having this one week of seeing through all the bullshit. And because he was so different from her she used him as a cipher by which to have a moment of breathing space, and he probably fell in love with the notion of what that was.
How much time did you spend with Michelle [Williams] during pre-production?
We had met in New York beforehand where I was doing a play and she was in London after. We had a limited rehearsal process and she was a lot busier than I was during that time.
When you’re playing such a famous figure you need to get every aspect of them spot on, whereas Colin is unknown to the audience…
Exactly. What was odd, though, was in one moment when his son and his wife and twin sister arrived on set. It must have been very odd for them to see me attempting to play their loved one. Michelle and Kenneth [Branagh] – playing Olivier – had it particularly tough but in some ways, although I was playing a real person, it was difficult finding the character.
You mention about doing more period stuff in the UK, which is influenced a lot by audience tastes being cultured towards certain trends, but is that something you’d like to step away from long-term?
You know what, I’ve had it incredibly good so far… I love the variety of having a schedule like Marilyn, Birdsong and Hick, I love the fact that you can do those types at films in quick succession. I don’t feel like I have to carve out a niche, or exclusively do film over theatre, but at the same time I’m not against working on similar projects. Everyone asks what I prefer, and I suppose I do like variety, but both film and theatre feed each other. What was interesting for me after establishing myself in the theatre was going away for four years and just doing film and then coming back and doing theatre again. It’s intimidating, but the film work really informed the later theatre work I did, much more so than the other way around, I would say.
When you reach the point where you’re constantly being labelled a ‘rising star’, do you become more aware of your own trajectory?
It’s interesting… I was talking to someone about it the other day… In Hick, you don’t see it onscreen but I end up raping a 14-year-old, and that’s heavy stuff, in the same way that Savage Grace was about incest. People’s reactions are always the same: ‘Ah, what bold choices…’ That always interests me because for me they don’t feel like bold choices because they’re really interesting, well-written parts. If I read a script and a character jumps out and it’s not exploitative, perhaps just pushing taboos, then there really is no question in my mind as to whether it’s the right choice. The one thing I think you begin to become more aware of is where your physical attributes will push you.
In some ways… You don’t let that limit you, but sometimes I get sent scripts that are kind of inappropriate and I can see where I’m trying to be positioned. And you’ll go along for the ride, maybe, but not pretend that it’s ultimately feasible. To give an example of it working in my favour, the Moretz family saw Savage Grace and felt quite strongly that I’d be right for the part in Hick. So when I got that script I wasn’t surprised, having done a film about incest, that I was being approached. That being said, the characters are such polar opposites. That’s what liberating, being sent scripts by producers who aren’t intimidated by hardcore subject matter.
Informally you’re part of a group of up-and-coming British actors making waves in the States right now. Is there a sense within that group of having made it?
Yeah. Well… Working and spending time in the States, it’s interesting to see the group of actors and actresses from my generation, who all started around the same time, getting so much respect. It’s wonderful, and at some point I’d love to work with some of my mates in that capacity, because it’s exciting, having started off as jokers trying to get a gig, thinking that our paths could meet.
Who are we talking about, exactly?
Dom Cooper, Andrew Garfield, Ben Whishaw, Charlie Cox… We’re not best mates, I’d say more close peers.
Sure. Is there an element of competition within that group?
Well we all go up for the same parts, and have done for years, and sometimes someone will land an extraordinary part that pushes them to a new league. But the answer is that it always will always remain competitive, but what we’ve learned to do is support each other. If I don’t get a part I think, ‘fuck’, of course, but if someone I respect and admire gets it… that kind of makes it easier to take. Interestingly I think that’s easier for men than it is for women, because there are fewer parts for women and it’s even more to do with looks. I often thank myself that I’m a guy.
For some female actresses the rise can seem very sudden, and the shelf-life short…
You’re often told as an actor, even when you’re a kid, that 99 per cent of actors are unemployed and it’s an unrealistic career path. But even if you’ve got support – and my parents were incredibly supportive – you’re always aware of that statistic and you never believe you’re ever going to make it.
Is there ever a point when you feel like you’ve made it?
You never feel that, really. I’ve just been looking around today trying to buy somewhere and although I’ve got a certain amount of money set aside, as an actor, even if you’ve worked consistently, banks are wary of giving you loans because effectively you’re self-employed. It’s not sustainable, but because you’ve always been told it’s never going to work you never feel like you’re never going to get another job again. It might sound ridiculous, because obviously I’ve been incredibly lucky so far, but when I’m looking for a house at the same time I’m seeing it as a huge risk because I‘ve got this insecurity that I’m never going to work again ingrained deep within my mind. You have to ask yourself whether you would ever consciously do ‘bad’ work just to keep living, and obviously some actors have lavish lifestyles so that’s an inevitability, because it’s incredibly rare to have long-term success.
Someone like Andrew Garfield though must surely be set for the next few years off the back of a big film like Spider-Man?
Well that’s the thing – when you do a big great film that earns a lot of money it feels like you might be set up for the short-term. But the thing to remember is that there aren’t that many movie stars around today, not in the sense of the Tom Cruises and Brad Pitts. Nowadays financing a film is very different, so I think there’s guys like Andrew and Rob Pattinson and Shia LaBeouf who can get a film financed, but that’s kind of it. Andrew’s very passionate about Spider-Man, but it gives him a freedom in that he can now go and do theatre or something smaller, independent. I often think that those big films are dangled in front of young actors affixed with a three-picture deal, but they don’t always come off. It’s risky. I love fucking watching those films, as well, I see ‘em all… and so as much as I want to do serious work, it’s exciting to be able to able to do fun stuff, the kind of films you grew up loving.
What do you love about movies?
What was one of the most interesting things about Marilyn was the film-within-a-film concept. And also the fact that it’s part of this British heritage – The Prince and the Showgirl was filmed in Pinewood and we shot it in the same studio; Michelle was in the same dressing room that Marilyn was in; we shot in the same corridors. While we were there Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was shot in the next lot over and there were all sorts of bedraggled pirates wandering along the corridors, and Chloe was actually there doing Hugo and so you’d see a load of French people in the dressing room… There are thousands of people working on completely different types of movies, and that pirate is walking the same corridors that Marilyn Monroe walked. Then you’ve got Ken Branagh strutting around dressed as Olivier and then running off at night to edit Thor via Skype. That’s fucking amazing. That sense of heritage really struck me. It’s very British not to over-celebrate what we do, but we have an amazing history and it was a wonderfully romantic feeling looking back at that. I’m very proud to be apart of that.
LittleWhiteLies
LWLies: You’ve been back and forth between the US and the UK recently, been to any good festivals in that time?
Redmayne: I don’t get to go very often. Do you get out to many festivals?
LWLies: A few. Cannes for a couple of weeks in May, handful since.
Two weeks! Bet you came back and needed a holiday…
Something like that. What about you, do you find yourself wanting to go to more and more festivals?
Redmayne: Yeah but to be honest I find that side of it a bit of a clusterfuck. But I went to Toronto with a film called Hick. It’s by a guy called Derick Martini and it’s basically about this little girl in Nebraska who comes from this white trash family. She’s 14 years old on that weird cusp of adolescence, and she has fantasies of going to Las Vegas and becoming a celebrity. And so she runs away from home and gets picked up by – in a slightly heightened Wizard of Oz fashion – by this Texan cowboy with a limp, which is what I play, who seems nice enough… You pretty promptly realise that he’s not all there and she winds up getting chucked out of his car and finds herself pairing up with Blake Lively’s character, this white trash meth addict. My character, who’s called Eddie, comes back and develops this weird kind of friendship with her that turns sinister.
It was an amazing experience because Chloë Moretz plays the girl and she’s fucking formidable and so much fun to play alongside. She’s this weird hybrid of being like… there’s nothing about her that’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just the fluke of youth’, you know, she’s a serious actress, but she’s also a 14-year-old girl. Here, in England, I do a lot of theatre and period pieces and it’s fun to have another life over there.
You’re fairly well known over here, particularly on the theatre circuit. Is it fun escaping to somewhere where you’re still something of an unknown entity?
In the States as an actor when you arrive no one knows what you do, because you’re English, it’s tough for people to put you into a casting bracket, which is what American producers love to do. They put you up for everything, so in the States I’ve gone from Savage Grace playing a very wealthy, gay young man to playing a limping Texan meth addict. That’s what’s fun for me… whereas so much of our industry is period drama driven or casting to type, it’s a release for me to scare myself and challenge myself. It can be terrifying, but it makes you stretch the parameters.
And you into acting through the theatre circuit?
I did, I did it a lot at school and really enjoyed it, and then when I was university it was the four hundredth anniversary of Twelfth Night and the Globe theatre were looking for a young guy to play Viola. I did a lot off the back of that and got an agent and it was one of those things that I loved doing but didn’t really ever know whether you were really allowed to do it professionally. So I took a year off after uni and gave it a shot. I started in theatre because that was all I knew, and it’s been exciting for me to stumble into other aspects of acting.
Has it felt like a quick transition to the screen?
It’s interesting because I sort of feel that but then I actually look back on it and I started in 2004 and it’s been six or seven years, you know. And it’s been a massive learning curve, particularly with film. The culture over here is that you go to drama schools, agents come to the drama schools and you’re then working in television and theatre and then you get a break and maybe go to America. Whereas in America it starts more in the commercial world, doing ads and TV, so I think that British actors, much more than American actors, have to learn film acting. Most of us start in theatre, and it’s a very different thing. You try to learn through the people you work with.
Let’s talk about My Week With Marilyn. You play a guy named Colin Clark…
That’s right. Alan Clark, the politician was Colin’s brother, and their father was a man named Kenneth Clark, one of the great art historians, an incredibly eccentric chap. They were new money, but they lived in this amazing castle in Kent called Saltford Castle, they were very bohemian and because of that artistic background the family hung out a lot with Margot Fontaine and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. What’s interesting is that Colin Clark went to Eton and had a very privileged upbringing but, at a time when everyone at Eton was fishing and shooting, here was this art historian’s son who never quite fitted in with his public school background. He was surrounded by these massive characters, and as a pretext that lead to him working in the film industry.
Through his parent connections he got a job as a runner on this film The Prince and the Showgirl, and it’s extraordinary because in one sense you’re the lowest of the low but at the same time you’ve got unprecedented access with the talent. You’re privy to conversations far beyond your status. So this film, Prince and Showgirl, was meant to be the meeting of the greatest actor in the world and the greatest film star in the world, both of whom wanted what the other one had; Olivier wanted to be a movie star and Monroe wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. In theory it was perfect but in practice it was a complete disaster, and her behaviour is well documented as being incredibly late the whole time – despite it being her money that was funding the whole thing – doped up to the nines on sleeping pills after having just married Arthur Miller and having by all account quite a rough time with him. It’s not a classic but it’s worth having a look at.
Everyone on set hated her because she was always late; there was a massive animosity towards her from the British crew. Yet despite all this there is no question that she steals the film whereas Olivier looks kind of mannered and stilted. So I think within the story the crew and everyone found her excruciating, but this guy, in getting so close to her, saw that her behaviour was influenced by what was going on in her private life. Having been brought up around all these people in this privileged youth he wasn’t intimidated by her and ended up having this one week of seeing through all the bullshit. And because he was so different from her she used him as a cipher by which to have a moment of breathing space, and he probably fell in love with the notion of what that was.
How much time did you spend with Michelle [Williams] during pre-production?
We had met in New York beforehand where I was doing a play and she was in London after. We had a limited rehearsal process and she was a lot busier than I was during that time.
When you’re playing such a famous figure you need to get every aspect of them spot on, whereas Colin is unknown to the audience…
Exactly. What was odd, though, was in one moment when his son and his wife and twin sister arrived on set. It must have been very odd for them to see me attempting to play their loved one. Michelle and Kenneth [Branagh] – playing Olivier – had it particularly tough but in some ways, although I was playing a real person, it was difficult finding the character.
You mention about doing more period stuff in the UK, which is influenced a lot by audience tastes being cultured towards certain trends, but is that something you’d like to step away from long-term?
You know what, I’ve had it incredibly good so far… I love the variety of having a schedule like Marilyn, Birdsong and Hick, I love the fact that you can do those types at films in quick succession. I don’t feel like I have to carve out a niche, or exclusively do film over theatre, but at the same time I’m not against working on similar projects. Everyone asks what I prefer, and I suppose I do like variety, but both film and theatre feed each other. What was interesting for me after establishing myself in the theatre was going away for four years and just doing film and then coming back and doing theatre again. It’s intimidating, but the film work really informed the later theatre work I did, much more so than the other way around, I would say.
When you reach the point where you’re constantly being labelled a ‘rising star’, do you become more aware of your own trajectory?
It’s interesting… I was talking to someone about it the other day… In Hick, you don’t see it onscreen but I end up raping a 14-year-old, and that’s heavy stuff, in the same way that Savage Grace was about incest. People’s reactions are always the same: ‘Ah, what bold choices…’ That always interests me because for me they don’t feel like bold choices because they’re really interesting, well-written parts. If I read a script and a character jumps out and it’s not exploitative, perhaps just pushing taboos, then there really is no question in my mind as to whether it’s the right choice. The one thing I think you begin to become more aware of is where your physical attributes will push you.
In some ways… You don’t let that limit you, but sometimes I get sent scripts that are kind of inappropriate and I can see where I’m trying to be positioned. And you’ll go along for the ride, maybe, but not pretend that it’s ultimately feasible. To give an example of it working in my favour, the Moretz family saw Savage Grace and felt quite strongly that I’d be right for the part in Hick. So when I got that script I wasn’t surprised, having done a film about incest, that I was being approached. That being said, the characters are such polar opposites. That’s what liberating, being sent scripts by producers who aren’t intimidated by hardcore subject matter.
Informally you’re part of a group of up-and-coming British actors making waves in the States right now. Is there a sense within that group of having made it?
Yeah. Well… Working and spending time in the States, it’s interesting to see the group of actors and actresses from my generation, who all started around the same time, getting so much respect. It’s wonderful, and at some point I’d love to work with some of my mates in that capacity, because it’s exciting, having started off as jokers trying to get a gig, thinking that our paths could meet.
Who are we talking about, exactly?
Dom Cooper, Andrew Garfield, Ben Whishaw, Charlie Cox… We’re not best mates, I’d say more close peers.
Sure. Is there an element of competition within that group?
Well we all go up for the same parts, and have done for years, and sometimes someone will land an extraordinary part that pushes them to a new league. But the answer is that it always will always remain competitive, but what we’ve learned to do is support each other. If I don’t get a part I think, ‘fuck’, of course, but if someone I respect and admire gets it… that kind of makes it easier to take. Interestingly I think that’s easier for men than it is for women, because there are fewer parts for women and it’s even more to do with looks. I often thank myself that I’m a guy.
For some female actresses the rise can seem very sudden, and the shelf-life short…
You’re often told as an actor, even when you’re a kid, that 99 per cent of actors are unemployed and it’s an unrealistic career path. But even if you’ve got support – and my parents were incredibly supportive – you’re always aware of that statistic and you never believe you’re ever going to make it.
Is there ever a point when you feel like you’ve made it?
You never feel that, really. I’ve just been looking around today trying to buy somewhere and although I’ve got a certain amount of money set aside, as an actor, even if you’ve worked consistently, banks are wary of giving you loans because effectively you’re self-employed. It’s not sustainable, but because you’ve always been told it’s never going to work you never feel like you’re never going to get another job again. It might sound ridiculous, because obviously I’ve been incredibly lucky so far, but when I’m looking for a house at the same time I’m seeing it as a huge risk because I‘ve got this insecurity that I’m never going to work again ingrained deep within my mind. You have to ask yourself whether you would ever consciously do ‘bad’ work just to keep living, and obviously some actors have lavish lifestyles so that’s an inevitability, because it’s incredibly rare to have long-term success.
Someone like Andrew Garfield though must surely be set for the next few years off the back of a big film like Spider-Man?
Well that’s the thing – when you do a big great film that earns a lot of money it feels like you might be set up for the short-term. But the thing to remember is that there aren’t that many movie stars around today, not in the sense of the Tom Cruises and Brad Pitts. Nowadays financing a film is very different, so I think there’s guys like Andrew and Rob Pattinson and Shia LaBeouf who can get a film financed, but that’s kind of it. Andrew’s very passionate about Spider-Man, but it gives him a freedom in that he can now go and do theatre or something smaller, independent. I often think that those big films are dangled in front of young actors affixed with a three-picture deal, but they don’t always come off. It’s risky. I love fucking watching those films, as well, I see ‘em all… and so as much as I want to do serious work, it’s exciting to be able to able to do fun stuff, the kind of films you grew up loving.
What do you love about movies?
What was one of the most interesting things about Marilyn was the film-within-a-film concept. And also the fact that it’s part of this British heritage – The Prince and the Showgirl was filmed in Pinewood and we shot it in the same studio; Michelle was in the same dressing room that Marilyn was in; we shot in the same corridors. While we were there Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was shot in the next lot over and there were all sorts of bedraggled pirates wandering along the corridors, and Chloe was actually there doing Hugo and so you’d see a load of French people in the dressing room… There are thousands of people working on completely different types of movies, and that pirate is walking the same corridors that Marilyn Monroe walked. Then you’ve got Ken Branagh strutting around dressed as Olivier and then running off at night to edit Thor via Skype. That’s fucking amazing. That sense of heritage really struck me. It’s very British not to over-celebrate what we do, but we have an amazing history and it was a wonderfully romantic feeling looking back at that. I’m very proud to be apart of that.
LittleWhiteLies
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