Eddie Redmayne turns 34 on January 6. Last year, this gifted actor won an Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Now he’s getting raves and Oscar buzz for his portrayal of transgender Danish painter Einar Wegener who becomes Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl. Even with all his success Redmayne has maintained a refreshing normalcy. We celebrate him with our favorite quotes.
“I draw and play the piano badly. But when I’m doing those things, I’m concentrating so hard there’s no room for worry. I find that onstage, too.”
“I do get stopped a bit now and then, but I can go to the supermarket and on the Tube without being noticed. It’s usually me that gets starstruck, especially by TV stars.”
“Learning lines is hard for me because I have the attention span of a 6-year-old. That’s why being on planes all the time is so useful—I’m forced to learn out of boredom.”
“I’m as voyeuristic and intrigued as the next person as to how celebrities live.”
“In England we have this saying about Marmite [a spread made from yeast extract]: people either love it or hate it. That’s like a lot of the movie work I’ve done. People either find it repulsive or find it really interesting and get engaged in it.”
“I was once interviewed and I was asked, like, who your first crush is…I loved The Lion King when I was younger and I had a weird obsession with Nala… look at her face. She’s so sweet and she can sing really well.”
“Listen, acting is not surgery, it’s entertainment. You’re doing something to hopefully move people, to make them laugh, to transport them. But actors are vulnerable, and the reason we’re vulnerable is that we’re always trying to recreate human behavior.”
“[On a plane recently] I fell asleep, and when I woke up the man next to me asked, ‘Excuse me, are you somebody important?’ I must have looked confused. He explained: ‘I’m asking because the stewardesses came over and were watching you sleep.’
“I go to the theater two or three times a week when I’m in London. Whereas I feel guilty going to the cinema in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Up there on the screen, we can all fly. But down here on earth, we need to be each other’s wings.”
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