In order to get into the skin of the character, Eddie Redmayne has built the character from the scratch inside him in order to play the physically and mentally challenging role of a transgender artist in “The Danish Girl”. He began with going over the biography of Lili Elbe titled “Man into Woman” in order to further get the hold of the character. Lili went through big gender reassignment surgeries in the 20’s, when it was widely considered as a taboo.
The actor also went through many other sources in order to get the perfect hold of the character as he also read “Conundrum” which is a memoir written by the famed transgender author Jan Morris and watched the popular British TV series, “My Transsexual Summer”. And in order to further study his role, the actor actually talked with six transgender persons of different age groups and noted their experiences in order to become comfortable in the skin of the famed transsexual artist. And regarding the experience of going through their experiences, he settled on a conclusion that their openness of the spirit touched him immensely and it’s something he has never seen before as they believed in living their life to the fullest against all odds.
And then came the screen testing day, sometime during the last summer when he made his first public appearance as the character, wearing a wig and red lipstick. Along with that, he also acquired the walk and the talking style of the people he studied during his extensive research. He said that while walking for the first time in the skin of a transsexual, he felt as self-conscious as they feel. He said that the fear is real, the way people gaze at you when you walk down the street, it is all very real, both scary and fascinating at the same time.
Eddie Redmayne, who got to play the role of iconic scientist Stephen Hawking in the previous year’s Oscar winning performance in the movie “The Theory of Everything”, the world is expecting more from him and given the preparations for the role, we can certainly expect one more academy award for him. The 33 years old British actor has made the world look up to him as his performance has been widely praised since the movie got premiered in the Venice film festival on September 5. “The Danish Girl” will open in theatres on November 27th.
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