Although many Oscar scientists had Redmayne’s name picked for the top award for days (something about him winning the SAG award and, you know, almost every other award as well), it still came as a shock to the press room when his name was announced instead of Birdman star Michael Keaton.
An audible gasp echoed across the room, and by the time Redmayne got to the stage, you could tell that he was still gobsmacked by the win.
We were one of the lucky few able to speak to Redmayne directly after his win, and we asked him about a story that he told us months ago concerning how he was able to work Stephen’s physical degeneration into his muscle memory so that he wouldn’t have to worry about spending too much brain capacity on his physical movement.
You can watch Redmayne explain it himself below:
“When I was approaching the film, we knew we weren’t going to be able to shoot chronologically,” said Redmayne, much to the shock of most of the people listening. “So we were going to have to jump into different stages in Stephen’s life and within the same day. And so I didn’t want for Stephen‑‑ the illness was of very little interest to him after he was diagnosed. He’s someone that lives forward and lives passionately. And so, similarly, I didn’t want the film to be about the physicality. So I wanted to have the physicality so embedded in me that we could play the human story, the love story. And so I went to the ALS clinics in London for about four months with a choreographer, wonderful Alex Reynolds, and she helped to sort of train my muscles to sustain those positions for long periods of time.”
Although the theme for the night’s acceptance speeches were equality for all people, regardless of gender, race, and sexual preference, we were actually happy to see the scheduling of the show jiggered a bit from the typical “build-up” to the Best Actor award. Instead, the penultimate moment of the night was given to the Best Actress award, which in turn was given to Julianne Moore for her heart-wrenching take on people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Funnily enough, she had already received the top award at Cannes earlier last year for David Cronenberg’s incredible new film, Map to the Stars. How often does an actor win the top award at two different awards shows for two very different roles? Not often enough to make it seem real to Julianne Moore.
“You know, I was so lucky to get these great parts, and so close together,” said Moore. “I didn’t really think much about it except that I was fortunate to get to kind of explore these really interesting characters. But I never imagined this. I certainly never imagined that I would win Cannes in the spring and then kind of follow it up with an Oscar for another film. So that’s just‑‑ it’s beyond. I keep saying this to my publicist who is over there. I’m like, ‘is this happening? Can this be happening?’ It’s pretty crazy.”
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.