Les Misérables is a movie full of superstars and lofty expectations, but it's the performance of rising star Eddie Redmayne that catches the eye and ear. The impeccably mannered old Etonian talks to DONALD CLARKE
The people behind Les Misérables are taking this seriously. A veritable army of stars has descended on Claridge’s in London for the premiere of Tom Hooper’s take on the monster musical. Look, here comes Russell Crowe. Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter and Hugh Jackman are also lurking in the corridor. One could understand if Eddie Redmayne felt slightly lost in the pack.
That would be unjust. Redmayne, a finefeatured 30-year-old, is among the best things in the film. Saddled with the tricky part of Marius – the young revolutionary who inexplicably falls for drippy Cosette – he determinedly extracts emotion from every warbled line.
Hooper hasn’t made it easy for his cast. Unusually for a contemporary musical, Les Misérables was sung live on set. This is particularly impressive when you consider that few of the cast are proper song-and-dance people.
“We knew all that from the outset,” Redmayne says. That’s why the audition process was so rigorous. I sang a bit when I was a kid and enjoyed it. What was wonderful was that we had a great vocal coach who changed the [physiology] at the back of your throat to sustain the stamina that filming live was going to need. We did 21 takes of Empty Chairs, Empty Tables.”
Ah yes. And Eddie managed to squeeze out a tear on the take that was eventually used. That song, in which Marius mourns his lost colleagues, is the character’s big, show-off number.
“There isn’t a cynical way of doing it,” he says. “You have to let the moment take over. The first proper film I did was directed by Robert De Niro. He likes to put a lot of film in the camera and allow a lot of takes. Then, when you start again, you can use the emotion you got to at the end of the previous take. We actually ended up using that last take. So it was worth it.”
Eddie’s old masters at Eton College will be pleased to hear that he exhibits immaculate manners in interviews. Dressed in a gorgeous grey tweed suit, he speaks in neat sentences comprised of well-formed clauses. Raised in London, the son of a businessman, Eddie can’t quite explain how he ended up as an actor. When he was 11, he did appear as “urchin number eight” in Sam Mendes’s production of Oliver! But even that seems to have been a happy accident.
“I really don’t know,” he muses. “People ask me what I was rebelling against. Not much, really. I came from a family that were phenomenally supportive. So it didn’t feel like rebellion. They were all happy with my career, but it was still shocking that they suddenly had somebody with interests that were so different to their own. The only objection I ever remember my dad raising was when he said: ‘Have you ever thought about producing?’ There’s no money in that, Dad!”
It’s hard to feel too sorry for somebody who went to Eton. But Eddie is stuck with answering questions about the place. If he were the only old Etonian actor on the block, journalists might have forgotten about it by now. But, all of a sudden, the profession seems jammed with performers who attended the major public schools. Dominic West, Damien Lewis and Tom Hiddleston were all at Eton. Benedict Cumberbatch and Laurence Fox attended Harrow. With the Conservative cabinet packed full of more posh boys than at any time since the early 1960s, commentators are beginning to wonder if the establishment has reasserted itself.
Eddie nods calmly and acknowledges that the question must be asked.
“What I would say about Eton is that my experience was all to do with a great teacher. He was an inspiration and he treated us like professional actors. We had extraordinary theatres and when you went in to professional theatre, it felt like you were still at school.”
He pauses for a while to gather his thoughts.
“Here’s the deal. I feel like this country has so much history that a massive part of our industry ends up being period drama. That means a lot of posh people in posh suits. And there’s no way around it. If you are from a posh background then casting directors will see you in those terms. Then again, they would be less likely to cast me in a Shane Meadows film.”
The argument goes that, in such straitened times, only people from privileged backgrounds can cope with the years of enforced poverty that actors initially face.
“I am aware of that privilege,” he says. “A lot of working-class actors have to give up everything and move. I was paying my way. I was working in a pub. But I could live at home.”
As Eddie explains, he became hooked on acting when at school. Nonetheless, after sitting A-Levels, he did not plunge himself into the profession. He did not make for drama school. The next move was a degree in art history at Trinity College, Cambridge. He “knew the stats” about acting and he genuinely adored history of art. At university, he hung out with fellow actors such as Hiddleston and Rebecca Hall. Mad plays were performed. Much fun was had.
“You can do a lot of crap when you’re doing student drama. You get to play old men. You do a lot of things you wouldn’t do at drama school. You can make a fool of yourself.”
Eddie secured a part in a production of Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe when he was still at Cambridge. In 2004, he won an Evening Standard Award for his turn in Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? After that, he seems to have been inundated with offers. He secured an Olivier Award and a Tony for, respectively, the London and New York productions of John Logan’s Red. On telly, he has appeared in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Pillars of the Earth. So, was there ever a period when he felt that he wasn’t going to make it?
“I did work in a pub and I learnt silver service,” he says. “I suppose the complete nadir was working as a waiter at the British Soap Awards and having the cast of Hollyoaks fill up my tray with empty champagne glasses until the tray crashed to the floor. But I have been very lucky. There have been no prolonged periods without work and I know how lucky I’ve been.”
Eddie eventually registered with an international audience when he turned up opposite Michelle Williams as the wide-eyed protagonist of My Week with Marilyn. Williams got most of the attention. But Eddie was now on the industry radar.
Les Misérables has been a long time in the making. Premiered in Paris in 1980 and on the West End in 1985, the adaptation of Victor Hugo’s enormous novel is now the longest running show in London’s Theatreland. Previous adaptations of event shows from the 1980s have not fared all that well. Phantom of the Opera was a bomb. Evita performed only adequately. But Les Misérables does have a chance of breaking that curse.
Advance screenings have generated much good buzz. Susan Boyle has made at least one song from the show an internet sensation.
The staging is not all that innovative. But Hooper’s decision to record the performers live does give the piece an impressively gritty feel. There is some proper acting going on here.
Eddie made the decision to audition all on his own. When he heard that Working Title were making the film, he was shooting in the southern United States.
“I was playing a meth addict in North Carolina,” he laughs. “And I heard they were making a film of this. I had never told my agent I enjoyed singing. So, on my iPhone, I recorded a video of myself singing Empty Chairs. I sent it to my agent and, unbeknown to me, he sent it to Eric Fellner from Working Title. If I’d know that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have been dressed as a cowboy. Ha ha!”
The auditions were more than usually rigorous. As Hooper – an Oscar winner for The King’s Speech – was mostly casting actors, rather than stars of musical theatre, he had to be sure they could carry a tune. Eddie remembers arriving at the audition space to be confronted by entertainment royalty.
“Sending in that tape started a process that went on through a lot of meetings with Tom. And the last one really was an X-Factor style audition with Claude-Michel Schönberg, the lyricist, Cameron Mackintosh, the show’s producer and Debra Hayward from Working Title. And more. All of them. The only person missing was Mr S Cowell. But it was very levelling. Because we then knew that everyone had been through that.”
Now, he’s stuck with the nightmare that is awards season. The film is certain to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars (and, in a wildly volatile year, is currently second favourite behind Lincoln). The shadowy cadre of Oscarologists have also decided that Mr Redmayne is sure to be nominated for best supporting actor.
I am sure he’s too well brought up to comment on that. But he must be aware that the awards machine is being constructed around us as we speak. It looms over the picture’s release.
“Hmm? Well, all of us on the cast have a story about how we saw the musical as a kid,” he says. “We all love it. There’s been this expectation for such a long time. Now we just want to let it out into the world. That’s all we want – to let it out into the world.”
Very diplomatically put.
Les Misérables opens on January 11th
