Emily Herbert - Eddie Redmayne--The Biography

F ebruary 2015 and Tinseltown had worked itself up into its usual frenetic state brought on by Oscar season: that time of the year when Hollywood crowns its own. Apart from the obvious kudos of winning acclaim from your peers, an Academy Award is a serious boost to any actors career. Recognition levels, pay levels, the chance of an extended A-list livelihood these were all on the cards for the Oscar hopefuls and this year was no different from the rest. The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles was packed to the rafters as first-time host Neil Patrick Harris took to the stage: emotions, as always on this occasion, were running high.

There was particular interest in the Best Actor category in what had been a very strong year. In the running that night were five men: Steve Carell in Foxcatcher (as John Eleuthre), Bradley Cooper in American Sniper (as Chris Kyle), Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game (as Alan Turing), Michael Keaton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), as Riggan Thomson/Birdman, and Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything (as Stephen Hawking). It was a very impressive round-up, containing two of the finest British actors of their generation, and some very popular and successful US stars. Speculation had been mounting as to who would be the recipient of the award: everyone knew that Eddie was a very strong contender, thanks to both the quality of his acting and the intense interest in the story behind the film. He had won worldwide acclaim for his portrayal of the brilliant physicist Professor Stephen Hawking, who had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of twenty-one and been given just two years to live.

But there were no certainties; no one knew if it would be him.

The moment came when Cate Blanchett, who had actually worked with Eddie some years earlier, ascended to the podium to present the award. She was looking as lovely as ever: she had teamed a simply-cut long black dress with a cutaway detail in the back by John Galliano for Maison Margiela with a statement turquoise necklace made by Tiffany & Co, topped off with an updo for her blonde hair and barely-there make-up. A hush fell over the star-spangled audience. And the Oscar goes to she began, Eddie Redmayne!

The audience erupted. They bellowed their appreciation, as Eddie looking stunned, nervous and absolutely delighted rose and kissed his wife Hannah before making his way up to the stage where he was greeted with a warm hug by Cate, who looked almost as pleased as he did. Thank you, he repeated over and over, before telling the audience that he was not really capable of articulating his thoughts and adding that he was a lucky, lucky man. This Oscar wow! he continued to an utterly charmed audience, This belongs to all those people around the world battling ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or motor neurone disease, the ailment Stephen Hawking suffers from]. It belongs to one exceptional family: Stephen, Jane, Jonathon and the Hawking children, and I will be its custodian. And I will promise you that I will look after him I will polish him; I will answer his beck and call; I will wait on him hand and foot. But I would not be here were it not for an extraordinary troupe of people.

And with that he went on to thank everyone he could think of, including his staggering partner in crime aka his co-star Felicity Jones before ending by avowing love to his wife. He could not have been more delightful if he had tried and the audience lapped it up. But then, of course, Eddie had attended the greatest charm school in the world, Eton College, and possessed heaps of self-deprecation. To be in his presence was to be captivated by him you couldnt help yourself. You might as well give up at the first hurdle.

During that appearance on the Dolby Theatre stage, Eddie wasnt just wrapping the bigwigs of Hollywood round his little finger: he was jumping on to a bigger stage still, to what would be the culmination of an astonishing decade that had seen him soar from a total unknown doing bit parts on television to one of the biggest stars in the world. On that night, Eddie joined a small and select brotherhood: A-list British actors. There arent that many of them but his peers include Benedict Cumberbatch a friend of his, who was munificent in defeat that year and fellow old Etonian Damian Lewis. There are a few more, but not many. Eddie had broken into a very select group.

Backstage, he continued to appear stunned and happy, larking about with Cate and paying tribute to the astonishing man who had inspired it all. For Stephen Hawking, the illness was of little interest to him, he said. He lives forward, passionately. When I watch a film, I believe what I see on screen. We felt a responsibility to tell their story. And in a wry aside that reflected he knew how much his status had now changed, he added that at least this would give him some peace of mind about his future career. Ive always had to fight for jobs, he confessed. Retaining employment will keep me very happy.

Afterwards, his voice shaking and clearly very emotional, Eddie attempted to sum up what the award meant to him. He explained how even the person who had given him the award, Cate Blanchett, had added to the enjoyment of the evening, as he had previously acted with her in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, one of the first films he had ever made. Shes such an exceptional actor, he told waiting reporters, using the fashionable parlance of the day, so I was recovering from that excitement of seeing her and just trying to bury all this frenzy of nerves and white noise and chimes, and try and speak articulately. And then, of course, you forget everything, but it just felt like an euphoria, an extraordinary euphoria. Its something I will not forget in a hurry. He also mentioned that he was staying nearby in a hotel with a host of other Brit actors, making the whole thing sound more like a jolly get-together of chums than one of the most important events in the film calendar. Then he started rocking his Oscar as one would a baby and those few people who hadnt been won over earlier were certainly singing his praises at that point.

After the initial shock, he got a chance to relax and enjoy himself, insofar as it was possible for someone whose stock had just taken such a giant leap. There was the Governors Ball in the Ray Dolby Ballroom, followed by the Vanity Fair party, where he was the undisputed star of the evening no mean feat given the calibre of the others present. Guests feasting on Maine lobster roll, Gruyere cheese gougres with sauce Mornay and In-N-Out burgers included: Joan and Jackie Collins, Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, fellow Brit David Oyelowo, Jay-Z and Beyonc, Jennifer Lopez, John Travolta, Robert Duvall, Reese Witherspoon and the entire cast of the Oscar ceremony the sort of crowd with whom Eddie would be mingling from then on.

I think Ive lost it, he fretted to one journalist who was asking about the whereabouts of the Oscar, but the statuette was located again shortly afterwards and equanimity was restored. The bustle of the party, an annual event hosted by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, took place within the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and was a suitably grandiose affair: a sixty-foot-long copper bar stretched down the room towards a giant mural of the nominees, created by Andr Carrilho, while women dressed up as cigarette girls in vintage clothing circulated with trays of Cracker Jack caramel popcorn. Cigarettes would have been out of the question, of course. But this was Eddies world now.

One person, alas, was missing from the proceedings: Professor Stephen Hawking himself. There had been talks about him flying to Los Angeles to attend the Oscar ceremony at least, if not the actual celebrations afterwards, but in the event doctors decided that his health was simply not up to it. Nonetheless, the brilliant scientist was watching the proceedings from across the Atlantic and he made his feelings known shortly afterwards. On his Facebook page he had joined the site just a few months previously he wrote, Congratulations to Eddie Redmayne for winning an Oscar for playing me in The Theory of Everything Movie. Well done Eddie, Im very proud of you.