The Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne has revealed his extensive preparation for the role of pioneering transgender artist Lili Elbe in a new interview with Out magazine.
Redmayne, who will star as Elbe in the forthcoming Tom Hooper-directed biopic The Danish Girl, said he had discussed the role with transgender people such as film director Lana Wachowski, former model April Ashley and writer and activist Paris Lees in order to understand their experiences. He also praised the US former Olympic gold medallist turned reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner for her bravery in the public eye.
“I was in New York when the Vanity Fair cover came out, and I was reading the New York Times and all of the op-ed pieces that were being written about it,” said Redmayne. “The dialogue was so rich and full, with everyone having opinions. Then I came back and saw the trailer for the film.
“I absolutely salute her courage. Hers is a very specific story, and it’s one that shouldn’t stand for everybody’s. But it is amazing what she’s gone through and how she’s done it.”
Elbe, who was born Einar Mogens Wegener in Denmark in 1882, was one of the world’s first known recipients of gender reassignment surgery, undergoing a series of experimental operations in Berlin in 1930-31. Organ rejection following an attempt to transplant a uterus resulted in her death in 1931.
The actor said he had been largely ignorant about transgender issues before he first became interested in the role three years ago, some time before his Oscar win in February for his role as the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
“I knew nothing about it, going in,” he said. “It felt like it was a piece about authenticity and love and the courage it takes to be yourself.
“People were so kind and generous with their experience, but also so open,” said Redmayne. “Virtually all of the trans men and women I met would say: ‘Ask me anything.’ They know that need for cisgender people to be educated.”
He added: “I felt like, I’m being given this extraordinary experience of being able to play this woman, but with that comes this responsibility of not only educating myself but hopefully using that to educate [an audience]. Gosh, it’s delicate. And complicated.”
Redmayne said he felt transgender people were now facing a period of emergence into the public eye which constituted a “civil rights moment”.
“My greatest ignorance when I started was that gender and sexuality were related,” he said of his own education. “And that’s one of the key things I want to hammer home to the world: You can be gay or straight, trans man or woman, and those two things are not necessarily aligned.”
The Danish Girl, directed by Hooper (of The King’s Speech fame) and based on the novel by David Ebershoff, will debut at this year’s Venice and Toronto film festivals next month. It is then scheduled to premiere in the US on 27 November ahead of an expected Oscars run.
