Hey there, I'm Eddie Redmayne. Uh, I'm in a new film called Les Misérables, and I'm here at the Young Hollywood Studio.

And stay tuned to find out why he was bending his tongue and making animal noises on set. It's not what you think. I'm here with Eddie Redmayne. So great to have you here.

Thank you for having me.

Well, we met before. We sort of met but you don't even know that. That's how embarrassed. I was at the

Where did we meet?

I was at the Les Mis screening. All right. And Tom Hooper, the director, introduced you and some of your co-stars and said Helen Mirren was there, and it was sort of the first time that he was showing the film to the audience.

Yeah. Yeah, it was absolutely terrifying.

Was it terrifying?

It was. This film more than any film I've ever been involved in. The actors were passionate about it. We fought incredibly hard to try and be a part of it. Everybody had to audition. Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, everybody, which at that level, those actors usually don't. And they were like X-Factor auditions. They were like they were they were so rigorous. The last one involved a panel of Cameron Mackintosh who produced the musical, Claude-Michel Schönberg who wrote the music, the lyricist. This this whole troupe of um terrifying people.

But it turned out for you. I have to say, and I and I'm saying this honestly, one of the greatest movies ever made.

Oh my God, wow. That's

And cutting to the chase, a lot of people now that it's being screened, are talking about Oscar.

Oh, wow.

And you are getting a lot of that sort of talk about nominations and that. I dreamed a dream in time gone by. When hope was high, life worth living. I dreamed that love would never die. I dreamed that God would be forgiving. Well, I read Tom said something about one of the first screenings he did. As he was watching it, he heard these weird sounds and he thought, "Oh my gosh. Did we screw it up? Did something happen in the sound about three-quarters of the way through it?" And it was people in the audience like sobbing. Crying.

Yeah.

I mean, Did you cry when you watch it?

Do you know what? I'm going to totally admit, there's a moment in the film, Hugh Jackman sings with the the bishop. And there's a moment in which Hugh sort of has a big contemplation about his life. And he's chained by this uh by this piece of paper which is making him on parole. And he he sings this extraordinary note, storms out of a church, tears up the piece of paper. And the piece of paper sort of flies up into the sky and then comes steaming down to Russell Crowe on a horse. And I was a mess.

Did I hear your first acting role on stage you played a woman?

That may be true.

Oh my God. You read the internet. I hate the internet. Was it the Twelfth Night? It was Shakespeare, which is typical. Did I just make you blush?

It was the Twelfth Night. I always. I have this hideous facility, which is that I can't stop myself. My body can't control what it feels. So if I it's written all over my face.

So I what what is amazing to me, and what I think really made the film so special is that you were all singing live. As you were filming. What typically happens is you basically make the soundtrack and then you come and you lip-sync. But in this case, Tom wanted you all to be able to sort of shape your performances as you were going along. You know, you had Wolverine and Gladiator on set but nothing you can't be alpha male when you're also having to run around going sort of vocal exercises. Oh yes. Did you go through the vocal warm-up with me? What was your typical one?

No. That was pretty good. It involved weird I'm having to hold my tongue and make weird animal noises. So it was a lot of a lot of tea drinking. There was a lot of a huge amount of honey and lemon. And I mean we were all asking for humidifiers. And there was also because there's a lot of lines that it's sort of a halfway between singing and speaking. We had to obviously treat these songs as songs to a certain extent, but you're also they're characters as it were saying words. They just happen to be sung rather than spoken. So there were moments when you had to find that midway point between singing and speaking. Which I could try right now.

Go on, try. So I will ask you the next question. You were named Vanity Fair's one of the best-dressed men.

That's very generous of them. I'm sweating already.

We're all sweating at this point. Absolutely. Good.

Yes. I'm sweating having to sing in front of you.

And you're also a Burberry model. Are you like, do you consider yourself a fashion guy or not really?

I I sort of Christopher Bailey who runs Burberry um is a in Britain he's a huge supporter of the art. And and the wonderful benefit of that is that when you then sort of go for red carpet events and things, these extraordinary people who know how to make you look good in a suit are there to sort of help.

So when you're showing up on set for Les Misérables, what are you What are you? Are you?

Full on Burberry black tie, obviously.

Was there was there fun behind the scenes? Who's the biggest?

Oh, if you're working with Seyfried, yeah, I mean endless.

Really?

Yes. There was a lot of Corpsing this thing of like when you when you're meant to be doing a serious take and you completely lose it. I mean

It's called Corpsing.

Yeah, Corpsing. There's this scene towards the end when a man and I are running in and we're doing this church and I just wiped out fully. Um Hugh forgot his lines and and I was sort of thinking the take was over. And I looked next to me and Amanda's in like floods of tears giving this sort of extraordinary performance. And at which point I was like, are we not? I know we're taking this very serious.

Yeah, she's a good little prankster. She's a comic relief. And then not to refer back to things that I read, but I did read that when you're in LA, you tend to rent convertibles and drive around and get sunburned.

Oh God, it's come back to haunt me. Absolutely true. I had this hideous experience of you know, renting a slightly shotty convertible because you basically have the weather here. You know, I come from London. That's where. And being stuck on a motorway in the sunshine, you know, burning as I say, I go kind of red. And so attempting to put the roof up but then you start putting the roof up and then the car's moved forward and you can't put the roof up and move forward at the same time. I just had about 10 cars of people literally honking their horns, pointing at me and laugh. Yeah, it was probably more embarrassing is that Les Mis was probably playing on the record player.

Well, we're happy to have you here in LA. Stick around. Thank you Eddie for coming in. Pleasure to meet you.