埃迪·雷德梅尼：一直在路上

E ddie Redmayne can barely contain himself. The gangly， boyish， and eminently charming actor is meant to be seated on a 1）plush couch in his inordinately posh Manhattan hotel suite， but he seems incapable of 2）staying put. He frequently 3）springs up to further demonstrate whatever point he’s in the middle of making， and even when he is seated， his deep， throaty voice races 4）headlong out of him， his mouth often 5）tripping over his words.

Redmayne’s infectious 6）verve is， ironically， in service of explaining how he learned to keep his body resolutely stiff and static. With the film The Theory of Everything， the 32-year-old Redmayne has been winning the best reviews of his young career， for his performance as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

The film tracks Hawking’s physical decline from his early days as a doctoral candidate at Cambridge. Its main emotional focus， however， is how the disease affected his romance with and eventual marriage to Jane Hawking， whose memoir served as the basis for the film. Playing Hawking proposed one of the most intimidating challenges imaginable for an actor： Faithfully portraying the physical specificity of Hawking’s disease meant 7）bottling up virtually every tool available to capture his emotional inner life.

But according to The Theory of Everything’s director， James Marsh， it was a challenge that Redmayne was up to from the moment the two first met to discuss the role. “Eddie’s a very intelligent actor，” Marsh says a few weeks later on the phone. “I was struck by how much he understood the nature of the psychology of the role， and what he had to do is to physically prepare for what then would become an emotional performance.”

Back in his hotel suite， however， Redmayne often says， almost 8）contritely， that he had not gone through formal training as an actor （Instead， he studied the history of art at Cambridge）. “I’ve always wondered if at drama school you get a given process，” he says. “Every single job I do， whether it’s theater or film， I’m still grappling to find a process. But interestingly， when I got cast in The Theory of Everything， my instinct was to make it quite a formal one.”

Redmayne—as well as his co-star Jones， who also had to discover how best to play a living person—had to become something of a detective mixed with an investigative reporter mixed with a movement artist. After teaming up with dancerchoreographer Alexandra Reynolds， Redmayne met with doctors， nurses， and patients at the Queen Square Centre for Neuromuscular Disease in London. “They have an ALS clinic every week， and at the end the doctor would say， ‘There’s an actor here trying to play Stephen Hawking， would you be interested in meeting him？’” says Redmayne. “And 9）across the board， people were sensationally generous. … Some people would allow me to feel their hands， to feel the weight of their bodies.”

At the clinic， Redmayne also learned about the differences between the loss of “upper” neurons—which causes the affected areas to fix into a rigid shape—and“lower” neurons—which causes the opposite， the body to go loose and limp. But those losses are specific to each person，which meant Redmayne had to sort out—based mostly on archival photos and whatever he could find on YouTube—how Hawking’s motor neuron disease uniquely manifested itself， and when. He then showed those images to the doctors at Queen Square so they could render a loose sort of diagnosis.

After filling an iPad with every scrap of visual and documentary material he collected， Redmayne then created a single， double-sided 10）master list， which charted out the details he’d need to know for every single scene. That list， he says， included “what muscles had gone， where vocally he was at， and then what glasses he was wearing， whether he was on one stick or two sticks， or which wheelchair he was in.”

Throughout this process， Redmayne was also working with Reynolds， in a rehearsal space， to teach his body how to render each stage of Hawking’s decline. “Rather than just replicating positions， it was about when you’re holding these positions，” Redmayne says， as he starts to shrug up his shoulders， and twist and stiffen his hands.

The role didn’t just affect his body， either. Redmayne 11）contorted his face so frequently that the film’s makeup artist noticed the right side of his face began to change.

However taxing depicting Hawking’s illness was—and it also included everything from mastering driving Hawking’s different wheelchairs， to subtly changing his wardrobe to make his body seem slighter as he grew older—it was still only half the job. To grasp the man’s 12）formidable intellectual life， Redmayne also studied Hawking’s contributions to the field of general relativity and theoretical physics， especially his best-selling book A Brief History of Time.

But the hardest job， in a way， was communicating what was happening to Hawking’s heart as his body was failing him. For that， he relied especially on Marsh and Jones. “I remember being in a rehearsal room with Eddie， and Eddie’s in the chair， and then suddenly you feel as the person playing the carer you have this enormous responsibility，” Jones says.“At a certain point， Stephen couldn’t just lift up a spoon. So Jane’s got to be there doing it for him. So suddenly， I was like， Gosh， I’ve got to be the responsible one in this situation！ She was Stephen’s movement in the world.”

Asked what it was like to learn that Stephen Hawking had enjoyed the film— and the profound effort that went into his performance—for the first time that afternoon he grows quiet， his words coming slowly， his body still. “It means everything， really，” he says， his voice heavy with emotion.“The weight of those high stakes had been sitting on my shoulders for an age， and—that’s why we’re telling the story， because he’s an extraordinary human being， as is Jane. They allowed us into their orbit for a few months， and that was one of the great privileges of my life. It’s an experience I will never， ever forget.”

埃迪·雷德梅尼激動得無法自已。這位身形瘦削、一臉稚氣又異常迷人的演員準備往他所入住的曼哈頓豪華酒店套房的長毛絨沙發坐下去，但他似乎無法安坐。無論說什么，他都會不斷地騰起身子來進一步展示，就是在坐著的時候，他那深沉嘶啞的聲音也沖口而出，快言快語得嘴上直打磕巴。

好笑的是，雷德梅尼這樣富有感染力的熱情竟然是為了解釋他是如何讓身體變得異常僵硬和靜態的。隨著電影《萬物理論》的上映，憑借對理論物理學家斯蒂芬·霍金的出色演繹，32歲的雷德梅尼贏得了自己從演生涯以來最高的評價。

電影追溯到霍金早年還在劍橋讀博士的那些日子，講述他的健康如何惡化。然而，電影的主要情感集中點在于他的疾病如何影響他與簡·霍金的愛情與婚姻，電影的創作以女方的回憶錄作為基礎。對于任何一個演員來說，扮演霍金都是極具挑戰性的。忠實地呈現霍金所患疾病的肢體特征意味著要在幾乎不依靠任何工具的情況下去捕捉他的內心情感世界。

但根據《萬物理論》的導演詹姆斯·馬什所說，兩人一開始見面討論這個角色的時候，雷德梅尼就有能力接受這個挑戰。“埃迪是一名非常聰明的演員，”幾周之后，馬什在電話中里面如此說道，“他對這個角色的內心世界的了解程度讓我感到震驚，而他只需要做好身體上的準備，把情感細分表現出來就好。”

然而，在雷德梅尼的酒店套房內，他經常說，以近乎懊悔的語氣，說自己從未受過專業的演員訓練（事實上，他在劍橋學習的是藝術史）。……