After winning an Oscar for The Theory of Everything in February, Eddie Redmayne will return to the big screen on New Year's Day to star in The Danish Girl. HELLO! Online has obtained a world exclusive clip of the actor talking about his latest role, in which he stars opposite the brilliant Alicia Vikander.
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Based on a true story and set in mid 1920s Copenhagen, The Danish Girl tells the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first known people to have undergone sex reassignment surgery.
Eddie Redmayne plays Lili Elbe, one of the first known people to have undergone sex reassignment surgery
Eddie plays protagonist Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe while Alicia takes on the role of Einar's wife Gerda, a portrait artist.
When Gerda asks her husband to stand in for a female model for one of her paintings, little do the couple know that the act of posing as a woman triggers something inside Einar. He gradually leaves his identity behind and transforms into Lili, at first creating friction in his marriage but then gaining undeniable support from his wife.
"Both of them are artists. Both of them are very open-minded and playful, so they start to experiment," says Alicia in the exclusive clip.
"At the beginning it is a game, but God it's an exciting game," adds Eddie. "Lili is beginning to have the environment in which she can discover her femininity."
"At the beginning it is a game, but God it's an exciting game," said Eddie of his character's journey
After kissing a male childhood friend while dressed as Lili, Einar admits that "something changed".
"Almost 100 years ago these two wonderful women challenged each other, challenged society, were pioneers in many ways," says Eddie. "For me this film is a reassertion of the profundity of love, what an extraordinary thing it can be, how it is not defined by gender, by sexuality, by anything. It's something other, it's about the soul."
Alicia, whose character learns to accept her husband as Lili, adds: "It's a love story between two people but above all it's a love story about learning how to love yourself."
"The film poses the question, what do you do if the person you love changes?" says director Tom Hooper. "And what's so inspiring about it is that Gerda keeps loving Lili throughout and it showcases a kind of generosity and compassion of love that is truly rare."
The Danish Girl is out in cinemas on 1 January.
