Eddie Redmayne stars as trans icon Lili Elbe, an artist who had sexual reassignment surgery in the 1930s, in the upcoming flick The Danish Girl. He spoke to Out magazine about preparing for the role, and how his research impacted his own views.
“My greatest ignorance when I started was that gender and sexuality were related,” he says. “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.”
Redmayne says he thoroughly researched transgender theory and history, reaching out to prominent British trans activists like Paris Lees and April Ashley for guidance. He also asked trans Jupiter Ascending director Lana Wachowski for advice.
“People were so kind and generous with their experience, but also so open. 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. 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.”
As for how he sees himself, Redmayne noted that he does not think in a gendered way. “I suppose it depends what you think of as masculine and feminine,” he said. “I was musical, and I was into theater and arts, but I was also into sports, so I had quite a broad spectrum. I can also totally see that other people see a femininity in me.”
That’s for sure. He IS a pretty man. Check out pics from the article below.
The post Eddie Redmayne Talks Reasearching Trans Role for Upcoming Movie “The Danish Girl” appeared first on World of Wonder.
