Eddie Redmayne

Edward John David Redmayne OBE, born on 6 January 1982 in Westminster, London, is an English actor whose work spans stage, film, and television. His accolades include an Academy Award, a Tony Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Olivier Awards. His father, Richard Redmayne, works in corporate finance, and his mother, Patricia, runs a relocation business. His paternal great-grandfather was Sir Richard Redmayne (1865–1955), a civil and mining engineer noted for his contributions to mine safety in the early twentieth century. Redmayne has an elder brother, James, a younger brother, an elder half-brother, Charlie Redmayne, who served as CEO of the UK division of HarperCollins, and a half-sister.

From the age of ten, Redmayne attended Jackie Palmer Stage School. He subsequently studied at Eaton House, then Colet Court on a choral scholarship, where he sang with the St Paul's Choir, and later attended Eton College on a music scholarship, where he was in the same year as Prince William. He went on to read History of Art at Trinity College, Cambridge, specialising in Venetian architecture and surrealism, graduating with a 2:1 in 2003. His theses addressed the work of Brâncuși and Yves Klein; despite being colour blind, he wrote his final thesis on International Klein Blue. While at Cambridge, he was a member of the University Pitt Club.

Redmayne made his professional stage debut in 2002, playing Viola in Twelfth Night for Shakespeare's Globe at the Middle Temple Hall. His West End career gained early recognition with his performance in Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? at the Almeida in 2004, for which he received the Outstanding Newcomer award at the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the Best Newcomer award at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards in 2005. He subsequently appeared in Christopher Shinn's Now or Later at the Royal Court Theatre, which ran from September to November 2008.

In 2009, Redmayne appeared in John Logan's Red at the Donmar Warehouse in London, earning the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He reprised the role on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre in a fifteen-week run from 11 March to 27 June 2010, winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play as well as a Theatre World Award that same year. From December 2011 to February 2012, he portrayed King Richard II in a production directed by Michael Grandage at the Donmar Warehouse, receiving the Trewin Award for Best Shakespearean Performance at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.

In November 2021, Redmayne returned to the stage as the Emcee in a West End revival of Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre, reimagined as the Kit Kat Club. He had previously played the role in a production at Eton at age seventeen and again at the Edinburgh Fringe. He approached Jessie Buckley to star as Sally Bowles and Rebecca Frecknall to direct the production. The revival won seven Olivier Awards in 2022, including Best Musical Revival and Best Actor in a Musical for Redmayne, setting a record as the most award-winning revival in Olivier history and the first production to receive awards in all four eligible acting categories. In April 2024, the production transferred to the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, where Redmayne reprised the role of the Emcee opposite Gayle Rankin as Sally Bowles, earning a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical at the 77th Tony Awards.

On screen, Redmayne made his debut in 1998 in an episode of Animal Ark. His early film appearances include Like Minds (2006), The Good Shepherd (2006), Savage Grace (2007), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and Black Death (2010). He achieved broader recognition for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014), a performance that earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received a second Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl (2015) and went on to star as Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts film series from 2016 to 2022. Additional film credits include My Week with Marilyn (2011), Les Misérables (2012), Jupiter Ascending (2015), Early Man (2018), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), and The Good Nurse (2022). His television work includes the miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (2010) and Birdsong (2012), and beginning in 2024 he has portrayed the Jackal in the spy thriller series The Day of the Jackal.