It's only been six months since Eddie Redmayne picked up his Oscar for The Theory of Everything, but the O word is already being used again for his upcoming film* The Danish Girl*.
The film, directed by Les Miserables's Tom Hooper, follows the story of one of the first ever recipients of sexual reassignment surgery, Einar Wegener, who became Lily Elbe in the 1920s. In the trailer Eddie's character says: "There was a moment when I wasn't me and I was just, Lily."
Alicia Vikander plays Lily's wife Gerda Wegener and at the end of the trailer Lily says to Gerda: "“I love you because you’re the only person who made sense of me, who made me possible."
Some activists criticised the casting, arguing that trans roles should be given to trans actors. Tom Hooper defended casting Edie saying: "Eddie was really the person I wanted to make the film with, and I was very passionate about that. I was a great believer in him as an actor. I think also there’s a certain gender fluidity that I sensed in him, that I found intriguing and it led me to think he might be a really interesting person to cast in this role."
Paris Lees said to Out magazine: "If anybody's going to do this justice it's Eddie".
The film will debut this week at the Venice Film Festival, on Saturday 5th September. Watch the trailer below...