The UK’s Daily Mail has our first look at recent Best Actor Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) as he appears in The Danish Girl, playing artist Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, one of the first to ever undergo sexual reassignment surgery. C
Redmayne told the Mail that he has been working with movement director Alexandra Reynolds since January at “observing the minutiae of feminine physicality” in order to accurately portray Elbe. He has also reached out to members of the trans community.
“We’re looking at everything from a feminine perspective,” said Redmayne of the part, which tackles the beginnings of the operation in the 1920s. “I think it’s the most sensitive role I have played. The danger of surgery was so extreme then. It’s such a brave thing that Einar did.”
Alicia Vikander will play his wife Gerda Wegener, while Amber Heard will co-star as Oola. The Danish Girl reunites Redmayne with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Tom Hooper (Les Misérables), from a script by Lucinda Coxon, adapting the 2001 novel by David Ebershoff. The film is expected for release sometime in 2016.
