Film & TV2 min(s) read
Published 17:34 22 Nov 2021 GMT
Eddie Redmayne has opened up about his 2016 portrayal of a transgender woman in the Oscar-winning movie The Danish Girl.
The critically acclaimed film, which earned Redmayme an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, centers around Lili Elbe who is believed to be the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
Redmayne, a cisgender man, played Lili in the movie - and this casting choice remains a subject of criticism to this day. Transgender activists argue that the role should instead have gone to a trans woman.
It's been half a decade since the movie's successful release, and it turns out, in that time, Redmayne has come to agree with the critics that, in hindsight, it was wrong for him to take the role.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, he was asked whether he would choose to play the character today, given the criticism it sparked previously.
Redmayne responded: "No, I wouldn't take it on now. I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake."
At this point in the interviewer, journalist Kirsty Lang mentioned that the film was only given the go-ahead when Redmayne was cast after he won an Oscar for his performance in The Theory of Everything.
To which, Redmayne replied: "The bigger discussion about the frustrations around casting is because many people don't have a chair at the table. There must be a leveling, otherwise, we are going to carry on having these debates."
Redmayne's co-stars in the movie have continued to defend Redmayne's portrayal of a trans woman.
Back in August, Alicia Vikander - who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gerda Wegener in the movie - told Insider that she thought Redmayne did "a wonderful job in the role."
"I totally understand the criticism that has been out there, because we need to make a change and we need to make sure that trans men and women actually get a foot in and get work," Vikander said.
"My only concern is that we may need to get to a point in the end where we have trans women and men playing cis characters. Because that is the main thing, you know?"
