Eddie Redmayne To Play Stephen Hawking In Working Title’s ‘Theory Of Everything’

EXCLUSIVE: After crushing it on Les Miserables, Eddie Redmayne is being fought over for his next lead role. I heard that he’s going to land on Theory Of Everything, and that he’ll play physicist Stephen Hawking in the film that Working Title is fast assembling with director James Marsh, who shared the Best Documentary Oscar for Man On Wire. The film focus is on the relationship between Hawking and his wife and it marks a re-team of the actor and Working Title partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner from Les Miserables. They are actively discussing the female lead, with an early fall start being eyed. Redmayne has also been courted to star with Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts in the Thomas Vinterberg-directed Far From The Madding Crowd, but I believe that his priority is the Hawking project written by Anthony McCarten. It is a potential tour de force role as Hawking, who has achieved so much despite his affliction with ALS. This opens the opportunity for the kind of work Daniel Day-Lewis turned in in My Left Foot and Mathieu Amalric in The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.I’ve been watching Redmayne since his tragic turn as a spy’s son in the Robert De Niro-directed The Good Shepherd, and he’s got the chops. He also won a Tony Award for Red. Redmayne is currently filming Jupiter Ascending for Warner Bros, directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski, with Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. He’s repped by CAA and manager Gene Parseghian and UK agent Dallas Smith. ICM Partners reps McCarten

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