The cast includes Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Samantha Barks and Eddie Redmayne — who has become a big screen heart-throb thanks to his performance.
Redmayne told me recently that the film was tricky, from an actor’s point of view, because of its blend of theatricality and realism.
One particularly troublesome scene involved his lovestruck character, Marius, singing A Heart Full Of Love.
‘In the script, Marius goes: “In my life, she has burst like the music of angels! The light of the sun!!”,’ he told me.
‘It’s so florid and metaphorical — beautiful, but very difficult to make that sound spontaneous.
‘And I remember trying, and it wasn’t working, and Tom said: “For all this grisly realism that we’re doing, this is an old-school, West Side Story, movie musical moment. And in order to make it work, you have to run down the street, swinging from lampposts, singing till your heart’s content.” ’
With that in mind, Redmayne nailed it, and the resulting scene is full of yearning.
Several of the actors playing students at the barricade had come from the stage show and a few had played Marius.
Redmayne asked them how they had handled certain scenes, and one of them said he’d imagined Marius as a bit of a dreamer, who probably wrote poetry.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2256844/Damian-Lewis-Cockney-swagger-Me-My-Girl.html#ixzz2H2igCjAJ
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