Eddie Redmayne on career after Oscar win: It gave me the luxurious notion of choice

NEW DELHI: From headlining "Fantastic Beasts" movies to playing an assassin in his new series "The Day of the Jackal", British star Eddie Redmayne says his best actor Oscar win for "The Theory of Everything" has given him the "luxurious notion of choice".

Redmayne, who won the trophy in 2015 for his portrayal of renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in the movie, said like any other upcoming actor, he started out by dreaming about making a living through his chosen profession.

"(But) The odds are against you because so many people want to work in this world and there are so few parts. For many years, I would just audition and try and get jobs," Redmayne told PTI in an interview.

"The massive change that the Oscar did is that rather than just auditioning for jobs and then taking them if you got them, it suddenly gave you the incredibly luxurious notion of choice," he added.

The actor began his journey on London's West End theatre and then starred in critically-acclaimed movies "My Week with Marilyn" and "Les Miserables".

The last decade has been nothing short of extraordinary for Redmayne, who followed up "The Theory of Everything" with another captivating performance in "The Danish Girl", Tom Hooper's film on 20th century transgender artist Lili Elbe.

He was also cast as Newt Scamander, the lead character of "Harry Potter" spin-off movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and its two sequels.

In 2020, Redmayne played political activist Tom Hayden in Sorkin's legal drama "The Trial of the Chicago 7", alongside Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Frank Langella and Mark Rylance.

Redmayne is grateful for the opportunities that have come his way.

"Getting to work with diverse filmmakers of different styles, different genres, from the wizarding world of 'Fantastic Beasts' to working with Aaron Sorkin on 'Trial of Chicago 7' to now doing this (show), playing an assassin... I've loved the kind of variety that having some choice has allowed me," he said.

The actor's latest role is that of the Jackal in "The Day of the Jackal", the series adaptation of author Edward Forsyth's classic 1971 novel of the same name.

The book, which was adapted into a film in 1973 film with Edward Fox in the lead role, explored themes of espionage and high-stakes danger as the titular character prepares to assassinate the French President.

The actor said he has been a fan of the book and the original movie as he found Fox to be "enigmatic but quite opaque".

"You never really got a sense of what was going inside him. But what I loved about the character as well as being a casually ruthless assassin, he was also an actor. He would shape shift, change the way he looked or languages he spoke. I thought there was something so appealing about the idea of an actor playing an actor. That was one of the things that intrigued me," Redmayne said.

The new show, directed by Brian Kirk, sees the Jackal making his living carrying out hits for the highest fee.

"But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer (played by Lashana Lynch) who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake," read the official synopsis.

In the day and age of fast paced thrillers, Redmayne said there was something old school about the character of the Jackal.

"There was something what I describe as analog. Nowadays when we see these thrillers, everything is on computers. Whereas, what I liked is that for him, it was really about the craft. It's about creating these guns, quite intricate traps or plans that he delivers with the kind of precision of a Swiss watch."

What was also interesting was that there was a sort of moral ambiguity to Jackal, the actor said.

"You give me the task, you pay me enough money, and I will undertake it. So on the one hand, there's that quality to him, but there's also almost a sort of sociopathic element that he also, in this other life, is seemingly kind, caring, loving to his family.

"And yet he has never married these two worlds, or has the audacity to believe that he can live these two kind of bipolar existences at the same time. But throughout the series, you see him having to confront those two things and attempt to meld them, and that's where the trouble lies."

What was also unique about the character of the Jackal was his debonair quality, the actor said describing his character as chameleon-like.

"There's a kind of casual deadliness to him and also an opaque quality that people want to lean in and learn about him. And whether that was in the version set in the sixties or our version now, that there's an enigma that everyone wants to un-peel, that is quite intriguing," he added.

"The Day of the Jackal", a 10-episode series written and showrun by Ronan Bennett, also features Ursula Corbero,  Charles Dance, Richard Dormer, Chukwudi Iwuji, Lia Williams and Khalid Abdalla.

The series, written by Ronan Bennett, is produced by Carnival Films, which is part of Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group, and was commissioned by Sky Studios and Peacock. It will premiere on JioCinema Premium on November 15.