Maybe you’re the type of person still pondering if Eddie Redmayne is in fact a Great Actor. Like, you recognize he’s talented and theatrical—he is British, after all—but question his accepted greatness.
You perhaps were one of those aghast, jaw-dropped, googling the legal definition of “robbery” people when Redmayne won a 2015 Oscar for The Theory of Everything. You thought, cool capital-A Acting there, dude, contorting your body, really going for the role of Stephen Hawking, but you also saw Birdman, which means you saw Michael Keaton in Birdman, which means you screamed “How did Batman lose to fucking that?” while watching the 87th Academy Awards.
Maybe, just maybe, you’re the kind of person who lies awake during those nights insomnia attacks, watching the fan spinning round and round, wondering, “What the hell was Eddie doing in Jupiter Ascending? Was than an accent? Did he go 110% Method? Should anyone go that Method? In a movie where Channing Tatum dressed up as a space-skating, trendy L.A. hipster elf—like an actual elf—you were the strange one, Eddie. How? Why? What happened? Are you a Great Actor or are we supposed to just think you’re one?”
And this theory of yours—that Eddie Redmayne as force-of-nature Actor narrative is being forced upon us—was only bolstered when you watched The Danish Girl, a movie tugging your coattails, begging, just begging you “take it seriously.” That year, when random strangers inquired “What is Oscar Bait?” you showed them that picture of Eddie Redmayne you have saved on your phone for such situations.
But they say Great Actors need Great Directors to unlock that thing deep inside them. This week, something miraculous happened for Eddie Redmayne: he met Ellen Degeneres. Yes, many dismiss Degeneres because of her stage—daytime television—but her sandbox consistently uncovers talents in celebrities they never knew they had. For Redmayne that talent was simple: dude can nail a damn animal impression.
So for those Eddie Redmayne doubters, send a huge thank you to Ellen Degeneres. Because now we know: Eddie Redmayne is the Greatest Actor of our generation.
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