{"id":24190,"date":"2022-10-20T13:27:14","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T11:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1725345"},"modified":"2022-10-20T14:06:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T12:06:16","slug":"eddie-redmayne-you-must-find-the-humanity-and-trauma-in-monsters","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/eddie-redmayne-you-must-find-the-humanity-and-trauma-in-monsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Redmayne: \u2018You must find the humanity and trauma in monsters\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By James Mottram\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 20 October 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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He might be best known to many as Fantastic Beasts\u2019 Newt Scamander from the world of Harry Potter, but Eddie Redmayne has found just as much success playing real people.<\/p>\n

He won an Oscar as physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything and was nominated as transgender artist Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl. Now he\u2019s taking on a genuinely shocking true story in Netflix\u2019s The Good Nurse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Starring opposite Jessica Chastain, he plays real-life serial killer Charles Cullen, an American nurse who is thought to have murdered as many as 400 people between 1988 and 2003.<\/p>\n

We sat down with Redmayne at the Zurich Film Festival, where he received the Golden Eye award, to unpack his darkest role to date.<\/p>\n

This interview originally appeared in Radio Times Magazine.<\/em><\/p>

Did you know anything about Charles Cullen or his crimes before you read the script?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eddie:<\/strong> I didn\u2019t know anything about it. No one had given me any context of what the script was. As the story revealed itself, I was in total shock. But also, I was so intrigued by this person, and what was behind him.<\/p>\n

Cullen is serving multiple consecutive life sentences in prison \u2014 did you try to meet him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eddie:<\/strong> No, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to have access. Charles Graeber, who wrote the book [The Good Nurse: a True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder] the film is based on, did manage to get access and so I had specifics from him. But I also had Amy Loughren [Cullen\u2019s fellow nurse, played by Chastain], who was my eyes and ears in some ways. That felt more appropriate.<\/p>\n

He might be the most prolific serial killer in history. Did you come to view him as sick or evil?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eddie:<\/strong> Oh, well, there\u2019s no question that what he did was monstrous, and inexplicable \u2013 but that\u2019s not helpful when you\u2019re playing someone. You must find that humanity and look for the trauma. And, my God, there was a lot of trauma.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve played several real-life characters. Is that tricky?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eddie:<\/strong> Even when I\u2019m playing fantastical characters, I try to ground them in truth. That\u2019s the only way I can go about it. Even if I\u2019m playing Newt Scamander [a fictional character in JK Rowling\u2019s Fantastic Beasts movies], I take the qualities that character has\u2026 like he\u2019s a zoologist. You always need something tangible to start with. And you go in acknowledging that it\u2019s never going to be documentary. It\u2019s never going to be real.<\/p>\n