Cinema Vanguard Award: Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2015

Reviewed by Mina Gilbertsson. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2015.

Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne starred in ‘The Theory of Everything’, which is based on the famous physicist Stephen Hawking’s relationship with his wife. Both Redmayne and Jones are nominated for ‘Best Performance by an Actor/Actress in a Leading Role’ at the Academy Awards (Oscars) 2015.

After a short introduction of their remarkable work, Roger Durling started the talk. The actors discussed the importance of an education, which both of them had gotten – Jones attended Cambridge and Redmayne Oxford before pursuing a potential acting career.

Mr. Redmayne who started his career in theatre, told the audience that the transition to film was not that different. “It is about the character, in theatre, TV and film”. The actor recalls one of his early film productions ‘The Good Shepherd’ with co-star Robert De Niro. “I was so frightened of getting fired”.

The Les Misérables actor had both admired Julianne Moore before and after working with her. He explained how she fought for him to get the part and how he will never forget that. He also humorously said  “It was the one time freckled helped”. The freckles got him an advantage to play the role of her son.

Ms. Jones explained that working on ‘The Invisibly Woman’ taught her many things. The thought of director Ralph Fiennes playing Voldemort in the Harry Potter series always made her smile. During the filming of ‘The Tempest” Jones grew closer with Helen Mirren and admired her discipline and professionalism between takes.

The subject of failure came up and Jones talked about risktaking. Both Redmayne and herself agreed that it is worth risking the possibility of failure to put yourself out there.

Before recieving the award, ‘The Theory of Everything’ was discussed. Both Redmayne and Jones agreed that it was “terrifying” to find out what Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde thought of the film. Gladly, they both liked it. One day on set when they were filming the firework scene Stephen came in and as Redmayne described it: “It was the most epic entrance in history”.