Cinema Vanguard Award (Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, 2015): SBIFF

Reviewed by Rachel Donovan. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2015.

At the 28th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival, Eddie Redmayne stepped out onto the red carpet to be graced by hundreds of screaming fans. Two years later, the same thing happened again, only this time, he was attending with his “Theory of Everything” costar, Felicity Jones to be honored for the Cinema Vanguard Award.

As Redmayne and Jones walked onto the stage under the starry ceiling of the Arlington theater, they were greeted by thousands of echoing claps, and immediately, the questions began and the clips were being rolled.

With Redmayne, there were questions asked about his transition from theater to film, which he described as terrifying. Jokingly, he stated that the only two reasons why he was cast in films with Angelina Jolie and Julianne Moore was simply because he had voluptuous lips like Jolie’s, and freckles covering his face like Moore. On working with Julianne Moore in the film “Savage Grace” he explained how much he learned by observing her behavior and how she carried herself throughout the film which was a similar way he learned from Michelle Williams in the film “My Week With Marilyn” that he starred in a few years back.

Felicity Jones worked on the film “The Invisibly Woman” which she said was somewhat of a drama school, it taught her so much that she did not know. The film was directed by Ralph Fiennes whom she always got a giggle from considering that “Voldemort” was her director for this exciting movie. Similar to Redmayne’s observation on his costars, Jones stated that during the filming of “The Tempest” she grew close to Helen Mirren and admired the way she carried herself with her discipline and her professionalism all throughout the set.

During their auditions for “Theory of Everything”, they filmed opposite of each other alone on an iPhone. They quickly bonded which then led for great chemistry all throughout the film. They stated that they built up trust which allowed them to push each other so that way they were provoked to do their best for the performance. Jones also mentioned how amazing the costume designers were with their creations and designs for the film saying “the costumes do most of the work for you…they were so beautifully designed.”

When introducing the award, the director of “The Theory of Everything”, Anthony McCarten described the pair as, “unfearly talented, cleanly good looking, fearlessly kind, and young…so young”.

I enjoyed this tribute because of how genuine Redmayne and Jones seemed. Watching their faces and expressions when the clips were being rolled was heartwarming as they seemed to be so happy with what they were doing and they were so proud of the amazing film that they had created together. They did a spectacular job in the film “The Theory of Everything” and it was a really exciting experience to get to see the actors along with a look into their past films and to learn about how they got started.