AS THEY TAKE TO THE SKIES IN A
SUMPTUOUS NEW VICTORIAN DRAMA,
FELICITY JONES AND EDDIE REDMAYNE
DISCUSS THEIR FRIENDSHIP – AND
HOW IT HAS TURNED THEM INTO
ONE OF FILM’S FAVOURITE DOUBLE
ACTS – WITH GILES HATTERSLEY.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUIGI & IANGO.
STYLING BY KATE PHELANIf the award-winning film and theatre work ever dries
up, Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne should devote
their energies to writing the handbook on celebrity good
behaviour. In all my years of interviewing, I’m not sure
I’ve ever met two people better suited to it. They are almost
relentlessly delightful. So polite. So fun.
“So hot!” Redmayne gasps, standing by the monitors at
Vogue’s shoot, gazing in bewilderment at his smouldering,
overgrown-schoolboy features on the screen. “We do look
hot, don’t we?” says Jones, beside him in a fluffy white
bathrobe, looking genuinely shocked.
Oh, honestly, I think. “You are hot,” I remind them. “You
just look a bit hotter.” Jones squeezes my arm in appreciation.
“You are kind,” she says. “Quite right: hotter!”
In the grand tradition of famous British people not taking
themselves too seriously, Jones and Redmayne must surely
rank as our current champions. Both have scrupulous, old-
fashioned manners (she went to Oxford, he to Cambridge –
though neither of those guarantees much) that cause American
fans to faint on contact. Yet it is truly surprising to discover
how unfussed the pair are by the dog and pony show of success.
Since they conquered the multiplex playing Jane and Stephen
Hawking in The Theory of Everything four years ago, not only
have they become British acting royalty-in-waiting but, lest
we forget, actual movie stars, deep in the Hollywood hustle of
managers, Daily Mail attention, crystal-encrusted eveningwear
and front-row flashbulbs. And yet, nothing seems to stick.
“Do you remember,” recalls Redmayne, of their weeks of
awards campaigning for Theory, for which Jones was nominated
for, and Eddie won, an Oscar, “we would stay in this hotel in
Los Angeles, and come back from these mind-blowing events
and sit there and have some vodka tonics and try to...”
“Process it?” offers Jones, finishing his sentence.
“Process it,” nods Redmayne. And they pause a moment.
“I don’t think it’s processable really, is it?” he sighs. >FRIENDS INHIGHPLAC ESnothing
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