THIS PAGE: LEATHER
JACKET, £3,850. WOOL
SWEATER, £670. WOOL
TROUSERS, £740. ALL
CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE.
OPPOSITE: TRENCH
COAT, £2,300, GUCCI.
TIGHTS, AS BEFORE.
FOR STOCKISTS, ALL
PAGES, SEE VOGUE
INFORMATION.
HAIR: LUIGI MURENU.
MAKE-UP: GEORGI
SANDEV. NAILS: SOPHY
ROBSON. DIGITAL
ARTWORK: DTOUCH“I was slightly worried that I’d broken my back,” she says,
evenly, “and that the corset was holding my ribs together, and
when I took it off everything was going to sort of... collapse.”
But was she OK? “I was OK.” How much real ballooning
made it into the final cut? “It’s about two seconds,” she squeals
furiously, while Eddie reassures, “It’s actually quite a lot, Fliss.”
It’s lovely watching them chat. All those tired When Harry
Met Sally clichés about men and women never being able to
be friends – “because the sex part always gets in the way” –
simply fade away. On Vogue’s set, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane
Birkin’s breathy ode to the female orgasm, “Je T’aime... Moi
Non Plus”, had been blasting from the speakers as Felicity
perched on Eddie’s knee in a strappy cocktail dress, while he
wrapped her in his mac. “Getting a bit ’70s porn in here,”
Redmayne said, not loving it. Yet, in the pauses they sat tightly
together so as to stay on their marks, cheek to cheek, whispering
and laughing intimately, but with zero sexual overtone until
the camera started clicking again. It was effortlessly cool.
When did they first meet? Felicity thinks it was “2008-ish”,
at an audition for a Dominic Savage film that was never made.
Eddie reckons they met a year or two earlier, at a house party
thrown by their friend Polly Stenham, but Jones shushes him:
“I remember the parties. I don’t remember who was there.”
Redmayne laughs. “Well, we knew each other socially, but
not particularly well.” Then The Theory of Everything happened.
“And that was... everything.” How was your Oscar night?
“Well, I won’t forget Felicity and Hannah [Bagshawe,
Redmayne’s wife] in these amazing McQueen gowns...“This extraordinary thing happened when both of them
were incredibly corseted into quite formidable dresses, and- after about the second award – every single person got a
standing ovation.” The three of them started to panic as,
beamed around the world to a billion viewers, the women
couldn’t get up, so Eddie worked out a system where, with
an arm behind each, the three of them would hoist themselves
to their feet in chaotic unison. Needless to say, when he won,
pure joy made them shoot to their feet unaided.
Since that night, their home lives have had their share of
joy, too. In 2016, Redmayne and Bagshawe had a daughter,
Iris, followed by a son, Luke, in 2018. Last year, too, Jones
married the film director Charles Guard, and naturally
Eddie was there for the celebrations at Sudeley Castle in
Gloucestershire. The bride wore long-sleeved, high-necked
custom Erdem, while the starry crowd partied into the night.
In fact, it was widely reported that Tom Hanks, her co-star
in 2016’s Inferno, was in attendance. Surely Hanks is the
fantasy wedding guest? “No, he did not come!” she snorts.
“I bumped into him and said, ‘I’m so sorry everyone seems
to think that you came to my wedding.’ He said, ‘Oh, don’t
worry about it, but somebody came up to me recently and
asked, “Did you give her away?”’”
She cackles with laughter, as Redmayne leans over the table.
“It was an amazing wedding,” he tells me earnestly, and with
such feeling that it catches Jones off-guard. She beams across
the room at her friend. “Yeah,” she smiles. “It was lovely.” n
The Aeronauts is in cinemas on 6 November
22011-19-WellRedmayneJones.indd 220 09/09/2019 15:13