Tom Hooper, director of “The Danish Girl,” says Eddie Redmayne was under a ton of pressure to do justice to Lili Elbe.

“The more he found out about Lili, the more he felt that burden,” Hooper told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Yet despite all that anxiety and worry, when we came to shooting, when the camera was turning, he was able to be completely free of that.”

“The more I work with actors, the more I realise the ability to transcend one’s anxiety is utterly central to being a great actor,” Hooper added. “Anxiety affects your freedom to be in the moment and those actors who are not controlled by anxiety are free to be truly great.”

Redmayne, in an interview with Reuters, admitted he sometimes felt “scrutinized” on set.

“The first time I walked on set (as Lili) I felt scrutinized, I felt the gaze of other people and I felt nervous,” he said. “It was interesting because it was something that a lot of the (trans) women I’d met had spoken about.”

Redmayne is currently shooting “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling. The film, set 70 years before Harry Potter, sees Redmayne in the role of Newt Scamander, a “magizoologist who’s just completed a global journey to find and document magical creatures for a book he plans on writing,” producer David Heyman recently told Empire.

Redmayne, to prepare for the role, said he asked Rowling “800 questions.” “I met J.K. Rowling and what’s so amazing is that her imagination is so full and thorough,” he told ComingSoon.net, adding that “it’s so encyclopedic of her world.”

David Yates, director of the final four “Harry Potter” films, directs “Fantastic Beasts,” slated to hit theaters Nov. 18, 2016. [Source]