Eddie Redmayne turned in one of the subtler but ultimately shocking serial killer portrayals, starring with Jessica Chastain in the Tobias Lindholm-directed Netflix drama The Good Nurse. In the movie based on actual events, Redmayne’s Charlie Cullen goes from a non-descript night nurse who becomes a lifesaving friend to co-worker Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), until she realized her pal might be killing patients who should be recovering. He would ultimately confess to killing about 40 people, and drew 18 executive life sentences, while the hospital administrators who quietly dismissed him even though they had their suspicions were not punished for the cover-up.

In Redmayne, this is the kind of versatility you might expect from an actor who’s won the Oscar, Tony, Golden Globe, BAFTA and two Laurence Oliver awards and in turns such as Cabaret onstage, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. Here, Redmayne discusses the opinions he formed playing a serial killer who was not at all the cinematic Hannibal Lecter prototype, and which has put him squarely back in the awards conversation.

DEADLINE: We’ve seen many serial killer portrayals, but few as subtle as the one you turned in on The Good Nurse. What was your view of Charlie Cullen going into this when you played him?

EDDIE REDMAYNE: What Charlie did was monstrous and indefensible, but when you’re playing someone who’s done horrific things you have to try not to judge them in those terms. My view on him was massively colored by the real Amy Loughren, who I got to spend time with on Zoom before we started shooting. The thing that she really made a point of reaffirming was, this was two different human beings.

When she met her friend, he was this kind, gentle, compassionate, quite funny, self-deprecating man who saved her life. Later, she twice met a different human being, and something in his eyes made him an arrogant, unrecognizable human. Once was in the restaurant, in a diner, and then once was in the interrogation room. She believed it was a dissociative personality, and that was really interesting to me because that meant that it was about playing the truth of what that friendship was. More tricky was finding this other side, this furious, arrogant side to him. Both Amy and Charles Graeber, who wrote the book, and in Krysty’s script described this moment of one eye dislodging, as it were, going off in a different direction during conversation. That was very disconcerting.

But then, there was also this discussion of when he was in court and the judge was giving out a statement, and many of the families of the victims were there. Charlie started furiously repeating this mantra about the judge’s ineptitude, and he screamed it and screamed it and screamed it and screamed it in the court to the point he ended up being bound and gagged in court. That was an insight into this more violent side of him, which is sort of touched on.

That scene and the interrogation scene, Krysty had managed to whittle down some of the real dialogue from the documentation, and aligned it with this more violent outburst. As I discussed with Jessica and Krysty, so much of the script in the rehearsal period beforehand, we never touched on the diner scene or [the interrogation room] scene because we all believed that if we had done our work, right, if we had filled these characters with a truth, then these scenes would reveal themselves.
Continue reading  »

Eddie Redmayne attends the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 10, 2023 in Beverly Hills. You can go to the gallery to take a look to the photos!

Eddie Redmayne attends the special screening of “The Good Nurse” hosted by Dior at The Charlotte Street Hotel on December 13, 2022 in London. You can go to the gallery to enjoy the photos!

Hello, I am adding some interviews with Eddie Redmayne.

Eddie Redmayne: ‘From an actor’s point of view, this is one of those dream roles.’ In the Netflix thriller, the Oscar winner plays an infamous caregiver implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients. Gold Derby editor Denton Davidson hosts this webchat.

Eddie Redmayne talks about working with Jessica Chastain, writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and director Tobias Lindholm on The Good Nurse.

Cuban star Ana de Armas made waves with her controversial take on Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde,” an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about the late star. De Armas’ endlessly emotive performance makes an interesting contrast to London-born Eddie Redmayne, tightly controlled in “The Good Nurse,” as serial murderer Charles Cullen, whose crimes eventually raise the suspicions of the film’s title character, Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain). In conversation, de Armas and Redmayne rave about each other’s work — an especially meaningful compliment for de Armas, as Redmayne knows his Monroe: He starred opposite Michelle Williams in 2011’s “My Week With Marilyn.”

Ana De Armas: I’ve been a big admirer of yours for a long time. I remember going to the premiere of “The Danish Girl.”

Eddie Redmayne: Really?

De Armas: And the after-party. I was just blown away by your performance. So it’s pretty surreal to be here with you today.

Redmayne: I was astounded by your work in “Blonde.” It was one of those rare performances where you want to go and hold that person afterwards and check that they’re OK. Your range is insane, comparing “Blonde” to your other work.

De Armas: Look who’s talking.

Redmayne: Was this the first real person that you’ve played?

De Armas: This is the second, but a completely different approach. The first person I played was in this movie “Hands of Stone,” and I was playing Roberto Durán’s wife, who I was friends with. I spent Christmas with them in Panama. She was Panamanian, and Cubans are the same people, basically.
Continue reading  »