Eddie Redmayne, known for Les Miserables and The Theory of Everything, acknowledged his role as Lili Elbe for The Danish Girl as an eye opener toward the transgender community.
According to Redmayne, there is very little change made for the people belonging to that walk of life, and that we all need to be educated about the transgender issues as soon as possible. Considering his experience on this movie as "one gigantic education", Redmayne feels a strong sense of urgency to spread the word, for he has sworn to have felt such overwhelming generosity upon meeting the people from this community. To him, it is still shocking that the trans issues haven't improved much.
Redmayne accumulates a collage of comments from critics, just like how Jared Leto received a backlashing for his role in The Dallas Buyers Club despite his endless efforts of understanding HIV. Director Tom Hooper, the same brilliant mind behind Les Miserables, revealed that one of the reasons why Redmayne aced the role of Elbe, an artist to have undergone one of the first sex-change operations in the Twenties, is because of his certain gender fluidity. A lot of people have said that transgender roles should be given to trans actors who know what the real struggle is, but this didn't stop Redmayne from exploring his capabilities throughout the movie.
Paris Lees, trans activist who claims to be politically against cis actors playing trans roles, told Out magazine that only Eddie can do justice to this movie. Lees was also one of the people who have helped Redmayne with his research in preparation for this role.
The Danish Girl, based on a novel written by David Ebershoff, is a remarkable story about artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, whose marriage and as well as work unfold around Lili's revolutionary experience as a transgender pioneer.
