Despite the fact that the role that launched Eddie Redmayne into the major leagues was in a musical, a lot of people don't realize that he has a set of pipes on him. Especially if you missed Les Miserables and only became familiar with him after his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, or were under the impression that he was dubbed in Les Mis. Nope. Not at all. No dubbing, no autotuning, just one straight take of him singing live on set. That is all his actual singing voice. Cue the jealousy, please. Unlike many musically inclined actors who find a way to sing in every movie that they do, Eddie Redmayne has really only ever sung on screen in Les Miserables. And when that came out, almost all of the critical attention was on Anne Hathaway and her raw performance as Fantine. So anyway, yada yada yada, Eddie Redmayne is a gifted actor (please ignore anything you may have seen in Jupiter Ascending, if you were unlucky enough to have seen it at all), but he also has a background in music. He sang as part of the Eton College Choir, being the posh lad that he is, but other than that was extraordinarily untrained for someone about to take on the role of Marius in Les Miz. Luckily, he managed to pull it off, bringing an emotional resonance to all of his songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no4B8YWhdFg
Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.
