Quotes from Eddie Redmayne

The problem with motor neurone disease is they don't know when it starts. People go into hospital having fallen but get wrapped up and sent away, unless they're seen by an incredibly astute doctor. It is only when several things begin to go wrong that it'll be diagnosed.

In England, we have this saying about Marmite: people either love it or hate it. That's like a lot of the movie work I've done. People either find it repulsive or find it really interesting and get engaged in it.

Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that character that he's imagined and millions of readers have pictured.

I think all actors have a similar deal. You want some people who understand. Although it looks great - and is great - there are also shoddy moments when you feel really rotten, and when it's going well, you're not allowed to complain.

Our dream as actors is to tell interesting stories about interesting people.

When I was living in New York, I had this slightly wannabe bohemian existence and took up painting, at which I'm appalling. I also bought several guitars.

It can be a miserable profession, acting, because you always want what you can't have.

If you are playing someone living, it is a different type of judgment. However much work you do, it is not a documentary. There will be things you can't get right, and ultimately, you have to take a leap because - you weren't there.

If your dream is to tell stories, interesting stories, play interesting people, that's the bottom line. The people that I play have to be extraordinary.

Most actors hate watching their own films because all you can see is the glaring mistakes, your own tricks and ticks.

They're such hierarchical things, film sets, they're sort of mini societies. Often they're incredibly political places.

I do get stopped a bit now and then, but I can go to the supermarket and on the Tube without being noticed. It's usually me that gets starstruck, especially by TV stars.

I've been a closet lover of faux-reality TV since 'The Hills'. It's bad.

What an extraordinary thing it can be, love, how it will not defined by gender, by sexuality, by race, by religion, by anything. It's something else. It's something other.

If gender is on a spectrum, where one finds oneself is completely unique.

As someone who gets nervous in silences, I spill words rather than really think.

A movie star is someone who has to open a film to gazillions of dollars. I'm just trying to pay my mortgage.

I have this horrific thing where I'm really bad with names and faces. I have an appalling memory. Someone will come up to me in the street and go, 'Eddie!', and I'll try and give myself time by going into overdrive, 'Hey, hi! Nice to see you!' and start a whole conversation because I can't distinguish between who I know and who I don't.

I had never been to a fashion show before going to the Burberry show last month. It was an extraordinary spectacle. I was incredibly green and had no idea what an undertaking it is. I also have a new respect for models because they are so close to the front row and must be so self-conscious.

If you're an English actor and turn up in America, they don't have an opinion about where you sit. They have no idea what auditions to send you to, so they send you to everything.

That's a lovely starting point for me as an actor: the question of what will we - or can we - do with this lot of years with which we're blessed? More than my other films, 'The Danish Girl' is about the gigantic risks involved in being true to one's self.

My first film, 'Like Minds,' was with Toni Colette, who was extraordinary. I mean it was basically a mini-masterclass for acting on film at a time when all you could probably see were my eyebrows bouncing up and down on screen.

The fear of messing up is what makes you work harder!

A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.