A Cowboy-Costumed Audition Tape Landed Eddie Redmayne His Role In Les Misérables

The story of Eddie Redmayne's rise to prominence as an actor pretty much begins with his casting in "Les Misérables" as smitten revolutionary Marius Pontmercy. In less than half a decade after the 2012 film was released, he had earned an Oscar for Best Actor for "The Theory of Everything" and a nomination for "The Danish Girl." Not to mention, he had played Newt Scamander in the "Harry Potter" Wizarding World spin-off film, "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them." All the same, Redmayne's journey to earning a role in the highly-anticipated stage musical adaptation — let alone as one of the central characters — was a decidedly rocky one.

A film version of the "Les Misérables" stage musical was a long time in the making. From the moment Tom Hooper signed on to direct the film, actors were coming out of the woodwork to get their foot in the door. The shortlists for a few of the roles reveal just how open-minded Hooper and company were in trying to create a fresh adaptation. Between Fantine and Éponine alone, there were no less than a dozen actors being sized up. When it came to tossing his own hat in the ring, Redmayne was not very picky and assumed his chances were already pretty slim. The reason? The costume he was wearing at the time of his iPhone-recorded audition was less than period-appropriate for 19th-century France.

One of the first obstacles Redmayne had to overcome was his own nervousness in auditioning for a role in "Les Misérables." Speaking to GQ in 2022, the actor said the fervor around the musical — which came from both fans and those clamoring for a part alike — made the prospect intimidating. "People that like 'Les Mis,' they don't like 'Les Mis,' they love that musical," he explained. You would think having previously worked with Hooper on the 2005 series "Elizabeth I" alongside Helen Mirren would've given him an edge.

But knowing that actually made Redmayne actually feel a little "embarrassed" — precisely because he thought he wasn't the "obvious fit" for Marius. "But my inner nine-year-old was desperate to be a part of this," the actor admitted. "So in my Winnebago in the middle of North Carolina, I filmed myself sort of dressed up as a cowboy, singing 'Empty Chairs and Empty Tables' and sent it off into the ether."

At the time he had been filming "Hick," a midwest-set odyssey in which he played the incredibly creepy Eddie Kreezer opposite Chloë Grace Moretz. With his oversized black cowboy hat and wrinkled western button-ups, it probably felt counterintuitive to Redmayne to film his audition in the costume. It's also doubly ironic given how vastly different the characters of Kreezer and Marius are — not to mention Redmayne's range.

In truth, the actor didn't expect much of a response back. As he told Collider in 2013, the whole point of even recording the impromptu audition was to really just announce his desire to take a crack at future singing roles. But then Redmayne was called in to give a live audition — which he no doubt assumed would be under far better circumstances than his virtual one. Sadly, that wasn't the case.

"My audition process, from then, I can only describe as like being something out of 'The X-Factor,'" the actor said. "It was a horrible 'American Idol' style nightmare that involved singing these songs that you've grown up loving, to the people who wrote them. Claude-Michel Schönberg was the equivalent of Simon Cowell." It's part of the reason Redmayne hadn't wanted to audition in the first place: Things were getting a little too nerve-racking and surreal. At one point he even dueted with Taylor Swift (who was auditioning for the role of Éponine), which was made all the more strange given their lopsided costuming and his decision to eat garlic dough balls beforehand.

"I thought we were gonna be singing off each other, you know, but they had us ... it was so weird because Taylor was dressed fully as Éponine and I was in my tracksuit," said Redmayne, speaking on "The Graham Norton Show" in 2022. "And they had us on the floor, singing sweet nothings into each other, and all I knew is I just had garlic bread." Suddenly his iPhone-filmed video singing in his cowboy get-up doesn't sound so odd anymore. If anything, that's probably why Redmayne was so prepared for the circus that was "Les Misérables" audition process.

Redmayne's audition for a spot in "Elizabeth I" might not have been as peculiar a process, but it did reveal the lengths the actor would go to nab a role. He told Hollywood.com in 2015 that, while leaving the audition for the miniseries, Hooper asked if he had ever ridden a horse, to which the actor gave an emphatic "Yes!" In reality, he hadn't been on one since he was four. 

Three weeks later, Redmayne found himself in Lithuania shooting a massive chase scene on horseback. As he was putting his spurs on, he wondered: "Do I admit I can't ride?" But by then he was in too deep and the embarrassment of such a clarification was hard to shake. When Hooper yelled "Action," Redmayne said he tried to lightly nudge the horse but that just sent it galloping out of control, leaving him "holding on for dear life." When Hooper finally caught up to him, the director minced no words in his ire, calling him a "f***ing liar."

Redmayne, who said he had been taught to always say yes at auditions, amended that wisdom to include the caveat that if you lie, "make sure in the couple of weeks before filming you have elementary training; whatever it is!" The actor wouldn't live it down until well into filming "Les Misérables," however, when Hooper announced one day a stunt for Marius that involved leaping onto a horse brandishing a large flag. "So that was my penance," the actor explained. "My payback for that lie to him years ago." 

If Hooper ever saw Redmayne's "Les Misérables" audition video, one imagines he probably wasn't surprised by the actor's ambitious decision to record it off-the-cuff in his "Hick" costume.