It didn’t take much insistence for Eddie Redmayne, Oscar winner for ‘The Theory of Everything’, to star in the series ‘Jackal’, an adaptation of the literary classic by Frederick Forsyth, whose first three chapters will suddenly premiere on SkyShowtime tomorrow. “When I was 9 or 10, we always watched the same three movies, over and over again: ‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Pretty Woman,’ and ‘The Jackal.’ “My father loved it,” the actor tells ABC in an interview during his visit to Madrid. There was, precisely for that reason, some reservations, because it is always scary to return to something that is considered sacred and everything from childhood, or almost everything, is. «I felt a little uneasy when they proposed it to me, to be honest. I didn’t think they should touch something so iconic. When I read the script I saw that they had maintained the DNA, the analog quality of the original and, at the same time, achieved a certain freshness in the character. I just wanted to know what was happening, to keep turning the pages. And I accepted,” explains the actor, smiling but restless in the chair, moving his hands, touching his face.
Eddie Redmayne wanted, he confesses, that the Spanish Úrsula Corberó participated, who plays his wife in the SkyShowtime series, but she, already an international star after the resounding success of ‘La casa de papel’, was not so clear. “I had to pressure her to join,” admits the British performer, also nominated for the statuette for ‘The Danish Girl’. And she, capable of being the fearsome Tokyo or here going from Catalan to Andalusian, laughs and says, as if nothing had happened: «Yes, it’s true that she had to persecute me a little to get me to say yes. I didn’t really understand why they had called me to play this character. It was missing some layers and was poorly detailed. And I thought: ‘Why do they call me to be a housewife?’ I judged her a little, because I am used to playing more powerful women, but then it seemed like a very nice and very ‘heavy’ idea that, through the drama, she takes control of the situation and what seemed like a well-off woman without aspirations turns out she wasn’t so submissive. That and if Eddie, who always makes a sublime lesson out of all the characters, was in this it was because it was going to be something cool.
To Eddie Redmayne His color rises and he puts his hand in his neck to loosen the sweater, which tightens more when the compliments come out. “See, it’s already turning red,” Corberó mocks. Neither the Oscar nor the fame nor the fans, the London actor can play a woman, a murderer or Stephen Hawking, but he still hasn’t gotten used to the compliments. «I am very critical of myself. I will always think worse of myself than what the critics can say, it’s maddening. And it’s something that maybe I should work on, accepting that people… can also be kind,” the actor acknowledges. The Spanish actress is the opposite case. More extroverted, she speaks when he is silent and then, in harmony with everything else, they laugh together. «Over the years I have even learned to embrace the things I do wrong. For example, actors sometimes don’t want to see each other when they do a project because they suffer. I also suffer when I see myself, but I feel that it is a process that I need to do to improve because if not, it is very complicated. And in that process I see things that have gone well for me and that I know how to recognize and I say: ‘Holy shit, that’s what I wanted to do and I’ve achieved it.’ And then I see things that are shit and nothing happens. That helps us improve. But also tell you good things… I like to be told good things. Sometimes I also turn red,” she confesses, looking at her co-star. “I think it’s something cultural, that we British people are taught to feel ashamed,” says the Westminster-born actor.
None of them, however, have the shame to lie, something that abounds in the series almost more than the shots. And that’s saying a lot in ‘Jackal’, where there are no heroes or villains because, as in life, no one is completely good or completely bad, but if one thing is certain, it is that Redmayne’s character, no matter how much he disguises himself in the series, he is a hitman. Both are, in fact, experienced in the art of “omitting the truth.” Úrsula Corberó recorded herself in English to get a role in ‘Snatch’, an adaptation of Guy Ritchie’s film, but in reality at that time she had no idea of speaking the language. He had to learn, and now he is where he is.
A dangerous shoot
Eddie Redmayne went with the lie until the end to get to work with actress Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons in the miniseries ‘Elizabeth I’, by Tom Hooper. He didn’t know how to ride a horse but he said yes and… well, things happened during the filming. «It was very dangerous. It seems like a parody, but when someone asks you at an audition if you can do something, you say yes. That day they asked me if I knew how to ride a horse and what was I going to do, I said yes. They hired me for the role, but I never learned how to do it. In the end, the day of the scene arrived and it was the typical thing I forgot about. When I realized… it was very embarrassing to admit that I didn’t know how to do it, I have never felt a fear like that. And suddenly they say: ‘Action!’ I gave the horse a little bump with my feet and… the horse took off. “Many people were about to die,” recalls the interpreter, who now laughs at the episode. And he adds: «What we actors do is lie. Well, it’s not a lie…”
Úrsula Corberó immediately cuts him off: «Yes, of course, it’s just that we are omitting the truth. No, let’s be honest, it’s a big lie. We are actors, we lie for tests, to get roles, but in real life, no. “We don’t know how to lie at all well.”
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