The romance between Stephen Hawking and his first wife Jane is one of the lesser known chapters in the story of the life of the brilliant physicist. Director James Marsh pulled back the curtains on this 25-year love story that paralleled Hawking’s physical decline in “The Theory of Everything.”
Marsh was joined by the film’s stars, Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as Jane, for an episode of “Drinking With the Stars” in TheWrap’s TIFF studio, presented by SodaStream.
See photos: The Scene at TheWrap’s Toronto Film Fest Video Lounge
“It’s taken from a very interesting perspective, which is the perspective of his first wife, Jane Hawking, who met Stephen when he was able-bodied,” Marsh said. “The film tracks their relationship across 25 years, so that was a very interesting and intimate perspective on Stephen’s life. We know him as a scientist and we have an icon of him as a brilliant mind trapped somewhat in a wheelchair, but this perspective was fresh and interesting, and I think emotionally very complicated, too.”
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Redmayne admitted that when it came time for him to deal with the physicality of Hawking’s progressive motor neurone disease, he was actually more comfortable with portraying that side of the physicist than he was trying to comprehend the science he was speaking. As for Jones, she was inspired by her meeting with the real Jane to try and stay true to the elegant woman she is.
See the TheWrap’s complete “Drinking With the Stars” interview, presented by Sodastream, in the video above.
