MovieChat Forums > Eddie Redmayne Discussion > Dialogue delivery and the blinking

Dialogue delivery and the blinking

posted 8 years ago by sadfilmophile
3 replies | jump to latest

I couldn't understand what he said in Fantastic Beasts quite a few times (and no its not because he has a British accent). This happened in The Danish Girl and Jupiter Ascending as well. What surprises me is that the filmmakers didn't get this fixed , as is usual with post-production ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording). I think his Oscar might be doing him a disservice if people around him don't ask him to fix blips in his performance. Case in point- Eddie's eyelids were fluttering like mad in FBawtft and it really looked quite gimmicky: someone should've told him to show awkward shyness in his acting and not just capturing the outer trappings of awkward shyness. His eyelids pretty much keep blinking like they're sending out a message in Morse code.

Now, I really do think that he has talent (loved him in MWWM) but I still think his performances are still very much about the look of a character: in the Danish Girl he pins his performance on certain sweeping motions of his hands. He's really good at capturing mannerisms but that's just a part of what it takes to do justice to a role. He doesn't move us with the emotions he's depicting. I think his Hawking was very impressive as an impression but not as a performance.

[–] ZFox00 8 years ago

Agreed.

It reminds me a bit of Johnny Depp, with a lot more training, to be honest. The physical choices for his characters are interesting but about a quarter into the performance, you have seen everything he will do. What he does in the first 30 minutes of The Danish Girl was quite enjoyable but once his relationship with his wife starts to fracture: it just felt lacking.

[–] Picnic10 8 years ago

The blinking thing he does is a deliberately self effacing trait that won't be very unusual to Eton. Upper class diffidence is charming. I've been hard on Eddie. It's a shame that more countries don't seem to go in for this. Perhaps the UK is the only country where its posh people often act more humble than anyone else?

[–] ZFox00 8 years ago

Perhaps. I like your answer as to the blinking, if that is indeed Redmayne's reasoning for it, per the character. Though, sometimes I feel he just try's too hard. He may get a lot of hate from the ones outside of the UK, mainly America, for his "proper" sounding accent and his dainty build.

There are far worse actors than Redmayne, this is for sure.