Redmayne takes centre stage as Hawking for The Theory of Everything

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Eddie Redmayne just realized where he is, and now he'd like to escape. He's been jawing all day around town, here at the Toronto International Film Festival, but though his handlers moved him into this upper-floor hotel room maybe an hour ago, he only just looked up toward the slim floor-to-ceiling windows as the late afternoon sun sliced in from the west. "It's soooo depressing," he says with a touch of self-effacing self-pity, nodding toward the shimmering blue of early-September Lake Ontario. "When you realize what the view is …" He trails off.

Still, he knows it's necessary to put things in context: He's here, after all, because of a film in which he plays Stephen Hawking, the famously paralyzed theoretical physicist who, since being diagnosed with a degenerative motor neuron disease more than 50 years ago, has lost control over all of the muscles in his body except those in his left eyelid.

Redmayne, on the other hand, can hop to his feet, lean against the window, and watch the prop planes buzz into and out of the Island airport. "Do you mind if we stand? Let's do that!" he declares. The sun streams across his face, washing out his freckles and the fair stubble on his chin.

If Redmayne is not yet a household name, that may be because most of his previous film work has been in supporting roles – the mournful Marius who sings Empty Chairs at Empty Tables in the 2012 Les Misérables, where the glory went to Anne Hathaway and the other leads – or in little-seen films, such as his turn as the callow, starry-eyed production assistant who falls for Michelle Williams's Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn.

Theatre fans perhaps know him better: Redmayne won a best supporting actor Tony in 2010 for his Broadway debut, at age 28, as the aggressive assistant to abstract painter Mark Rothko in Red. That production also won him an Olivier for its earlier run at London's Donmar Warehouse.

With The Theory of Everything, Redmayne finally takes centre stage in a physically demanding part that seems destined for at least a nomination, if not an award, from the Oscar folks.

He'd rather not talk about that. "Oh, God!" he blurts, when the subject comes up."No, no. Um," he continues."When you get cast in a part, generally, it's wonderful, and then, subsequently, there's fear. This one, the sort of euphoria lasted under a second – followed by, like, overwhelming fear. Because the stakes felt so high."

In England, Hawking is a legendary figure. Besides that, explains Redmayne, he is still alive; so is first wife, Jane, upon whose memoir the film is largely based. Still, Hawking is not presented as a saint. The Theory of Everything spans decades, from his early student days and his courtship of Jane, through his devastating diagnosis at age 21, to their wedding, the births of their three children, and the slow dissolution of their marriage. He is charming, yes, but also prickly, self-centred and supremely confident.

Redmayne, now 32, was an undergrad at Cambridge, studying history of art, when he caught his first glimpse of Hawking. "I saw Stephen from a distance, and he was an icon. I gave up science when I was about 12, and I know nothing about physics, and I was just so embarrassed by how little I knew," he says. Since landing the role, though, he has met Hawking numerous times, the first just a few days before shooting began.

He moves away from the window , and lowers himself to on the floor, still bathed in the afternoon light. "But once I calmed down, he was not only generous but also really brilliant with the specifics that he gave me, that were helpful for the film."

Redmayne also met with patients at an ALS clinic in London, where he says he was astonished by their positive outlook. "It made me think: Would I have the balls to find the optimism? Would I go into the melancholia that Stephen went into – for a millisecond! – before pulling himself out?"

"It made me want to live my life further, and to make sure you exploit as much as you can out of every minute," he adds.