The Danish Girl might only be six years old but it feels like a film from an entirely different time. Eddie Redmayne, it seems, agrees. 

Tom Hooper’s biographical drama loosely followed the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Redmayne starred as the former (Lili Ilse Elvenes in the film), who became one of the first people to receive sex reassignment surgery in 1930.

Although he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for the role, there was some criticism aimed at Redmayne and the film in 2015 for a cis actor portraying a trans character.

Now, in a new interview with The Sunday Times, Redmayne has agreed with the backlash. “No, I wouldn’t take it on now,” he considered. “I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake.”

It’s a change from the actor’s attitude at the time of the film’s release, when he did his best to defend taking on the role. “One should be able to play any sort of part if one plays it with a sense of integrity and responsibility,” he said back then.

Redmayne did make a good point regarding how he and his co-star Alicia Vikander’s star power helped to get the film’s story told. “Many people don’t have a chair at the table,” he said. “There must be a levelling, otherwise we are going to carry on having these debates.”

Redmayne’s next film role probably won’t be as controversial: he’s returning to the Harry Potter world as Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, set for release in April 2022. It will be the third instalment in the Fantastic Beasts spinoff series, following 2018’s The Crimes of Grindelwald.

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