-Our first guest tonight is an Academy Award
and Tony-winning actor you know from movies like
"The Theory of Everything," "The Danish Girl," and the
"Fantastic Beasts" franchise. He is currently Tony nominated
for his work in "Cabaret" at the Kit Kat Club, which is playing at the August
Wilson Theater on Broadway. Please welcome back to the show,
Eddie Redmayne, everybody! [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -How are you?
-I'm well. -Congratulations on the show. Congratulations. Nine Tony nominations
for "Cabaret." -[ Applause ]
-Thank you. -I mean, obviously,
it's very special to receive your own nomination, but it may make it extra nice that so many people
in the production were honored. -It's been wonderful. This has been a project that I've been sort of working
on for, I think, eight years now, and it's one
of my favorite musicals, and getting to do it here
on Broadway with this extraordinary
cast and crew has been it's been one of the
great experiences in my life. -This was a musical
you loved as a kid. This is not the most
kid-friendly music. -That is true.
-How old were you when you first were
turned on to "Cabaret"? -I mean,
I was about 14 or 15. -Okay. So that's -- -Yeah.
-Okay. That's about the age. Yeah.
-Totally. -Right. 'Cause your kids are
not old enough for "Cabaret." -I mean, in theory, Seth,
they're not. But the thing
about "Cabaret" is, John Kander wrote this music
that is so catchy, and so my kids have
been singing it since I've been working on it
for the past six years, which is
horrendously inappropriate. But they, uh -- they came, because they're desperate
to know what I do. We're doing "Cabaret," and
we've moved to New York for it. -And when you work in film, it is boring
to go to a film set. And it is an exciting experience for kids to go to
a Broadway show. -Exactly that. They were sort of too young when I was doing
"Fantastic Beasts," which would be
kind of kid-friendly. They loved the idea
of me being a wizard. But they came to work to see
the opening of "Cabaret", to see "Willkommen," and they just couldn't get
their head around the fact that I was dressed in a party
hat, basically at a party, at a kid's party. They were like, "This is work?" They're sort of baffled,
confused. -Well, I should note, I mean, usually, if you're a kid
and you walk in and see your dad dressed
like this -- That's a thing
you're not supposed to see. -It's funny you should say that,
because I only get a little -- I'm basically on stage
for most of the show, and I get, like,
a 5-minute break at the end of the first act
in which I'm dressed in this. And that's normally when
I FaceTime my wife and my kid, and my daughter has said, "Daddy,
I can't see you like that. I didn't sleep last night." I sort of get it.
-It's very fair. Again,
this is such a wonderful show. And there's this added element
with this production, which is, they have turned
the entire theater into the Kit Kat Club. The lobby is
this immersive experience. You get to see "Cabaret"
before the show even starts. Everyone in the audience
can have a shot of schnapps on their way into the theater. -True. Let's get them drunk. -Yeah.
-That'll do it. -And then people have drinks
during the show, and I heard tell
that maybe you you'll stop by and maybe take a drink
from an audience member. -This is true, but I feel like we should do one of your
daytime drinking at a matinee. -Yeah.
-Which is basically -- [ Applause ] Yes, so you know what? I've seen
"Cabaret" so many times. As I said,
it's my favorite musical, and I've seen it done
brilliantly. One of the things we
wanted to do was make this thing that when you step
off 52nd Street into this kind of cavernous,
sort of labyrinthine tunnels, past bars and musicians, you kind of leave
your troubles outside. But it means that we have,
you know, the audience is the other
character in the piece, and we have some
pretty amazing audience members, including the other -- And I get to kind of snake
in and around the audience, and generally everyone has
been so avuncular and wonderful, but occasionally you get
a special moment. Like the other evening, when I was in sort of
around some audience member and she turned to me and,
mid-show, asked me for a selfie. -Yeah. And in my best sort of
German accent, I was like, "You know what?
This is probably not the moment, but perhaps you can come
to the stage door afterwards and then we can." -That's one where you're like, "We gotta stop
giving them schnapps. This is on us." If we're giving them schnapps,
they're gonna ask you. You talked about how
avuncular the audience can be. This is a show,
you did on the West End first. -That's right. -So you have gotten to see
the differences between a British audience
and a US audience with the same material. -Yeah. -How do you find
the American audiences with it? -Well, without playing into kind
of national stereotypes, the Brits are definitely
more buttoned up. One of the things I kind
of love about American audiences is this like,
when you come on stage, you get a round of applause
for doing nothing. Which means, for us,
like I said, it's a win from the
start of the evening. -Literally, you get
attendance applause. -Attendance applause. And some people say that can sort of wreck
the rhythm of the evening. I'm all for it.
As much applause as possible. -If you can stay in character when someone's asking for
a selfie, you're good. -I have a lot more to ask you. We'll be right back
with Eddie after this.