Q&A: 'The Theory of Everything'

On November 11, the KCET Cinema Series screened "The Theory of Everything," a fascinating biopic and love story of celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking and his first wife Jane.

The film is based on Jane's memoirs of their marriage and has already received critical acclaim and Oscar buzz. Felicity Jones, who gives a spectacular on-screen performance as Jane Hawking, and film producer Lisa Bruce joined Series' host Pete Hammond for a lively post screening Q&A. Jones discussed the process of developing her character for Jane and shared insights into her and co-star Eddie Redmayne's unforgettable first meeting with Mr. Hawking.

To listen to the enlightening conversation between Pete, Felicity, and Lisa, click here!

Audio Q&A Transcript:

Pete Hammond: Thank you so much for coming out here to Sherman Oaks, all the way from England, right? (Laughs)

Felicity Jones: Yes, all the way, just for them.

PH: Phenomenal performance, Felicity.

FJ: Thank you. Thank you very much for your kind reception.

PH: I know this is really told through Jane Hawking. It's based on her book, such a key part. When you got this opportunity to play this role, how did you approach it? Did you meet Jane Hawking? What was the process that you went through?

FJ: When I was sent the script from my agents and I started reading it, what I was struck by was that it wasn't a straightforward biopic in any way. It was actually an interrogation of a marriage and the survival of a marriage between two extraordinary people. So I just started exploring Jane, you know? It was a full-on attack, really, in understanding who she was.

I read her book and I went to meet carers and patients - people who were currently in the situation that you see Jane and Stephen in in the film, and then eventually, I met Jane quite later on in the process. It was only a week before we started shooting that Eddie and both went to meet Stephen as well. We were both quite nervous that what if we've done all this preparation for months and it's completely in the wrong direction? What if we meet them and it's not what we expect? But actually, in meeting both Jane and Stephen, they're such wonderful characters; they have this wit and their strong personalities command a room.

With Jane, I sat and I had a cup of tea with her and chatted about her relationship with Stephen and with Jonathan. There was just something - there was a way she moved that I thought was fascinating. She has this very balletic movement, and so I wanted to put that into the film and capture her essence, really. And her voice is really particular, so I worked with a dialect coach back in London. She has this quite high-pitched, dainty voice, which is a little bit misleading because actually, she's a tiger inside.

PH: It's really amazing. It's great to have her book, too, as a source, for you as an actor, to really go through that. Even stuff that's not in the script, to pick up things that aren't written there in Anthony McCarten's fantastic screenplay.

FJ: Well, absolutely. And I would read it just in my trailer before going on to set and it gave me everything that was going on. Jane wrote her book in very intimate detail, so to have that to keep referring back to was an amazing resource.

PH: Since you met Stephen Hawking too, was he a little nervous about how this movie was going to portray his life, since it is from the point of view of Jane and her book? Was he at all trepidatious about this project?

FJ: He's phenomenal. I mean, he's coped with so much that I think having a film made about him was kind of easy for him. He actually - it took Jane eight years before she would agree for the rights for her book to be turned into a film.

Something that was very important was that Stephen was completely on board and that he felt comfortable with the director and with the people involved. By the time Eddie and I were involved, Stephen was very much open and willing to the film and agreed to meet us, and we just made complete fools of ourselves. We were really nervous and spoke far too much when we should've just shut up, but we were overcompensating. The main thing he was keen was that Stephen loses his voice; his vocal muscles started to fail, and he was keen that Eddie showed the truth of that. That was the one thing that he was keen that happened in the film. Actually, after watching the film, he gave us his voice box to use.

PH: That's fascinating! So that is actually Stephen Hawking's voice we're hearing at the end there?

FJ: It is, yes.

Lisa Bruce: It's odd to say but his electronic voice is quite different than if you simulate it, so when we were cutting the film, we laid in a simulation of that. You'd think that it would be exactly so close to it, but his voice is sort-of patented with him; it's like it's basically his - the sound of his electronic voice is different than any other thing that you'd have on a phone answering machine or anything. So when we actually cut it in after he gave it to us, we had to change the picture a little bit, just a few frames here and there, because the rhythm is quite specific. It has a different quality than if you just lay it in electronically.

PH: How difficult was it to get this movie made and financed? When I first heard that they were doing a Stephen Hawking movie, I mean, I sort-of yawned because I flunked out of math and I don't understand any of it.

(laughter)

But this is so not that; this is a true love story and it's so unexpected and you learn so much that you didn't expect to learn. Is that how you sold it?

LB: I think what's so fun about this script and Anthony McCarten who wrote it will be first of all, because it's based on Jane's memoir, obviously it comes a little bit more from her perspective; but something that we really were tweaking it towards is their love relationship because it's so inspirational. She marries a man who is diagnosed and given two years to live and she jumps off this emotional cliff with this man, not having any idea what that future would bring. Then they go on to have three kids and stay together for, you know, 30 years. So I think what Anthony really realized is the public image that we all know of Stephen Hawking is about the science and is about his accomplishments and who he is as this public figure; but what people never knew was the whole behind the scenes and the domestic life that allowed him in a way to actually walk this path because as he becomes so debilitated, I think we all sort of came to understand, intrinsically, that he wouldn't have been able to have the life that he had or the fame that he had or accomplishments that he had without this support of this family. And it's just full-fledged family life, and Jane's support, which is really profound, I think it's part of the strength that you play and that you feel in that role. I always say this as a woman in this industry, you read a lot of scripts and it's very rare that you find that the female characters are as complex and messy and as interesting and well written as the male characters and Anthony really accomplished that in this, so it was inspirational to bring it.

PH: Now Felicity, like so many movies, this was shot out of sequence. I know Eddie had cards all over the set and things to tell him where he is in the progression of the disease and things - and you too, I guess, in trying to figure out where you are in that relationship in any given time; it's very difficult to shoot like that.

FJ: Yeah, absolutely. The thing that was so useful in this film - because we were playing these characters over 25 years and there are so many changes, emotionally and physically - obviously very different demands for Eddie and I - but what was important was that we had this rehearsal time. We both worked in the theater actually, so we took a lot of those techniques that we've learnt when we've been doing plays, which is you do as much you can before you even get to set, so that you get that arc of that character so that you have time to experiment.

With Jane and Stephen, when they're in their twenties and there's that first meeting, there's that first love; we'd rehearse those scenes over and over again in the rehearsal room in London. Then you sort of develop that muscle to then be able to jump to be playing them twenty years later on the same day and I think what really helped was really having that rehearsal time.

LB: Because you had time, right? You two would spend time saying that this is where I would be at this point in my life and he would do the same; and so you could do that off-camera to find it.

FJ: Yeah, it's also just, I mean you do just bring a lot of your instinct to it as well and having to get to know these characters in an in-depth way, you have to trust your instincts at the same time. But also we had amazing hair and makeup people, amazing costumes, so that we could use prosthetics; and there's this substance called "stipple" that you put on your skin that creates a certain texture to age your skin. So we used all the tools and all the skills that we had around us.

PH: And even the wheelchairs changed over the course of time too, right, Lisa? The production designer, actually part of his deal was to build these different wheelchairs.

LB: We actually used a slightly larger wheelchair as Eddie, or Stephen, is aging so that he would look smaller. Another thing they did is if you make someone's ears larger, their skull looks smaller, so they also did that as he was aging. But most of that aging and performance is honestly Eddie and Felicity; there were not a lot of prosthetics in the movie. In the very end when he is doing the lecture and gets up out of the chair, that's probably the most prosthetic - or the only - really one. But we did do some things with wardrobe for him because obviously we didn't have the situation with "Raging Bull" where we could take a big hiatus so he could lose a lot of weight, so he'd lost the weight prior, so then later when he's supposed to look like he's gotten quite smaller, we put things in the wardrobe so that the wardrobe sort of hung around him so he would look smaller.

PH: What was it like when you finally showed the finished film to Stephen Hawking, which is just such a piece of work probably just to get him into the theater, right? Because he has several people that are with him at all times.

LB: So he came with like, four carers, which he always has; he has around-the-clock care. And then you had the people that Eddie and Felicity met; Stephen has the most extreme level of it because he is famous and he does have support and money, and he's at quite a far stage in the disease now. And yet, he's so alive! I mean, it's just this weird experience we all say about this. He's incredibly present; and he has a twinkle in his eye, I swear. He can't move at all, except that he still can smile, so when you make him laugh, or there's a moment, he just gets this Cheshire cat smile; it's just really profound.

It did take him a while to get him into the theater and it was just like seven or eight of us in there and his carers. The movie finished and the lights came up, and you can't have a more surreal experience than watching someone's life story as the way we've done it with the person that lived that life, and he was crying; the nurse was dabbing his eyes and that was just incredibly - just kind of the highlight, I think, for many of us. It was just a really meaningful, poignant moment.

Then he went on to say a few things about the film. He said at one point later after we've been chatting about it - you know, it takes him like 10 minutes to write things - he said, you know, later he wanted to go out to a club. We said, "Oh, we'll have a glass of champagne or tea" and he had asked, "Let's go out to a club." It's like, ok! So we did; took him out to a club and he was sitting there, been there for a while, and he typed in, and you heard his voice say, "You nicked my speech from the Special Olympics." Because he wanted us to know that "I know that the speech I give when I get up out of the chair," that was the speech he actually gave when he spoke at the Special Olympics, which we did "nick" (laughs) because it was such a great speech. But it was just so funny; he's so clever and witty, you know? He really wants to tell you, "I know exactly what you did and why you did it."

FJ: Someone asked Stephen, "what is the greatest mystery in the world?" And there was a pause; and Stephen just wrote on his computer: women.

(laughter)

He has this incredibly mischievous nature, which is so much a part of his strength and survival, you know, that humor. And with Jane and Stephen, there's no self-pity; there was not any self-pity from the very beginning. It was always just problem solving. How do we keep going; keep this love going between us?

PH: That survival, that you mentioned, is so amazing to me. As it said at the end of the movie, 72 years old, and he's still going. He has to be the longest-living person with ALS for the longest period of time. He got this in his early twenties, right?

FJ: Yes, it's a very rare situation, and it doesn't happen often. As the film says, often, it's two years, but Stephen is an anomaly in that sense.