In advance of the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Uproxx writer Mike Ryan did an interview with Eddie Redmayne (who plays the film’s “bumbling, Chaplin-esque” lead, Newt Scamander) about the film, which, in a separate piece, he claims will be going up on the site in full soon. But said separate piece is of interest, because it features a tangential quote from the interview that actually — and vividly — answers a question opened up in November of last year, when, on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Eddie Redmayne had discussed a Star Wars: The Force Awakens audition that’d gone quite poorly.
He hadn’t specified who he’d auditioned for, so Ryan decided to further inquire, noting that many had originally thought he’d auditioned for the role Domnhall Gleeson ended up playing — General Hux.
But it turns out he auditioned for Kylo Ren, which you probably already know was played in the film by Adam Driver. Redmayne describes having been given audition sides not from the actual script of The Force Awakens — as the project was far too secretive — but rather from Star Trek…or Pride and Prejudice. (Due to their similarities, he doesn’t seem to remember which of the two.)
As Redmayne tells it:
So they give you a scene from Pride and Prejudice, but then they tell you you’re auditioning for the baddie. If you’re me, you then put some ridiculous voice on. That was really a hilarious moment. Because it was Nina Gold [who was the casting director for The Danish Girl], who I have to thank a lot because she’s cast me in several films. And she was just sitting there and I was trying again and again with different versions of my kind of “koohh paaaah” [Darth Vader breathing sound] voice. And after like ten shots she’s like, “You got anything else?” I was like, “No.”