Written in the stars
A trailer for the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything has been released. Starring Eddie Redmayne (Les Misérables) as Hawking and Felicity Jones (Like Crazy) as his first wife Jane Wilde, the film focuses on the famous physicist’s life as a young student at Cambridge where he met Wilde, upon whose 2007 memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen the project is based.
The clip hints at a movie thick with both romance and tragedy, including Hawking’s diagnosis with motor neurone disease and the tracheotomy that resulted in his now-infamous robotic voice. Directed by James Marsh, who won an Academy Award in 2008 for his documentary Man on Wire, The Theory of Everything is scheduled to hit cinemas in November, priming it for an awards season run following a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.
ON SCREEN PORTRAYALS
In 2004 the BBC TV film Hawking, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, covered much the same period when the scientist was diagnosed with the debilitating condition. “I felt a huge onus of responsibility to get that part of his life right,” the Sherlock actor told the Telegraph. “It’s a terrifying prospect to have a completely functioning mind inside a body that locks you in, that keeps you stationary.” Cumberbatch was nominated for a Bafta for his portrayal, the first ever on screen.
Last year the notoriously private Hawking wrote and narrated his own documentary. Hawking, directed by Stephen Finnigan, is the only official biographical account of his life. “It has been a lot of fun and also very strange to see myself depicted in so many ways, but perhaps the strangest is to have part of my early life portrayed by an actor,” he states. Well-known interviewees such as Richard Branson, Buzz Aldrin and Jim Carrey lend a degree of glitz to the already iconic story. But those appearances made it even more glaring that none of Hawking’s three children by Wilde and Elaine Mason, his second spouse, participated in the biography.
CONTRADICTIONS
Perhaps it’s these paradoxes and contradictions that facilitated Hawking’s evolution from juvenile underachiever to one of the world’s most influential minds. Born in Oxford, England, on Jan. 8, 1942, the 300th anniversary of Galileo Galilei’s death, Hawking chose to study cosmology at university, even though it wasn’t yet a popular field at the time.
According to biographer Kristine Larsen, when Hawking was nine years old, his grades ranked among the worst in his class. He managed to bring those marks up to average, but not much better. He also experienced isolation during his first year at Oxford. While joining the rowing team as a coxswain — the person in charge of steering and navigation — drew him out of his shell, it did so at the expense of his studies.
BEYOND SCIENCE
Still, the 72-year-old Hawking has spent his whole adult life accomplishing the improbable. He has survived motor neurone disease for 50 years. A Brief History of Time, which has sold more than 10 million copies since its publication in 1988, made a global bestseller out of an extremely cerebral topic.
Hawking has also extended his influence beyond the realm of science. He may have overthrown black hole theory, and with it theories of the universe’s origin, in a single thesis, yet he, too, has a lighter side. He has made several guest appearances — as himself in cartoon form — on Futurama and The Simpsons. Not many theoretical physicists can claim to have been on Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Big Bang Theory or Late Night with Conan O’Brien, but he can. There’s even an unofficial Lego kit of him and his wheelchair, created in 2007.
With The Theory of Everything, Stephen Hawking continues to embed himself in works of popular culture. Only this time a stunning teaser trailer and the promise of an Oscar-worthy production are helping him curate his own legend.
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