Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne’s ‘Cabaret’ training includes weekly bouts of ‘torture’
Eddie Redmayne is doing all he can to keep in shape for his role as the Emcee in “Cabaret” — which includes weekly bouts of “torture.”
“It’s quite full-on,” he told The Post exclusively at the show’s opening Sunday.
“There is this amazing man named Greg, who is kind of a genius, body-work human being who punishes me once a week,” the actor, 42, explained. “My wife [Hannah Bagshawe] thinks it’s massage, but it’s actually a kind of borderline torture. But it’s keeping me upright!”
![“My wife [Hannah Bagshawe] thinks it’s massage but it’s actually a kind of borderline torture. But it’s keeping me upright!” Redmayne said of his training. Marc Brenner](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/emLYw81qT6mLNX1L_l1CAw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTYzOQ--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ny_post_articles_869/e64ed7ad892058f64027b466e09db842)
The Oscar winner confessed that he also gobbles down “every single sort of lozenge or tea or Chinese medicine.”
He added: “Or anything that anyone tells me is good for your singing voice.”
Redmayne has had plenty of experience playing the legendary role, originated by Joel Grey and then played by Alan Cumming.
He won an Olivier Award in 2022 for taking on the part in a West End revival, which has now transferred to Broadway.
The “Fantastic Beasts” star also played the role as a teen, and he joked that his mother has a video of his performance locked away.
“She’s holding me ransom to it,” he quipped.
“She cannot show anyone,” he went on, adding that taking the role to Broadway has always been “my dream as a kid, to do this, in this city.”
The Kander & Ebb musical, which is set against the rise of the Nazi party in 1930s Berlin, clearly has resonance in the current climate of antisemitism and fascism.
“What’s extraordinary about ‘Cabaret,’ it was written in the ’60s, 20 years after the end of the Second World War,” the Tony winner said. “It was relevant then, and now it couldn’t be more relevant.
“Yet what’s extraordinary about the piece is that it’s very specific to the moment in history that it happened, so you can read it in that way or watch these ripples across generations. Sadly it always seems relevant, and that is a testament to the fact that people perhaps are not learning from their mistakes.”
This production, which also stars “Glow” actress Gayle Rankin and Broadway vet Bebe Neuwirth, is not shy about portraying the decadence of the era.
Redmayne chooses to call it “hedonistic and celebratory.”
“It was an amazing moment,” he marveled. “There is a wonderful museum in New York, the Neue [Galerie] that I go to quite often, with all the Egon Schiele paintings and Klimt paintings. That’s a wonderful way to get seduced back into this world.”
