Here's The First Picture Of Eddie Redmayne As Transgender Painter Einar Wegener

The Oscar winner is playing Lili Elbe, the first person to successfully undergo gender reassignment surgery, in his next movie, The Danish Girl.

Here is the first picture that's been released of Eddie Redmayne in character as transgender pioneer Einar Wegener in his next movie The Danish Girl.

Universal Pictures

It will mark the actor's first role since his stellar performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar last week.

Materialscientist / en.wikipedia.org / Creative Commons

Redmayne plays artist Lili Elbe in the Tom Hooper production. Elbe was born in Denmark in 1882 as a man named Einar Wegener, before he married fellow artist Gerta Gottlieb.

According to the Telegraph, he first dressed in women's clothing, as seen above, when his wife needed a model.

Eight years later, after happily living as a woman for several years, Wegener underwent one of the first gender reassignment surgery operations.

The Independent claims Nicole Kidman had previously signed up to take on the role, before dropping out and leaving way for Redmayne.

There's extraordinary bravery and brilliant people that I've met, so I'm hoping it will be an interesting experience...

There is an incredibly valid discussion for why a trans actress isn't playing the part, because there are so many brilliant trans actresses, and I'm sure there are many who could play this part sensationally.

But one of the complications is that nowadays you have hormones, and many trans women have taken hormones. But to start this part playing male you'd have to come off the hormones, so that has been a discussion as well. Because back in that period there weren't hormones.

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