Taylor Swift said that she tried out for a role in the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables with one of her favorite actors, Eddie Redmayne and that the experience was a “nightmare.”
“Basically, I was up for two roles … I had the look of Cosette and the range, vocally, of Eponine, so it was established I was there for a good time but not for a long time — I wasn’t going to get the role,” Swift recalled during Friday’s episode of “The Graham Norton Show” where she was joined by Redmayne.
Swift, 32, explained that she was invited to London for a screen test with Redmayne, whom she deeply admires. “I thought ‘This isn’t an experience I am going to get again in my life,’ so I said yes.”
When she arrived for the audition, the crew was quick to break some bad news to her. “They’re like, ‘We’re actually going to paint your teeth brown for this.’ And I’m like, ‘So you’re going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne, right? That’s not something you do before? I get to meet people and then you do the brown teeth?'” To her disappointment, the makeup chair was her first stop, and the beauty team transformed her into Éponine, complete with circles under her eyes to make her appear as though she was “near death.” She continued, “I was like, ‘This has immediately become a nightmare for me.'”
Swift claimed she was wary of the actor when they first met, but Redmayne admitted that he felt the same way. “You walked in as a 19th-century street urchin, and I was not expecting that,” Redmayne recalled, adding that he was focused more on his breath during the screen test than Swift’s appearance.
“I thought we would just be singing off each other — I didn’t know we would be in each other’s arms,” he said. “My overriding memory of it is that I had had pizza and garlic dough balls beforehand, and all I could think about was my garlic breath while Taylor was dying in my arms and I was trying to show emotion.” The “Fantastic Beasts” actor said.
“You were weeping and I thought it was because of how I looked,” Swift joked, adding, “It’s nice to hear we were both struggling in that moment.”
In the end, Redmayne was chosen for the role of Marius, while Samantha Barks was chosen for the part of Eponine.
Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen were among the other well-known actors that starred in the film.
Miracle Edee 