Eddie Redmayne Wins Oscar For Best Actor

In an upset that dashed hopes for Michael Keaton’s comeback to reach its ultimate conclusion, Eddie Redmayne of The Theory Of Everything took home the award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking. He beat out Keaton, Steve Carell, Bradley Cooper and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Visibly overcome during his acceptance speech, Redmayne barely contained himself.

“I don’t think I’m capable of articulating how I feel. I am a lucky, lucky man,” he said. He dedicated the Oscar “to all of those people around the world battling ALS,” and added that the award also belongs “to one exceptional family,” promising Stephen Hawking, his former wife and their children that “I will be its custodian. I promise I will honor it, answer its beck and call, polish it, and wait on it hand and foot.”

The Theory of Everything, based on the memoir Traveling to Infinity: My life with Stephen Hawking by Jane Wilde Hawking, follows the life of the physicist as he succumbed to Motor Neuron Disease just as his career in the sciences took off, and his relationship with his wife during the period. The film was also nominated in the Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, and Best Original Score categories.

Backstage, a clearly excited Eddie Redmayne spoke fast, real fast, backstage. He also toyed a bit with his Oscar statuette. At one point he teasingly cradled it like a baby. At another point — perhaps unwittingly — he scratched his head with it.

Redmayne said that accepting the award onstage was made even more exciting because of presenter Cate Blanchett, whom he had worked with on other films. But it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as it had been the last time he was at Oscar: Redmayne wasn’t nominated, but had to sing in a selection from Les Miserables “in front of 3 million people.”

What’s up for the next 10 years?

“I wish I could say there was a plan,” Redmayne said. “To be totally honest, I’ve never really had much choice. I’ve had to fight for jobs. Retaining employment would make me very happy.”