'The Danish Girl': Working Title's Movie about the World's First Transgender Woman Starring Eddie Redmayne Gets US Release Date
Focus Features and Working Title will be releasing Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl, starring newly crowned Oscar winner for best actor Eddie Redmayne, beginning November 27, on Thanksgiving weekend. It will be released domestically by Focus Features and overseas by Universal Pictures International.
The Danish Girl has been adapted for the big-screen by Academy Award winning director Hooper from the 2001 novel of the same name by David Ebershoff. Set in Copenhagen during the early 1920s, the novel and the film follow the true story of artists Einar and Gerda Wegener.
The couple's story begins with Gerda asking her husband Einar to stand in for a female model. The popularity of the portraits leads to Gerda painting her husband in more and more pictures as a woman. Eventually, Einer develops an affinity with his physical appearance as a female, until later on he actually begins living as woman he named Lili Elbe. Ultimately, he decides to really become Lili Elbe through the world's first ever male to female sex reassignment surgical procedure. As for Gerda, she supports her husband's decision. However, their marriage becomes strained when she realizes that Lili is no longer the person she married.
Redmayne, 33, who managed to completely turn himself into Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything will be seen next playing the leading role of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl. The Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, 26, known to US audiences for her roles in the Seventh Son, Son of a Gun, Anna Karenina, and Ex Machina, will be seen as Gerda Wegener. The film's cast also includes Matthias Schoenaerts, Ben Whishaw, and Amber Heard.
Focus Features' CEO Peter Schlessel in a press statement said: "In the tradition of Focus' history of epic and moving love stories, The Danish Girl promises to be unforgettable. Tom Hooper is an extraordinary storyteller who always elicits beautiful performances from his actors. We are so pleased to be working with Eddie Redmayne again after our shared success with Working Title on The Theory of Everything.