Eddie Redmayne's Kids Are Terrified of His Cabaret Character

-Our first guest tonight is an Academy Award and Tony-winning actor you know from movies like "The Theory of Everything," "The Danish Girl," and the "Fantastic Beasts" franchise. He is currently Tony nominated for his work in "Cabaret" at the Kit Kat Club, which is playing at the August Wilson Theater on Broadway. Please welcome back to the show, Eddie Redmayne, everybody! [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -How are you? -I'm well. -Congratulations on the show. Congratulations. Nine Tony nominations for "Cabaret." -[ Applause ] -Thank you. -I mean, obviously, it's very special to receive your own nomination, but it may make it extra nice that so many people in the production were honored. -It's been wonderful. This has been a project that I've been sort of working on for, I think, eight years now, and it's one of my favorite musicals, and getting to do it here on Broadway with this extraordinary cast and crew has been it's been one of the great experiences in my life. -This was a musical you loved as a kid. This is not the most kid-friendly music. -That is true. -How old were you when you first were turned on to "Cabaret"? -I mean, I was about 14 or 15. -Okay. So that's -- -Yeah. -Okay. That's about the age. Yeah. -Totally. -Right. 'Cause your kids are not old enough for "Cabaret." -I mean, in theory, Seth, they're not. But the thing about "Cabaret" is, John Kander wrote this music that is so catchy, and so my kids have been singing it since I've been working on it for the past six years, which is horrendously inappropriate. But they, uh -- they came, because they're desperate to know what I do. We're doing "Cabaret," and we've moved to New York for it. -And when you work in film, it is boring to go to a film set. And it is an exciting experience for kids to go to a Broadway show. -Exactly that. They were sort of too young when I was doing "Fantastic Beasts," which would be kind of kid-friendly. They loved the idea of me being a wizard. But they came to work to see the opening of "Cabaret", to see "Willkommen," and they just couldn't get their head around the fact that I was dressed in a party hat, basically at a party, at a kid's party. They were like, "This is work?" They're sort of baffled, confused. -Well, I should note, I mean, usually, if you're a kid and you walk in and see your dad dressed like this -- That's a thing you're not supposed to see. -It's funny you should say that, because I only get a little -- I'm basically on stage for most of the show, and I get, like, a 5-minute break at the end of the first act in which I'm dressed in this. And that's normally when I FaceTime my wife and my kid, and my daughter has said, "Daddy, I can't see you like that. I didn't sleep last night." I sort of get it. -It's very fair. Again, this is such a wonderful show. And there's this added element with this production, which is, they have turned the entire theater into the Kit Kat Club. The lobby is this immersive experience. You get to see "Cabaret" before the show even starts. Everyone in the audience can have a shot of schnapps on their way into the theater. -True. Let's get them drunk. -Yeah. -That'll do it. -And then people have drinks during the show, and I heard tell that maybe you you'll stop by and maybe take a drink from an audience member. -This is true, but I feel like we should do one of your daytime drinking at a matinee. -Yeah. -Which is basically -- [ Applause ] Yes, so you know what? I've seen "Cabaret" so many times. As I said, it's my favorite musical, and I've seen it done brilliantly. One of the things we wanted to do was make this thing that when you step off 52nd Street into this kind of cavernous, sort of labyrinthine tunnels, past bars and musicians, you kind of leave your troubles outside. But it means that we have, you know, the audience is the other character in the piece, and we have some pretty amazing audience members, including the other -- And I get to kind of snake in and around the audience, and generally everyone has been so avuncular and wonderful, but occasionally you get a special moment. Like the other evening, when I was in sort of around some audience member and she turned to me and, mid-show, asked me for a selfie. -Yeah. And in my best sort of German accent, I was like, "You know what? This is probably not the moment, but perhaps you can come to the stage door afterwards and then we can." -That's one where you're like, "We gotta stop giving them schnapps. This is on us." If we're giving them schnapps, they're gonna ask you. You talked about how avuncular the audience can be. This is a show, you did on the West End first. -That's right. -So you have gotten to see the differences between a British audience and a US audience with the same material. -Yeah. -How do you find the American audiences with it? -Well, without playing into kind of national stereotypes, the Brits are definitely more buttoned up. One of the things I kind of love about American audiences is this like, when you come on stage, you get a round of applause for doing nothing. Which means, for us, like I said, it's a win from the start of the evening. -Literally, you get attendance applause. -Attendance applause. And some people say that can sort of wreck the rhythm of the evening. I'm all for it. As much applause as possible. -If you can stay in character when someone's asking for a selfie, you're good. -I have a lot more to ask you. We'll be right back with Eddie after this.