My Week With Marilyn star Eddie Redmayne goes back in time again to play the lead in a TV adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ bestselling epic Birdsong, about one man’s experience of love and war. In the summer of 1910, Stephen Wraysford is offered a job and lodgings by a French textile factory owner but falls for the industrialist’s much younger wife, played by Clémence Poésy (pictured below, left). Their story is interwoven with Stephen’s harrowing experiences on the Western Front six years later where he’s preparing his men for the Battle of the Somme, which leaves him broken and emotionally scarred. TV Choice caught up with Eddie, 30, on set in Hungary and in London after filming had finished…

What’s your view of Stephen Wraysford?
He’s so complicated and I like that. Much of that comes from his confused background of class and place, his parents died when he was young and he had to find his place in the world. Then he found Isabelle, and for an extraordinary moment he felt as if he’d arrived and he was in bliss. Then all that’s taken away, so there are complications which make him hopefully an interesting character to watch. I think Sebastian Faulks did an extraordinary psychological analysis of a damaged human being.

What was the atmosphere like on set?
It was a wonderfully weird mix of anarchic fun, boys in Budapest, but the director had chosen a brilliant group of actors who took the work incredibly seriously as well.

Did you know much about WWI?
Not much. What’s interesting in Britain is that because we have such an astounding history, when you are taught the subject at school there are so many jewels to pick from that ultimately a lot is lost. I didn’t know a huge amount about WWI, I know more about WWII. Our image is very wet, dark and muddy because of all the black and white footage we see when in reality the Somme was incredibly hot and dusty because it was summer. There was no where to hide and no shade at all. 

Did you do any research?
Joseph Mawle [who plays tunneller Jack Firebrace] and I were lucky enough to go down one of the mine shafts over in France, which has only just been rediscovered. We abseiled down then crawled into a tunnel and at one point they shone a torch on a white chalk wall and there was the most beautiful poem inscribed. Can you imagine finding the tunnel and this hand writing which hadn’t been seen or touched for nearly 100 years? 

Did you meet Sebastian Faulks while you were filming?
Yes, very briefly. At one point Stephen crawls out of a tunnel and is almost like a living skeleton and he can barely walk and he just breaks down and collapses. It’s one of those scenes where as an actor you think ‘I can totally imagine Daniel Day Lewis doing this really well!’ I’d filmed the tunnel scenes in a studio and then we did the rest of the scene on set in Hungary with smoke machines and baking heat. It was really stressful and then I heard the producer say, ‘Sebastian’s just arrived’. I tried not to focus on the fact that this author, who had created such an amazing piece, was probably judging me. But he was very kind, generous and sweet to me.

Mary Comerford