'Awful Production': Eddie Redmayne Gets Dragged for 'Disturbing' and 'Creepy' 2024 Tony Awards Performance — Watch
Eddie Redmayne dropped jaws when he performed "Willkommen" from Cabaret alongside the rest of the cast at the Sunday, June 16, 2024 Tony Awards.
In the Broadway musical, the actor plays the character of Emcee, who hosts performances at a hedonistic nightclub in Berlin as the Nazis begin to rise to power.
The movie star wore a cone hat, neck scarf and wide-legged shorts for the gig, but his facial expressions and movements on stage were even more unsettling, as some viewers found his performance more scary than entertaining.
While one person tweeted it was "an awful production of a great musical," another noted, "Eddie's making some odd choices there. No thanks."
"Nope. This was disturbing, unpleasant, and absolute assault," a third fan declared, while a fourth called the performance "so freaking creepy."
However, countless people raved over the song, noting that his character isn't supposed to be an Average Joe.
"That was absolutely amazing, Eddie Redmayne was masterful," one supporter wrote on social media, while another said, "I truly believe that people actually don’t understand what Cabaret is about… what Eddie Redmayne did with his Emcee is a piece of art, a remarkable and unforgettable work, scary, twisted, dark and yet clean and beautiful."
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This year marked the first time the dad-of-two, 42, attended the awards show since 2010, which is when he won Best Featured Actor in a Play for Red. Though he didn't win at this year's show for Cabaret, the role did earn him a trophy for Best Actor in a Musical at the Laurence Olivier Awards when he was part of the cast in the London rendition.
While the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them lead attended this year's event solo, he revealed last month that his and wife Hannah Bagshawe's kids have been singing songs from the play every day.
"My children love the theater. And they love the music to Cabaret, because the songs are so memorable and playful, they sort of sit in your head so quickly," Redmayne told People.
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"Sometimes the lyrics are kind of more questionable. I was saying the other day that my daughter is sort of going around singing that song, 'Don't Tell Mama.' And all the lyrics are kind of horrendously inappropriate," he confessed, though Redmayne noted the tots aren't old enough to understand what they're singing.
Added the star, "My wife, Hannah, is like, really? 'Don't Tell Mama' is one of the key songs? Come on. How about 'Don't Tell Papa?'"