Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones sparks early Oscars talk for The Theory of Everything

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde in a still from 'The Theory of Everything' (Universal Pictures)

The British actors Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones could be destined for awards glory after their performances in the new Stephen Hawking biopic received rave reviews.

The Theory of Everything premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday night and received a standing ovation. Redmayne’s performance as the physicist with motor neurone disease was compared by some critics to Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, which won him an Oscar. It also emerged that Professor Hawking himself had seen the film, calling it “broadly true”, and that his nurse had wiped away a tear from his cheeks at the end.

The Theory of Everything opens in the UK on 1 January. It is based on ex-wife Jane Hawking’s book Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen.