 It's called motor neuron disease. Life expectancy is two years. Why? I'm okay. So, this black hole at the beginning of time. Brilliant. Brilliant. How if your bad life may seem, while there is life, there is hope. Thank you. Eddie, it's so great to meet you. I'm a huge admirer of you and your work as an actor. And I have to just start off by saying this film was incredible. Your performance was amazing. And portraying Stephen Hawking is no simple task. So, what was your reaction when you found out that you got this role? Well, first, thank you. That was really generous. The first reaction when I got it, I chased the role pretty hard. When I read this script, I just couldn't believe that there was this story behind this man who is so famous and that I had no idea that there was this entire history behind him. And so I chased pretty hard for it. And then when I got it, you always get this little moment of ecstatic joy when you get apart. And then normally it takes a week or two before you sort of it kicks in, you actually have to do it and it feels a bit, suddenly you realize you've got to step up. And this time it was the shortest time ever. I think it lasted under a second leaving that sick feeling of actually knowing that you've got to go and do it. I mean, the display of emotion for any actor is paramount, but I feel like as Stephen sort of his physical capabilities declined, you really had to isolate your muscles in your face to really express your emotion. How did you even go about doing that and learning how to go about that? Well, I went about it by collecting as much documentary material of Stephen as I could. And I wish there was some wondrous, like, glamorous way I could explain it to you, but it was literally having that on an iPad and sitting in front of a mirror and trying to replicate muscles. But the interesting thing is, as some of his muscles stopped working, it's like muscles that we wouldn't normally use, a lot of the ones around the eye, you start becoming his forms of expression. And so what was interesting in the process was trying to learn to isolate muscles that you basically haven't used before. One of the lovely things about it being a film was, of course, film can get close and can see those things. And I mean, you actually had the opportunity to meet Stephen himself. And was there anything really unexpected that you kind of found out about him through that encounter? I mean, what was weird as I was driving to meet Stephen is I suddenly thought, God, despite having watched everything, I have no idea what to expect or how I will feel. And to be totally honest, I was when I met him because of all this pre-knowledge and because he is such an extraordinary man, he has such an extraordinary brain, I was paralyzed with sort of awe. But things that I gleaned from that meeting, I mean, he was very specific about some things, about talking about how his voice had been slurred before he had the tracheotomy and that was something that I took back to the producers and the director and made sure that we added into the film. But also, he's just so funny. He's just incredibly upbeat, incredibly perceptive, doesn't miss a beat. You literally, he's got... And so those were all qualities that I then took into the filming or tried to sort of emulate. Absolutely. While I was watching you in this film, I was amazed at just the physicality that you had to really embody, just the poses and positions that you had to hold for extended periods of time. What was it like sort of breathing in and out between takes when you were just in those positions and then had to come out and come back again? What was interesting actually, same breathing in and out, as the physical, as the... I suppose he declines, breath and how quickly you blink and how quickly your eyes move all became things that I was trying to monitor and control. So even though it looks like you're being very still, actually you're... I would end up sweating profusely while I was doing this. The answer was it was... I suppose it was at moments uncomfortable, but in the preparation I met maybe 30 or 40 people who suffer from ALS, multi-neuron disease and so the absolute reality that at the end of the day I could get out of the chair and many of them couldn't always grounds you and makes you basically appreciate how lucky you are. Right. Thank you so much for sitting down with me. It was a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you. And I hope you have some sort of tucks prepared because if anybody else liked this, if you liked it, then it's gonna be a great journey for you. Oh, thank you so much. But thank you so much. I'm Salma Dada reporting for Cal TV Entertainment. Be sure to check out the theory of everything when it airs in November.