By Andrew Grant
When Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne) first tries out his now-iconic computerized voice, his wife Jane (Felicity Jones) is aghast: “It’s American!” she says. That line draws a laugh, but it also highlights a pivotal draw of The Theory of Everything: That American-accented robotic voice is one of the few things most people know about this brilliant, complicated — and British — man.
“Very little is understood about [Hawking] in America or Canada,” says Anthony McCarten, the film’s screenwriter. “Nine of 10 people think he’s American. Most people think he was born disabled. They don’t know he was married and has three kids. There’s a lot of news to break with this film.”