When a movie is released about real-life individuals, especially ones that are high profile, you can't help but wonder what they will think of the film. Seeing their lives play out before them on screen has to illicit some sort of opinion about the movie's accuracy, quality and how they are portrayed.
That's why we've all been curious to know what Stephen Hawking really thinks about the new movie The Theory of Everything, which hit theaters on Nov. 7. Based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen by Hawking's first wife Jane Hawking, the film chronicles the couple's relationship, from meeting at Cambridge to Hawking's diagnosis with ALS to the astrophysicist's rise to fame.
So what did Hawking think about the whole thing? Clearly, the film includes some personal details about their relationship that might be hard to watch replayed on screen.
However, Hawking's adoration of Redmayne and The Theory of Everything shouldn't really come as a surprise. The famed astrophysicist gave director James Marsh his blessing. Hawking also visited the set during filming and allowed his actual computerized voice to be used in the movie. In a previous Facebook post, Hawking wrote that he is "honored and humbled by the film that was made."
Hawking also had some thoughts on that other science-related film released at the same time as The Theory of Everything, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. The film recently got a solid review from Hawking's fellow astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson on Twitter. Did Hawking give its science the same accolades?
Well, he didn't give it so much of a review as he filled us in on some behind-the-scenes intel. But still, it was much-appreciated. In a Facebook post on Nov. 13, Hawking explained how he talked with Kip Thorne, a gravitational theorist and executive producer of Interstellar, about his and Hollywood producer Lynda Obst's idea for a sci-fi movie about wormholes years ago. Those ideas were later incorporated into Interstellar. And fun fact: Thorne also appears in The Theory of Everything. Just try and wrap your head around that.
