Over the weekend, Eddie Redmayne and Jamie Dornan interviewed each other for Variety’s “Actors on Actors†series, diving into each other’s equally illustrious 2020 film roles. Redmayne played real-life leftist organizer Tom Hayden in Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, and in Wild Mountain Thyme Dornan played a man-bee. But did you know that before they were movie stars [cue Vine] they were roommates? It’s true, and their actual experience was more wholesome than any Christian Grey–Newt Scamander slashfic your twisted mind could dream up. In the interview, Dornan and Redmayne reminisce about how the nicest day of their young funemployed lives was when they made pottery together, like Ghost between bros. Brost.
“The reason why I remember it was 2009, one day, we went to a pottery barn,†Dornan says, referring not to the store but to a literal barn where you make pottery. Redmayne cuts him off, excited and blushing. “I’ve still got it, I’ve still got it!†Dornan continues, “We made a crockery. We made plates and clay pots. And I remember we wrote the names of all these actors who were all of our gang we were hanging out with.†Here, Redmayne nods, miming the very pure act of etching their buddies’ names into clay. It’s like something out of a summer-camp scrapbook, only they were grown men and out-of-work actors. Dornan doesn’t reveal who these actors immortalized in crockery are, but he says, “We’ve got two superheroes in there. You’ve got an Academy Award. It’s kind of insane. And none of us were having a good time of it, then.†Redmayne goes so far as to say, “Making pottery was kind of a high point. I’m slightly embarrassed you’re putting that out into the public arena, given I used to tell my parents that I was going to L.A. in January to, you know, endlessly slaving [sic] away to try to get work.†It would seem Seth Rogen has some competition for the title of Sweetest Pottery Boy.