Eddie Redmayne: Meeting DiCaprio was daunting

Eddie Redmayne was "absolutely wetting himself" when he first met Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 32-year-old actor landed his first major role in 2006's The Good Shepherd, in which he played Edward Wilson Jr. His onscreen father later became Matt Damon, but Eddie initially rehearsed opposite the Titanic star.

It was Eddie's performance in a West End show in London, UK, that attracted a casting director to approach him about a role in the Robert De Niro-directed flick.

“She [the casting director] said, ‘I want you to come back and meet Bob this afternoon.’ I was like, Who? ‘Bob De Niro.’ F**k," he recalled to M magazine.

“When I came back, the casting couch was full of the best actors in Britain, all in their fifties and sixties; people who never audition for anything were lined. I was the only kid there. I went in and met De Niro.

“Iwanyataparyerhair," Eddie recalled, doing an impression of the iconic actor telling him he wanted his hair in a parting.

It was when he returned that Leonardo was also in the room, reading the lines of his character's dad.

“I was absolutely wetting myself. I looked down at the scene, from the ceiling, and said to myself, ‘Redmayne, if you die now, you’ve had it pretty good.’ From there, I just turned up and tried not to get fired," he smiled.

Eddie's current role is his biggest to date, portraying professor Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. The handsome Brit has already been tapped for an Oscar with his impeccable performance, and was full of nerves when he met the revolutionary scientist.

"You’ve done five months of work, you’ve watched everything, you’ve read everything, and you arrive to meet the man. I was left with him, the two of us. Because he can only move the one muscle in his face, now it takes him a wee while to reply in conversation," Eddie recalled.

“There was a moment when he was taking some time responding to something. Here I was, filling the air, telling him about himself. I was a nervous wreck. He was laughing a lot. I couldn’t tell if it was with me or at me. Probably a bit of both."