Eddie Redmayne covers the February issue of Interview magazine to promote his Oscar campaign for The Theory of Everything. Jennifer Lawrence conducts the discussion, which is unexpected, but they’re old acquaintances who met through Oliver Stone. They toss back jokes at awards shows and occasionally cross paths. It’s a casual, effusive friendship, but they adore each other and did plenty of mutual gushing in this interview.

Because JLaw was in charge of the discussion, things went a bit off the rails. Everything starts out professionally with talk of acting and fear of messing up in a role. Then they started talking about random stuff like reality television and food poisoning from dodgy salmon, and JLaw’s publicist briefly pulls the plug when she brings up tequila. Some excerpts:

On scoring the Stephen Hawking role: “You do that thing of trying to chase down the job, sounding incredibly confident because you never think you’ll get it. And then you get offered the job, and you have a moment of euphoria, and then you basically want to be sick for the first year. I’m just one gigantic ball of rancid fear and self-consciousness. I’m entirely fueled by fear, so the fact that I knew it could be a catastrophic disaster made me unable to sleep, and made me work quite hard.”

He loves reality tv: “I come home from trying to pretend to know about astronomy and physics all day and turn on The Real Housewives. I know. I’ve been a closet lover of faux-reality TV since The Hills. It’s bad. I can’t believe the intricacies of their lives. I want to know how much of it’s a sham, how much of it is directed. [T]hen you see the helicopter shots in these shows that are substantially more expensive than anything in Theory of Everything, and you’re like, ‘How?’ I’m also a complete sucker for the soundtracks, the teeny pop music.”

He lsoes weight on press tours: “My [wife] saw some photos of me at the L.A. premiere, and she’s like, ‘Ed, you’re looking underweight.’ I said, ‘Baby, I’ve got loads of sushi and juices.’ And she was like, ‘That’s not what I’m talking about! I’m talking a f***ing gigantic bowl of spaghetti Bolognese and a burger.'”

[From Interview]

These two are kindred spirits. I didn’t include Eddie’s projectile vomiting story, which you can peruse in your spare time. It’s funny how JLaw (the biggest reality tv fan in the world) got Eddie to admit he loves reality shows too. He seems so posh, but he comes home from work, tosses himself on the couch, and watches Lisa Vanderpump. What a weird mental image.

Both Eddie and Jennifer complained about not knowing what to do with themselves during downtime from work. Remember how JLaw made a huge deal about taking a break from movies? Yeah, the execution isn’t going well. She said she’s “miserable” without the structure of work. (FYI, she flew to Boston last week to start filming her David O. Russell Miracle Mop movie.) Eddie says he tries to do art projects during time off, but he sucks at it. He has a great sense of humor.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & Interview