British scientist Stephen Hawking on Tuesday attended the London premiere of a film that delves into his public and his private lives.
The Theory of Everything is based on Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, a memoir written by his first wife, Jane Hawking, 70, who was also on the red carpet for the British launch of director James Marsh's film.
The former couple met at Cambridge University and married in 1965, and both went on to become professors. They were together for 26 years and had three children.
"It's how these two characters, these two real people, transcend all the complications and curveballs that life throws at them," Marsh has said of the film.
Hawking, 72, who earned his first degree at Oxford, was diagnosed around the time of his marriage with the motor neurone disease that has progressively ravaged his body.
Eddie Redmayne, himself a Cambridge graduate, plays Hawking.
"The real problem with making a film is, of course, you don't shoot chronologically," Redmayne has said. "So it was about having to really try and chart [Hawking's] physical deterioration [so] you can jump into it day-to-day, whilst at the same time keeping this spark and wit and humour that he has."
Fellow British actor Felicity Jones, an Oxford graduate, plays Jane Hawking.
"Stephen and Jane let Felicity and I into their lives, so we felt an enormous amount of responsibility to get it right," Redmayne said. "Stephen and Jane have this wonderful unsentimental approach to life and such wit, so wherever we could we wanted to put that into the film."
Jones said she was glad the film has been so well received.
"It's really exciting," she said. "It's a film we cared so much about, and the fact that people are responding to it is wonderful. That doesn't always happen."
