The director, Tom Hooper said "One last thing: Eddie, have you ever been on a horse?" I said "Yes." Cut to Lithuania, two weeks later, a huge Elizabethan street, Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons are standing at this balcony, and there's Tom, cameras, rain machines, 50 Lithuanian extras, spurs attached to my feet, and I'm thinking, "At what point do I tell them that I have never, ever ridden a horse?" It was then that I realized a big part of the cliché of actors lying in auditions is that you should probably try to do the thing you said you can do before filming starts. Anyway, I nearly killed people as the horse galloped off at a hundred miles an hour after I gave it the slightest nudge. Tom came out with his megaphone and shouted, "You're a fucking liar, Redmayne!".
