Professor Stephen Hawking's former wife talked to our reporter about their life together after he died at the age of 76.
Stephen Hawking Wife - Prof. Hawking died peacefully in the early hours of this morning at his Cambridge home.
Jane, the scientist's ex-wife, talked with our reporter Lydia Fallon in March 2015 about the newly published film about their life together.
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The interview of Jane Hawking
It's a bright and Sunday. When I arrive at Jane Hawking's Cambridge home on a March afternoon, it's for the first time in 2015 that it feels like spring has arrived. She's down on her hands and knees in the front yard, trowel in hand.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Jane says softly, her Cambridge accent perfectly clipped. "I saw this flower in the house and immediately said, 'I have to plant that.'"
When the gardening gloves are removed and we're sitting in the conservatory, I remark that it's been a hectic few months.
She chuckles, a twinkle in her turquoise blue eyes. "Oh my goodness, it really, really has," she says. "Everything else has gone by the wayside, which is why you find me gardening outside. 'I'm terribly sorry, I haven't been looking after you,' I say to my plants."
Unless you've been on another planet the past few months, the fact Jane's garden has fallen by the wayside won't really come as much of a surprise. There have been rather more important seeds to sow; like the small matter of a film about her life becoming the toast of Hollywood.
The Theory of Everything, the affecting, heart-wrenching biopic based on Jane's memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, has proved something of a phenomenon.
Starring Eddie Redmayne as the world-famous astrophysicist and Felicity Jones as Jane, it's the love story of an extraordinary man who defied the odds and the English rose who stood by him every step of the way.
I'd only seen the movie a few weeks before our interview, and I was curious to see how the on-screen Jane compared to the real-life Jane. What's my conclusion? Felicity Jones, the actress, has done an outstanding job.
She portrays Jane with warmth and grace, as well as a quiet strength and subtlety that makes you cheer for her right away, and I felt the same way about this living, breathing Jane. She's great company because she's accessible, entertaining, and easy to laugh.
"I was totally taken aback when I first saw her (Felicity Jones) on screen because she had captured my expressions, motions, and speech patterns; I couldn't believe it. I was sitting in the cinema when I saw myself on the projector. It was a strange situation "Jane expresses herself.
"Eddie was incredible: it was a really transformational role, which is why he won the Oscar, but Felicity's part was much more internal; she was so good at projecting an emotional reaction," says the director.
Jane has seen the film four times and is pleased with the result, calling it "extraordinary, stunning, and profoundly moving." Rather than being intimidated by seeing her story unfold on the big screen, Jane admits to relishing her time in the spotlight.
"'Is it a horrible shock?' people ask, but I think I genuinely enjoy it. It demonstrates who I am and where I came from to others."
"It's a strange situation, though," she says, smiling, "because I'm still here, I'm still me, and people keep congratulating me on that."
The success of the film has also come as a relief to Jane, as it was almost never made. Following the publication of her memoir, Music to Move the Stars: A Life with Stephen, in 1999, screenwriter Anthony McCarten approached Jane about adapting the book into a film.
Jane said no in a respectful but firm manner. "'No way, no how,' I said. I couldn't even consider watching a movie because my family wasn't prepared "She recalls.
Jane Hawking Marriage
Marriage dissolution By the 1980s, Stephen's star was rising, and A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, cemented his place in history. Jane, on the other hand, felt as though the family – the couple had three children by this stage – had been forgotten as the scientific world celebrated a new celebrity.
"We had four partners in our union: Stephen, me, motor neuron disease, and the goddess of physics, and it was difficult to deal with," she says.
she says. "On a weekend, Stephen would sit like Rodin's The Thinker, completely oblivious to all that was going on, the kids playing, me worried that something was wrong, and then at the end of the weekend, he'd give me a beaming smile and tell, 'I've just solved a physics puzzle!"
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