Stop clowning around, Eddie, you’re a Prada fashion icon!

WITH roles as challenging as Professor Stephen Hawking and a transgender artist called Lili, Eddie Redmayne has proved himself to be a serious actor. But he should have thought twice about accepting his latest part in a fashion campaign ... because he’s ended up unwittingly playing the clown. The star is certainly putting in an Oscar-worthy performance with that angst-laden expression (and no hint of a giggle) as he models these bizarre clothes by luxury Italian label Prada. In one picture it looks like he’s off to the circus in an oversized coat with a blue shearling collar and elongated shoes with bright green toecaps.

In another, captured by British photographer Craig McDean, the

4-year-old Oscar winner wears a multi-coloured knitted cardigan and carries a black rucksack, looking rather like a schoolboy who’s borrowed his granny’s throw.

Explaining the idea behind its autumn/winter campaign, Prada said Redmayne assumes the roles of ‘hero, villain and revolutionary’ on an ‘excursion through history’. Redmayne is no stranger to modelling, having appeared in a Burberry campaign in 2008 before his acting career took off.

He then starred in another in 2012 alongside Cara Delevingne.

He won his Oscar for playing Professor Hawking in The Theory of Everything in 2014.

The following year he received a best actor nomination at the Academy Awards for his portrayal of painter Lili Elbe, one of the first known sex- change surgery patients, in The Danish Girl.

Circus chic: They may look like clown shoes but at £775, these calf-leather derbies with rubber toecaps are no laughing matter. Nor is the tweed coat which is likely to cost over £1,000

Fit for gran: Don’t be distracted by the gaudy cardie, it’s the leather backpack that is likely to be the most expensive item in this picture. It could cost around £2,500 and one of the keyrings dangling off it could sell for £500

Surreal: This bowling shirt features a print of Roman centurions and gladiators fighting with club-wielding men and women in suits to represent tensions between the rich and poor