As soon as Eddie Redmayne found out he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his work in The Theory of Everything, he immediately told his fiancé, Hannah Bagshawe.

The actor, who also received a SAG nomination Wednesday, was attempting to do his Christmas shopping on a cold, dark day in London when he received the phone call.

“It’s the most wonderful thing,” Redmayne tells PEOPLE Now of his best actor in a drama nomination. “When we first started working on this film … we all felt such a sense of privilege, but also a great sense of responsibility because we were depicting these extraordinary people.”

There seems to be a British invasion with this year’s nominees – Benedict Cumberbatch and Felicity Jones also received Golden Globes nominations. (Jones for her work in The Theory of Everything.)

“My British actor pals, we all dreamed when we were younger of working in American film, it’s where the legacy and the history of the film industry is, and over the past 10 or 12 years, once a year, I spend a few months in Hollywood,” Redmayne says. “You’re living in another world, but the fact that you occasionally get to work there is a proper dream.”

Redmayne says he’s thrilled that audiences are loving the film, for which he had to train himself physically to be more like Stephen Hawking.

“It shows that the people seem to be responding to it,” Redmayne says. “As an actor, if you’re lucky enough to tell interesting stories about interesting people, then that’s a dream. But when they touch a nerve or connect people, that’s even better, so it does feel like an extraordinary thing. I’m just really happy right now.”

(Source)