Eddie Redmayne may have his hands full at the moment promoting his new film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but his wake-up calls have less to do with work and everything to do with family.

“It’s in the morning,” Redmayne tells PEOPLE of his favorite part of being a new dad to daughter Iris Mary, 4 months. “If Iris has managed to sleep through the night and then you hear a gentle squeak and you go in [her room] and turn on the light … and the massive grin that’s like, ‘It’s a whole new day.’ That’s probably the greatest thing.”

The Oscar-winning actor, 34, shares that his daughter with wife Hannah is quite smiley — but that she also isn’t the traditional crier.

“Hilariously, she’s learned to shout,” Redmayne says. “She doesn’t cry much, but she’s learned to shout.”

“Maybe she wants you to turn the light off,” jokes Redmayne’s Fantastic Beasts costar Katherine Waterston.

Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter.

“It’s hilarious, she’ll just be sitting there going, ‘Behhhhh!’ ” Redmayne mimics. “Like, what is that noise? From this tiny little thing.”

“You make it sound a little bit like a sheep,” Waterston says.

“She doesn’t sound like a sheep, but it definitely doesn’t sound like a noise that could come from someone so small,” the new dad clarifies.

Since he became a father in June, The Theory of Everything star says he has learned that all the advice he heard about being a parent has been true for him and his wife.

“The amazing this is that everything that everyone has ever told you — all of the clichés — you become the person starting to spout out the clichés, as if they are the newest thought,” he confesses.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is in theaters Nov. 18.