Law unto himself
He’s a character actor trapped in the body of a matinee idol. Although Jude Law is usually seen as a box office star, the commercial hits have been surprisingly few. But with Sherlock Holmes things may change
INTERVIEW | JOHN STAPLES
THERE ARE TIMES WHEN JUDE LAW FEELS LIKE SHERLOCK HOLMES – A MASTER OF DISGUISE. This year alone, he’s been a cross-dressing Russian model named Minx in Sally Potter’s Rage. He’s played the Dane to rave reviews in a West End production of Hamlet. And he came to the rescue, along with Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell, to help replace Heath Ledger when he died midway through production of Terry Gilliam’s recently released fairy-tale The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. Taken with his latest role as Dr Watson in Guy Ritchie’s all-action Sherlock Holmes, it seems there’s a diversity and daring to his work that he’s rarely given credit for.
What he does get is a torrid time from the tabloids. Long gone are the days when he and ex-wife Sadie Frost were part of the Primrose Hill mob, the chi-chi actor set that also included Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller (the best man at Law’s wedding). He and Frost – who together have three children, Rafferty, 13, Iris, nine, and Rudy Indiana Otis, seven – divorced in 2003 after six years of marriage only for Law to spark up a high-profile romance with Sienna Miller. Then came the excruciating revelation that he had indulged in an affair with his children’s nanny, Daisy Wright.
It didn’t stop there. Already linked with his Rage and Parnassus co-star Lily Cole, it was announced earlier this year that Law would become a father for a fourth time – with aspiring actress/model Samantha Burke. When she gave birth in September to a baby girl, Sophia, the press had a field day, perhaps sore that he’d recently clashed with one of their own – he was alleged to have struck a female paparazzo after leaving a London club. It capped a difficult time for Law.
With this in mind, I’m unsure how he will react when we meet. An angry actor, perhaps? One fed up with “being followed by snipers”, as he refers to his on-going tussles with the paparazzi? Not quite. Relaxing in his London hotel suite, dressed in a grey V-neck sweater and dark trousers, he’s in contemplative mood. Particularly regarding his relationship to fame. “The way I deal with it,” he says, “is that I don’t think about it. Fame was not a reason I ever wanted to act. If someone says, ‘You can’t do that because you’re too famous,’ then that’s when I think you’re in real trouble. I imagine I’m not the kind of actor that Mike Leigh would want to work with, which is sad – because I’d like to work with someone like him.”
NOT THAT LAW SHOULD FEEL TOO DOWN. Since bursting on to the scene as a joyrider opposite Frost in 1994’s Shopping, the actor has ticked off more than his fair share of heavyweight directors, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Sam Mendes among them. His most fruitful relationship, however, was with the late British filmmaker Anthony Minghella, who directed him to two Oscar-nominated performances – as the millionaire playboy Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley and the confederate soldier Inman in Cold Mountain.
It was during Cold Mountain’s release that Minghella told one newspaper: “There has always been a hesitation in Jude about embracing the opportunities that were emerging for him and also about embracing the fact that he could not only be seen as a wonderful actor but as a genuine star.” It remains true. While he was quite happy to play the dashing Errol Flynn in Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator – and with his blonde hair, green eyes and honey-coloured skin, he is a modern-day matinee idol – Law seems less keen on becoming a Hollywood leading man. While his hit romantic comedy The Holiday (with Cameron Diaz) might suggest otherwise, for the most part Law has amused himself with supporting roles in offbeat films.
Yet, aside from the film adaptation of Patrick Marber’s play Closer, which took $115 million worldwide, most of these eclectic choices have flopped. From political drama All The King’s Men to his third film with Minghella, Breaking and Entering, from his Sleuth remake to Wong Kar-Wai’s road movie My Blueberry Nights, many of his more experimental films have met with audience indifference. Suddenly Law, 37, finds himself in need of a hit. So it’s just as well he’s co-starring in Sherlock Holmes, guaranteed to be one of the biggest movies this Christmas.
He stars opposite Robert Downey Jr as Holmes, in a story that promises to bring Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved Victorian sleuths up to date. Admittedly, with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’s Ritchie directing, the thought that Holmes and Watson are getting a makeover is worrying. Early shots indicated the famous deerstalkers and pipes aren’t getting an airing – are they fiddling with a classic, I wonder. “How many Holmes books have you read?” Law asks me. None, I confess. “Ah! The expert speaks!” he cries back, with a broad smile.
Law then gives me a swift literary lesson. “What is very interesting when you go back to the source material of this, is that an awful lot of the impressions that we all carry – or have carried – are based on the Basil Rathbone movies, which create the deerstalker and the bumbling Watson. But what amazed me is that when you go back you find that – because Doyle’s a great writer and great writers spark the imagination, as opposed to fill it all in and spoon-feed you as a reader – we were suddenly able to interpret it afresh. And that’s been our intention.”
ACCORDING TO DOWNEY, HE AND RITCHIE had to “woo” Law into the role. He disputes this. “Being ‘persuaded’ always makes it sound like there’s a part of you that didn’t want to, which there wasn’t. I was intrigued. I went into this thinking I was clear on who and what the character of Watson was.
“But meeting Robert, reading the script, meeting Guy, then doing my own research, made me realise that there was a whole volume of stuff that I could put into this that had never really been explored before, in this character, in this partnership. And I became overnight a big Conan Doyle fan.”
By coincidence one of Law’s first jobs was playing a bit part in TV show The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, in which Jeremy Brett played the sleuth. At the time, his limited acting experience came from the stage. Born and raised in Lewisham, south London, it was his teacher parents who first fostered his love of acting with regular trips to the theatre. School wasn’t exactly a breeze, though.
As Law once said, with a name like Jude, he was “labelled a poof from day one”. His parents transferred him to a private school in Dulwich, and, at 15, he joined the National Youth Music Theatre and played the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. “Suddenly I was treated like a hard case because of my South London accent. I couldn’t win.”
If he calls his upbringing “unremarkable”, his life since has been anything but. The last time I saw Law, he was in a most unusual guise – that of master of ceremonies for Peace One Day, an event at the Royal Albert Hall that featured contributions from celebrities including Bryan Adams, Annie Lennox and Lennie Kravitz. A non-profit organisation founded to raise awareness of Peace Day – held every year on 21 September – Law became an ambassador for them after he befriended its founder, Jeremy Gilley. Law appears in Gilley’s film The Day After Peace, which documents his campaign to secure a UN resolution establishing an annual day of worldwide ceasefire and non-violence.
Law admits he wanted to be more than just “a face” for Peace One Day. “I felt connected to Jeremy because he’s also a filmmaker. A lot of people wonder – sometimes rightfully – why people in the media are involved with particular campaigns. Well, as someone who makes films myself, I’m very interested in the way Jeremy uses film to spread his message.
I really wanted to get involved and participate in this process.”
This meant Law going on a ‘secret mission’ to Afghanistan, where he visited Laghman Province and Jalalabad. While there were inevitable concerns for his safety, he waves them away instantly. “Who am I to think it any different? That if it’s safe for Jeremy to go to Afghanistan, it wouldn’t be safe for me?”
He explains: “It just felt like an incredible opportunity to see a place first hand, to be able to talk first hand. We all have opinions about what’s going on in the world and I suddenly realised I had an opinion that I couldn’t always back up. So to go and feel and smell and see first-hand was very important.”
IF THIS SHOWS LAW IN A LIGHT FEW PEOPLE HAVE SEEN HIM IN, HE’S ALSO NOW REINVENTING HIMSELF – or at least returning to his roots – with his interpretation of Hamlet. After a successful West End run, he is currently on Broadway with the role.
In truth, Law has frequently returned to the theatre – his lead turn in a 2002 Young Vic production of Dr Faustus, for example, won fine notices. But there’s no question that Shakespeare’s prince is a landmark role in the career of an actor. Law spent a year reading everything about the play, its history and its interpretations, before he began rehearsals.
With his only new film release for next year being Repo Men! – a long-delayed science-fiction thriller with Forest Whitaker – Law has evidently put his movie career on hold to immerse himself in Shakespeare.
“I think what’s key about this part and what we discovered very quickly is that there’s no definitive Hamlet,” he says. “Hamlet shifts in the skin. He has the capability – and the play has the capability – to morph with the times.”
The same might be said of Law, who is relishing his time in New York. “For some reason, you feel kind of invisible there. In London you feel in some strange way on show.” Perhaps this is why he’s developed the need for disguise.
Sherlock Holmes opens on 26 December
