Biography Magazine

Move over R2D2, Jude Law Is Summer's Sexiest Robot

Written by Kathy Passero

"I feel like I'm spying," Jude Law confides, "like I shouldn't really be here...When am I going to get found out?" It's no wonder the 28-year-old actor feels like an outsider on the Chicago set of his latest project, The Road to Perdition, starring Paul Newman and Tom Hanks. Not long ago, Law probably wouldn't have been allowed on the set let alone asked to share the screen with such Hollywood heavyweights. But after carving out a reputation for edgy roles in small, artsy films, Law is fast becoming a full-fledged member of the big leagues, with magazine covers and a starring role in Steven Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence to prove it. He might still be adjusting to the idea, but to fans, fellow actors, and directors, Jude Law is right were he should be: poised for stardom.

After all, this is the man who two years ago snatched the spotlight from Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow in The Talented Mr. Ripley. As Dickie Greenleaf, the gorgeous wastrel who drives Tom Ripley to murder, Law mesmerized audiences and earned himself an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Offscreen, he's likeable, down-to-earth, and today profusely apologetic for rescheduling the interview several times. It's just that his children (5-year-old Rafferty and 8-month-old Iris with actresss Sadie Frost, as well as 10-year-old Fin, from Frost's first marriage) are in town and he's trying to squeeze in as much play time with them as possible. There was lunch and the park and a visit to the Field Museum to see Dinosaur Sue earlier this week and then a last-minute flight to New York for work.

Obviously, Law-the-family-man is a far cry from his best-known character, Dickie Greenleaf. In fact, when he first read The Talented Mr. Ripley script he wasn't too keen on playing what became his breakthrough role. "Dickie seemed so straightforward, and I normally walk away from that," he explains. "But then [director] Anthony Minghella lifted the lid on Dickie's darker side--his more interesting, manipulative qualities. I'm a great believer that everyone has different colors; the challenge is to look for the lightness in dark characters and vice versa."

Law's talent lies in his ability to do just that-to subtly shade his performances so that you find yourself feeling oddly sympathetic toward the most unlikable characters and vaguely suspicious of charmers like Dickie, whose cruelty lurked just beneath his sunny exterior.

"Jude has the ability to deliver something ever so slightly sinister and otherworldly behind the smile and the charm," says Sam Mendes, his director in The Road to Perdition. "It's the combination of masculine and feminine co-existing in him that make him so interesting."

Law, who is known for exploring such ambiguous qualities in his roles, explains it this way: "I look for something that's going to take me somewhere new, something that will teach me more about myself or other people."

It's a journey he has enjoyed all his life. "I remember working on a school play when I was maybe 5 or 6," he says. "It had something to do with St. George and the dragon or the fire of London, and I just really understood it and loved it. I've kept that up ever since."

Born on December 29,1972, to Peter and Maggie Law two school teachers who adored the arts Jude was named after a Thomas Hardy novel (Jude the Obscure) and a Beatles song ("Hey Jude"). During his childhood in South London, his parents often took him and his older sister Natasha to films and plays. (For the last decade, they've run a theater company in France.)

Until age 14,Jude attended public school where he was often teased for his girlish looks. He then switched to private school only to be ribbed for being working class. As an escape, he auditioned and was admitted to Britain's National Youth Music Theatre.

When he first arrived, "in the rush of a weekend workshop, our administrator just saw somebody called Jude and stuck him in with the girls," recalls Jeremy James, NYMT's founder and artistic director. "I don't think Jude bothered to tell anybody; he obviously enjoyed his first night. The story has it that the next morning when he turned up at breakfast, somebody said, 'Where's Jude?' and he said, 'It's me' with a smile on his face."

Even at that tender age, James says Law stood out. "One or two people, not many, walk through the door and you can tell they belong in acting. That was Jude; he was marvelous." When a casting agent friend needed an actor to play a teen runaway on the British soap opera Families a few years later, James recommended Law. Eager for more acting experience, Law took the part, though it meant leaving school at 17.

Bored within a year, he quit the show, auditioned for drama school, and was promptly rejected. Ironically, he landed a string of parts in fringe theater productions and surprisingly found himself playing to packed theaters. He won a Best Young Classical Actor award in 1994, and made such a splash in the West End's Les Parents Terribles that when the play moved to Broadway in 1995 under the name Indiscretions, Law was the only cast member invited to come along, reprising his role as the petulant son of a domineering mother (played stateside by Kathleen Turner, who described her co-star as "a sexy son of a gun; women in the audience just swooned"). His performance including an eyebrow-raising scene where he bathed and leisurely toweled himself off nude garnered a Tony nomination.

At the same time, Law was venturing into movies and TV, making his feature film debut in 1994 as a car-stealing thug in Shopping. The film was a bomb with one high-point: It introduced Law, 21, to British actress Sadie Frost, 26, then married to Gary Kemp of the pop group Spandau Ballet. The co-stars fell in love and have been together ever since, marrying in 1997 on a barge in a London canal.

Next came a series of supporting roles in mediocre films, including Gattaca and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, both in 1997. That year, Law also tackled the part of Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, Oscar Wilde's paramour, in Wilde. It was a risky move, one that some warned would pigeonhole him for offbeat, sexually ambiguous roles in little-seen films. Instead, neither critics nor moviegoers could take their eyes off Law. Most important, he came to the attention of director Anthony Minghella, then casting The Talented Mr. Ripley.

When the film came out. Law was showered with critical praise. His response? To duck out of the limelight and return to London theater starring in 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore, based on the 17th-century play, and then to spend 85 days freezing and covered in mud on the Berlin set of Enemy at the Gates as a sniper in the Battle of Stalingrad.

In A.I.: Artificial Intelligence Law plays a different kind of killer - a robot lady-killer to be exact-named Gigolo Joe. Through the film - a futuristic version of the Pinocchio little-boy-lost theme, as he describes it - Joe "goes a little further than is natural for [?] a mechanical [man], and that's his journey. But isn't that the journey we all go on? Bending our programs and seeing if we can't push ourselves a bit further?"

Next up, Law plays a 1930's newspaper photographer, "a regular bloke who dabbles in the underbelly of life to make money" and moonlights as a hit man in The Road to Perdition, due out this winter.

"I wanted a soft-voiced, gentle killer who could bring a combination of danger and charisma to the role," says Mendes. "I knew Jude could do that. He can create something utterly three-dimensional and complex without ever uttering a word. Plus, he has enormous presence. He's got that movie-star quality of being able to suck the camera into his eyes."

Although he might be movie star material now, it wasn't so long ago that Law was a struggling unknown sharing a cramped apartment with actor Ewan McGregor and counting out pennies for bags of chips. (The two became pals after meeting at a 1990 audition; the director gave them $50 to devise an improv scene, and instead they blew it in a pub.)

In 1995, McGregor, Law, Frost, and other friends tired of waiting for dollars and dream scripts to roll in and formed a production company called Natural Nylon (short for New York and London) to develop their own pet projects. In the works are The Hellfire Club, about an 18th-century drinking fraternity; Marlowe, about Shakespeare contemporary and playwright Christopher Marlowe; and a biopic about Beatles manager Brian Epstein, in which Law plans to star.

When you inspire comparisons to Adonis - and Jude Law often does - it would be easy to let your looks drive your career. Instead, he bristles at the phrase "sex symbol."

"Anything that boxes you in is a drawback, whether you're known as the strange-looking actor or the scary-looking actor or the good-looking actor. I try to choose parts that move me away from that." Note to casting directors: He'd be more than happy to shave off those curls or pack on an extra 40 pounds a la De Niro in Raging Bull for the right role.

Besides, his heart belongs to his wife, Sadie. He's got a tattoo on his forearm with the Beatles' lyrics "You came along to turn on everyone Sexy Sadie" in her honor, and he once reported to work with a black eye after a fight with a drunk who was hitting on her in a New York bar.

If you believe the British tabloids, Law and Frost are the quintessential celebrity couple, dashing from one glamorous soiree to another. In reality, you're more likely to find them home making veggie loaf or watching TV with Rafferty, Iris, and Fin. "We're really boring and normal," Law says.

As a role model, he cites Road to Perdition co-star Paul Newman - an actor known, like Law, for his dazzling blue eyes as much as his acting talents. "He's just untouchable," Law says. "He's been doing challenging parts for 40 years, he's got an amazing relationship with his wife, and he's got great dignity. That's what it's always been about for me - taking it slowly and sticking it out for the long term."

KATHY PASSERO IS SENIOR EDITOR FOR BIOGRAPHY MAGAZINE.

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Celebrity Dossier

Name: Jude Law
Date of Birth: December 29, 1972
Place of Birth: London, England
Parents: Peter and Maggie Law, former schoolteachers who now run a fringe theater company in France
Sibling: Older sister Natasha, a graphic designer and photographer
Education: Left Alleyn's, a private London high school, at age 17
Spouse: Sadie Frost, actress and founder of Smelly Knickers, a company specializing in vanilla-and honey-scented underwear
Children: Rafferty, 5 and Iris, 8 months; also shares parenting responsibilities for Finlay, Sadie's son from her first marriage
FYI: He saved the saxophone he played in The Talented Mr. Ripley as a souvenir - although he doesn't play

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Talking Robots

In the futuristic A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Jude Law plays a mechanical man who befriends a younger robot (Haley Joel Osment) and helps him in his quest to become human. Here's what the co-stars said about working together:

Jude Law about Haley Joel Osment: "He's a great actor and a joy to work with because on the set he's all about the work, and off the set he was addicted to my favorite things in life, like The Simpsons and Futurama. That gave us a great excuse to really relax."

Haley Joel Osment about Jude Law: "There was a once-in-a-lifetime feeling the two of us shared every day when we got into costume that made us very playful and excited whenever we walked on the set. [It was] like being the first in line at a new amusement park every day."

© Copyright Biography Magazine and A&E Televison - July 2001

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