In a new cover story for VARIETY, actor Jude Law speaks with Co-Editor-in-Chief Ramin Setoodeh for a wide-ranging interview about STAR WARS: SKELETON CREW, doing full-frontal in ERDEN, and his thoughts on Netflix’s RIPLEY. He also discusses how fame has affected his life, the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, his futures in the FANTASTIC BEAST franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more.
On “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew”: “I don’t think I would have dived in willy-nilly. I wanted it to be right. I didn’t want to be the guy that dropped the ball on ‘Star Wars.’”
“They said, ‘Oh, you’re going to wear a wig—we want lovely, tousled hair.’ And I was like, ‘No, I think he should have really short hair — he wears a helmet.’ That took some persuasion.”
On being able to see firsthand how a “Star Wars” project is made: “It was a really interesting process. It’s technically complicated to get those things right—you’re dealing with animatronics and puppets and machines and huge, complicated worlds. I’m the guy that wants to see how the wizard does it…It all has to go through the ‘Star Wars’ filter. Like, there are no buttons in ‘Star Wars’—only ties. Buckles? Yes. Velcro? Yes. Although, I don’t think you ever see the Velcro…There are certain shots they don’t allow you to do if you’re the director. You can’t pass through the glass of the spaceship; you have to stay on the outside or inside. I love that. You see the shot and go, ‘Oh, I’m in “Star Wars.”’
On shooting a full-frontal nude scene in “Eden,” an upcoming drama set on an island in the Galápagos about a group of settlers who wanted extreme privacy: “It was in the script. It was a clear statement of who this character was. It’s important that we do it.”
On Netflix’s “Ripley”: “I was sort of amazed and delighted at how completely different it was. It had a completely different quality—some of which I thought worked really well, some of which I didn’t think worked as well. But it was a completely different beast to ours.”
On how fame has affected his life: “Here’s an interesting insight. I remember having a conversation with my mother, who said something that I look back on now. She said something like she had to ‘share me’ now. And I think what she meant by that was there was suddenly a sense of people knowing who I was and reaching out to her. She felt like there was a loss of privacy, of intimacy, that needed protecting…It was oddly linked also to being a father for the first time. I remember there being photographs of me carrying my baby son around whilst I was shooting ‘Ripley.’”
On the News of the World phone-hacking scandal: “It was a true frenzy,” Law says of the barrage of stories about him before the breach was discovered. “Once the route was figured out, it was clear why it was a frenzy: Eighty, ninety percent of the stories were being accessed illegally, and they actually generated stories for their publications. So the money was just washing around, which meant photographers were vying for something that led to another story. And the illegal information they were getting out of hacking and monitoring people that way was feeding the newspaper. It was a crazy experience to go through. A really upsetting experience, because it forces you to suspect and doubt people around you. You have to circle your wagons and protect your family and protect yourself. But what doesn’t kill you nourishes you, right?”
On the future of the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise: “I know it’s certainly on hold. My guess would be that, now that they’re doing ‘Harry Potter’ as a TV show, they’ll probably put their energy into that. I certainly haven’t heard that there’s anything on the horizon.”
On his future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: As for dipping his toe in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that was just a one-picture deal in which he played Yon-Rogg, the leader of the Starforce, in 2019’s “Captain Marvel.”
“I don’t think there was much more they could get out of Yon-Rogg. That, for me, was the height of Marvel…It was a really good experience. I wish I’d been allowed to have a bit more fun with the part. I wanted him to be more arch. I wanted to lean into the humor more. Also, those suits are hard to move in because they’re thick rubber. You go to stunt camp for a couple of months, where you’re doing all these fight rehearsals and learning to do all this stuff. And then you put the suit on, and you go, ‘Oh! I can’t touch my toes! How am I going to do all that stuff with this thing on?’ You figure it out though.”
On the “Mr. Napkin Head” scene in “The Holiday”: “I’d actually done Mr. Napkin Head before. I did ‘Alfie’ with Charles Shyer, who had been married to Nancy Meyers. And Charles included Mr. Napkin Head in ‘Alfie,’ but the scene got cut. And then I did Nancy’s film, and Mr. Napkin Head was in that.”
[Photo Credit: Eric Ray Davidson for Variety Magazine]
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