Exclusive: Early one morning at Haddon Hall, a grand Tudor hall in Derbyshire, England, this portly, menacing-looking man wearing a richly embroidered and fur-trimmed jacket was chatting with director and Oscar-winning actor Karim Aïnouz. Alicia Vikander.
I had no idea who he was.
We were in the group Firebrandabout Henry VIII's marriage – his sixth and final marriage – to Catherine Parr.
Jude Law was supposed to join them. “Where is he?” Gaby Tana asked, Firebrand project.
Tana replied: “He is in front of you talking to Karim.”
“Is that Jude Law?” I took the initiative.
Jude Law is confused when I tell the story
He's calling me from New York, and when he realizes I'm in Beverly Hills, his voice cracks as he mentions that he's been in touch with friends “who lost everything” in the Los Angeles County wildfires.
“I've heard terrible stories,” he added, looking shocked.
I gently lead him to FirebrandHe points out that people watched the film and said to him: I did not know you, and he replied: Thank God. That was the point.”
Jude Law as Henry VIII in full size Firebrand (Brouhaha Entertainment)
I'm interested in the psychology of his disappearance, and his being completely unrecognizable.
Another example of this is in director Justin Kurzel's thriller The commandwhere Law plays a grizzled FBI agent who lures you into believing he's no longer strong, then! — Don't underestimate him. He's a great shooter, like Gary Cooper High back. Or, as Lou says, a kind of Robert Mitchum meets the Marlboro Man.
He says there is no deliberate psychology in choosing roles to hide behind.
“I think it's the opportunity you have to do it, the distance between you and the person you're playing and the potential in the roles that make you able to do that. … It was about those two parts in particular – there was something that was very far away from me physically and emotionally.
“And I suppose the task at hand is to lose yourself because you find similarities, you find the kind of human connections and connective tissue that work. So it seems connected, but at the same time, you're creating someone who's not really you,” he says, noting that both The two characters have a certain amount of “degradation”.
In the case of Henry VIII, he is a brutal and murderous king.
Jude Law and Alicia Vikander in Firebrand (Brouhaha Entertainment)
Too often, I feel that the somewhat oily coverage of the current British royal family extends to ancestors who brutalized their subjects.
Not so with Master Lau, who knows how to be cruel in the most adorable way.
“Unfortunately, when you get into the details of their behavior in the past, certainly in that era, that fact comes to the fore,” he says. “And certainly at that time when the Tudors were trying to unite the country under one banner, anyone who spoke out was killed. Hence, you can really add mass murder to many of Henry VIII's crimes because thousands were slaughtered, imprisoned, tortured, etc., simply for disobeying them. …At the time, it was almost like a gang. They were the most powerful gang in the country, and you had to bow to them.
“And if you don't, watch it,” he adds, emphasizing the cruelty of Henry's reign. Your head has been cut off.
Along with obesity and high blood pressure, Henry suffered from painful venous ulcers in his legs that caused his lower extremities to swell and blisters to burst. “On top of that, he was drinking to numb the pain,” Lu explains.
Small nails and pebbles were put into the shoes Lou was wearing so he could walk swaying.
Alicia Vikander and Jude Law as ailing Henry VIII in Firebrand (Brouhaha Entertainment)
And I remember when I passed the actor on set, he had a terrible smell from the gutter.
This was intentional, Law says, to ensure that Vikander and the actors playing the courtiers would sniff and turn up their noses. I will not repeat what the perfume is made of because it will prevent you from eating lunch, dinner and breakfast tomorrow.
All this pain Henry was experiencing increased his poisonous mood, and Lu's eyes sometimes resembled the eyes of a dangerous snake.
Hair and makeup designer Jenny Shirkor deserves to share in any award Lou gets for his performance because she designed the leg blisters and receding hairline.
After shooting The commandLaw reunites with director Kurzel and writer Zach Palin for a TV thriller titled Black rabbit The act's production company, Riff Raff, has produced Jason Bateman compilation films for Netflix.
There's also a film by Ron Howard called Aden Which played at TIFF; It will also be released this year.
He enjoyed making the well-received Disney+ star wars series Skeleton crew.
Will there be more of that? I ask.
“I don't even know if I'll be asked again,” Lu says. “I don't know. The power isn't in my hands though, but I had a ball in the making.”
Later, he plans to play a supporting role in Olivier Assayas's new film Wizard of the KremlinWhere he will portray the role of Vladimir Putin at the beginning of his career in government. “I say that hesitantly because I haven't started working on it yet. I mean, I have, but right now it feels like an Everest to climb, so I'm in the foothills looking up and thinking: 'Oh my God, what did I say?'” That's how I often feel “When I said yes, I was like, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this?’ But anyway, this is up to me to decide.”
Then there are several other pieces on the list that Riff Raff will be developing and producing with his partner Ben Jackson and their team.
He says he likes to be challenged.
“What I love now is being offered, challenged or able to develop roles that take me further away from myself than ever before whether that be physically or emotionally,” says Law. “This seems to be more readily available as I get older.”
What he doesn't want is to be offered things he's done before because, in his book, that's not what he calls a “challenge” and it's not “necessarily what I want to do.” …So it's exciting to go and find the material.
