Jude Law - Biography

Name: Jude Law

Born: 29 December 1972 (Age: 36)

Where: London, England

Height: 5' 11"

Awards: Won BAFTA, nominated for 2 Oscars, 3 Golden Globes

It's not easy to be a Brit in Hollywood, particularly a Brit of the finely chiselled variety. You'll get the occasional period drama, perhaps a flukey hit murder mystery (as Jeremy Irons did with Reversal Of Fortune). But you're much more likely to be cast as a ruthless villain whose aristocratic sense of superiority has wiped out all trace of decency and mercy (as Jeremy Irons was in Die Hard 3). The only way out, it seems, is to take every chance you're given to escape Brit-ness, and Jude Law's career is proof positive of that. By challenging himself as a gay Georgian urchin, a Russian sniper, a cyborg gigolo, a mobster hitman and a crippled Confederate vet, he's utterly sidestepped the typecasters. And he's also made such high-profile buddies as Steven Spielberg. Not bad for a stage actor who once considered his first appearance at the National Theatre to be the pinnacle of success.

He was born David Jude Law in South East London on December 29, 1972, the second child of Peter and Maggie (they'd earlier had a daughter, Natasha, now a photographer), and grew up in Blackheath. It remains unclear whether his name was inspired by The Beatles' Hey Jude or Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure - one hopes it was the former, the latter being so remorselessly miserable. Peter was a primary school teacher, with a pony tail. Maggie taught English to refugee kids. Into amateur dramatics, they now run their own theatre company in France.

Initially attending a local comprehensive school, Law was deeply disturbed by the levels of violence and bullying and was moved to a private school - Alleyn's in Dulwich. But he had discovered acting even before this switch. While performing in a school play at the tender age of six, he found that he naturally understood "the concept of creating imaginative scenarios". Sensitive to their son's artistic leanings, Peter and Maggie would take him regularly to the theatre, always discussing the play and performance afterwards.

Being one of the lucky few to recognise their vocation in their pre-teens, Law didn't hang around. By the age of 12 he'd enrolled at the National Youth Music Theatre (where he met long-time friend and production partner Jonny Lee Miller) and, having appeared in their Joseph And his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, soon made his TV debut in a musical production of Beatrix Potter's The Tailor Of Gloucester. However, precocious and impatient for action, Law did not stick to his studies for long, dropping out of school completely at 17 to appear in Families, a daytime soap opera from Granada. From then, throughout his early twenties, Law mostly dedicated himself to theatre.

He toured Italy in a production of Pygmalion, then made his London debut in The Fastest Clock In The Universe, voted the Best New Play of 1992 by Time Out magazine.

Having in 1992 appeared in a short for the BFI called The Crane, Law's film career proper made a stuttering start in 1993 when he made Shopping. This concerned alienated, thrill-seeking British teenagers fighting and wreaking havoc in dilapidated urban landscapes, and featured Marianne Faithfull and Jonathan Pryce, but it was not a success. Law was roundly panned for his efforts, but did forge important friendships - with actors Sean Pertwee and, especially, Sadie Frost (at that time married to Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet, with whom she had a son, Finlay).

Undeterred, Law returned to the theatre, appearing in The Snow Orchid, the Royal Court's production of Live Like Pigs, and Death Of A Salesman. Then came his first breakthrough, as he caused a storm in Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles, spending the first scene of the second act nude in a bathtub. The play was a huge hit, with Law nominated for a prestigious Olivier award as Best Newcomer. Its name changed to Indiscretions, it transferred to Broadway in 1995, just after Law had finished in Ion at the Barbican's Pit Theatre (Law had actually commuted from Ion to rehearsals in New York). And, with Kathleen Turner starring, it won out again - as did Law who found himself nominated for a Tony.

His confidence high and his reputation sparkling, Law now found some prime movie parts coming his way. He starred alongside Stephen Fry in Wilde, as the spoiled and petulant Bosie whose father eventually brings Wilde down. Then came America. He was well-cast as a hopeless romantic in Music From Another Room, then played opposite Claire Danes in I Love You, I Love You Not, which sensitively placed the pain of young love up against the horrors of the Holocaust, the Holocaust being a subject he would revisit with a cameo role in Bent. At extreme speed, he found himself in bigger and bigger movies. There was the sci-fi thriller Gattaca, with Uma Thurman, then Law's finest performance to date, as the hot-headed Southern hustler Billy Carl Hanson who attempts to shake down Kevin Spacey in Clint Eastwood's classy Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil.

With all of these movies being released in 1997, Law was on a major roll. He took a brief sabbatical to marry Sadie Frost - five years his senior - on a barge on the Grand Union Canal (as well as Finlay, they have three children, Rafferty, Iris and Rudy), then went back to work. First came The Wisdom Of Crocodiles, where he impressed as a conservative medical researcher who becomes an over-sexed vampire by night. He appeared as Ted Pikul, the confused and frantic hero trying desperately to survive in David Cronenberg's futuristic freak-out eXistenZ, then moved on to a different level entirely.

In The Talented Mr Ripley, he was excellent as decadent rich boy Dickie Greenleaf, who's murdered and then impersonated by Matt Damon. Boosted by a stunning cameo by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the movie was a box-office smash, eventually being viewed by over 200 million, and Law - also Oscar nominated for his role - won a BAFTA.

. In the meantime, aside from directing a segment of Tube Tales for TV, Law had started up a production company, Natural Nylon, in partnership with Frost, Pertwee, Miller and Law's former room-mate Ewan McGregor. Nylon had produced eXistenZ, and now put together the rather weak, Law-starring Brit crim flick Love, Honour And Obey. Having returned to the stage to perform in the Young Vic's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, now Hollywood beckoned Law once more, with his Filofax now full for years to come. First there was Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy At The Gates, with Law as a hot-shot sniper battling it out with Ed Harris at Stalingrad.

Then Spielberg came calling with AI, a project he'd inherited from the late Stanley Kubrick. Here Haley Joel Osment played a mecha-kid, the first robot to exhibit real feelings, but is tossed out by his "foster-parents" and engages in a Pinocchio-like quest to find the Blue Fairy who can make him a real boy. Lost and alone, he encounters Law, playing Gigolo Joe, a cyborg programmed to pleasure women, who agrees to help him. Jude received many plaudits for his efforts, including a Golden Globe nomination, having made Joe a theatrically overblown creature, prone to camp and the odd dance (for which Jude trained for 3 months in ballet, tap and Kabuki).

After this came Sam Mendes' Road To Perdition, where Tom Hanks plays a hitman for mobster Paul Newman. When Hanks' young son witnesses one of his dad's murders, he must be eliminated, so Hanks takes him on the run, pursued by remorseless fellow-assassin, Harlen Maguire, played by Law. With his teeth stained, his face whitened and his hair pulled out to make it look thinning, Jude was making serious efforts to avoid a pretty-boy image.

Next came Cold Mountain, directed by Anthony Minghella, earlier the helmsman of The Talented Mr Ripley. Based on the novel by Charles Frazier, this saw Jude as Confederate soldier Inman, traumatised by witnessing one of the Civil War's most dreadful massacres and on a dangerous journey back to his mountain home and (hopefully) the arms of his pre-war preacher's daughter sweet-heart Ada. She was played by Nicole Kidman, who added to a stellar cast including Renee Zellweger, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi and Donald Sutherland - and Jude credited above them all. With a second Oscar nomination, another Golden Globe nomination and a $10 million pay-packet to boot, he'd surely made it.

But there was also trouble in store.

Though son Rudy would be born in 2002, Law's relationship with Sadie Frost was already on the rocks, and all efforts to save it were stymied by a quite frightening media intrusion, as well as pressures of work. Law had only four days away from the set of Cold Mountain to spend with his wife and new-born. Rumours flew worldwide that Law had engaged in an affair with Kidman, then fancy-free after her split from Tom Cruise. Both parties denied it, indeed Kidman successfully sued the Sun newspaper for libel. Nevertheless, Law and Frost were divorced in 2003, Frost citing Law's "unreasonable behaviour" which, she claimed, had worsened her post-natal depression to the extent that she'd had to seek medical aid. Matters had not been helped when, at a kids' party at London's Soho House club, daughter Iris had eaten an ecstasy tablet she'd apparently found on the floor and been rushed to hospital.

. Throughout 2003, Law would remain a tabloid favourite, partly for the divorce proceedings, and partly due to a new relationship with actress Sienna Miller. He'd met her on the set of Alfie, a remake of the Michael Caine classic, in which Law starred as the cockney Lothario, this time working as a chauffeur in Manhattan, his coterie of lovelies including Susan Sarandon and Marisa Tomei. Before this, Law had been careful to avoid romantic roles, not wanting to play upon his looks. But Alfie, charming but deeply lonely, alienated in New York and spiritually empty, was a role he could not turn down.

Alfie would not be the first in a sudden burst of releases reflecting Jude's immense work-load over the last couple of years. Indeed, over 2004 he would be near ubiquitous. He'd put in a cameo as Errol Flynn in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese's bio-pic of Howard Hughes. He'd appear as the titular Sky Captain in Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, aiding journalist Gwyneth Paltrow and adventuress Angelina Jolie in 1939 New York as they attempt to foil a mad scientist's fiendish plot to rule the world with giant robots. It was classic 1940s sci-fi, crammed with derring-do, filmed with great imagination and deservedly hit US Number One.

After this there'd be I Heart Huckabee's where Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin played "existential detectives" who dig into the meaning of people's lives and relationships. Taken on by Jason Schwartzman to unravel a conflict he has with Jude, an upcoming executive at the Huckabee's retail chain, they're drawn into confusing areas when they're also hired by Law to pry into Schwartzman's perfect life with Naomi Watts. Following this would come the first film adaptation of the bestselling Lemony Snicket novels, A Series Of Unfortunate Events, with Jim Carrey as the wicked Count Olaf aiming to cheat three orphans of their inheritance. Jude would play Lemony Snicket, acting as narrator.

There was supposed to be even more 2004 action with Tulip Fever, adapted from Deborah Moggach's novel and directed by John Madden. This was to have seen Keira Knightley as a penniless peasant in 1600s Amsterdam, marrying wealthy merchant Jim Broadbent to avoid starvation, but then losing her heart to Jude, a poor artist hired to paint her portrait. The young lovers' only hope of escape is to make a killing by speculating in the crazy tulip market of the time. Unfortunately, Chancellor Gordon Brown's decision to close a tax loophole in the law surrounding British film productions caused the project to be shelved.

But still 2004 was not finished, as Law also took on Mike Nichols' version of Patrick Marber's stage hit Closer. Here, a rather unpleasant Jude would set his friend Clive Owen up for humilation with photographer Julia Roberts, only for the two to enjoy a relationship. Later, Owen would also form a bond with Law's own girlfriend, a self-destructive stripper played by Natalie Portman. It was harsh but rewarding stuff.

Where 2004 saw Law seize the public's attention with his work, the next year would bring a tabloid frenzy over his private life. Firstly his divorce from Sadie Frost would be difficult, financially at least, with Frost taking possession of a big house in Primrose Hill and several million pounds. Then his relationship with Sienna Miller hit the rocks when it was revealed that he'd cheated on her with nanny Daisy Wright. He and Miller would later reconcile, but their relationship would naturally be far more volatile than before, a situation not aided by the couple's work schedules as Miller rose to cinematic prominence.

2006 would bring Law back to the screen, first in All the King's Men, based on the famous novel by Robert Penn Warren and earler filmed, with Oscar-winning success, in 1949. This would see Sean Penn as a Louisiana farm boy who would first bring decency and truth to state politics, then gradually succumb to corruption, his story being told by Law, as Jack Burden, a journalist who's followed Penn's career. Burden's life would be further complicated by his relationship with the ex-Governor's daughter (Kate Winslet) and Penn's request that he dig the dirt on judge Anthony Hopkins, a good man who once raised Law as his own son. It would be Law's tortured research that brought tragedy and death to an already hard-hitting tale.

Following this would come Breaking And Entering, uniting Law for the third time with Anthony Minghella. This would see him as a London architect whose relationship with Robin Wright Penn is in crisis, the couple struggling to cope with an autistic daughter. When Law's Kings Cross offices are continually burgled by daring young free-runners, though, he follows one of them home and meets the crim's mother, Juliette Binoche, a Bosnian refugee and former pianist. And so Law embarks on an epic journey through the wilder side of himself and the city.

Law would remain in London for the rom-com The Holiday, where new friends Kate Winslet (again) and Cameron Diaz, both unlucky in love (surely not), would swap homes in the spirit of romantic adventure. While Winslet would meet Jack Black in LA, in England Diaz would encounter Law. Following this would come My Blueberry Nights, the cinematic debut of photogenic singer Norah Jones, where Jones would play a mysterious young lady seeking the true meaning of love as she crosses America, meeting offbeat characters including Law's Closer co-star Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and Law himself.

Onscreen, Jude Law now appears with the greatest stars of the age, but he claims he's not tempted by the superstar lifestyle. Were it not for the paparazzi, we would seldom hear from him at all. His work-rate is phenomenal, though he's clearly picky in selecting his roles, nowadays taking only the classiest of projects. This will serve him well in years to come - major awards are surely on the way.

Dominic Wills