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The most talented eccentric of today’s cinema or a born tragic man; just a handsome man or an actor who changes face and personality, like a suit – depending on the role. Opinions differ: it occupies minds. And now he prefers to feel more than think. Meeting Jude Law, perhaps the most open person in the world.
He only plays on stage and only on camera. Outside of them, he is genuine, natural. Maybe for the first time in my life I meet a person who does not care so much about the impression he makes. He moves smoothly and bonelessly, he is not disturbed by the light directed at him – the photographer works throughout our interview. Lowe does not interfere with anything, does not constrain anything. He does not restrain his apparent energy and often changes his position in his chair. He made an appointment for me at a hotel on a street with the eloquently London name of Richmond Stables. And this is the choice of a real Londoner, a practical man who is embarrassed by excessive luxury. This is the quietest place in the heart of the booming Soho, on the ground floor there is a democratic cafe, upstairs there are “superior rooms”, suites …
He has a warm, dry, very large palm. A firm handshake and an open smile … And surprisingly transparent, sea-green English eyes. Those eyes can’t lie. These are the eyes of conquerors, colonizers, pioneers. The eyes of a pirate and conqueror of the jungle and prairies. A desperate guy who does not expect anything special from life and treats it like a business that needs to be done. The eyes of a native Londoner, a realist without illusions and an innovator without fear.
Lowe did not want to part with England – he did not move to Hollywood, becoming a star. Maybe his confidence, his calmness is just from there – from childhood in a teacher’s family in a poor area, from a life that is strikingly different from his current one – noisy, extremely public, in which the world vigilantly follows his every gesture and vigorously discusses him supposedly a fleeting relationship with a young actress, and then his DNA analysis for paternity … And I ask him about it. About what helps him live under the microscope of world-wide public attention. He thinks. Then he smiles. Polite and sad. And he answers exactly as his gaze promised – clearly and frankly.
“I PLAYED FURY PEOPLE. AND RELEASED FROM YOUTH ANGRY AT HIMSELF. NO, I WOULD NOT WANT TO GO BACK TO MY 20!
Jude Law: How do I try to keep my privacy intact? Can this really be called “personal”? Oh no, I don’t have a personal life. I have children, I have my life… but for a long time there have been no illusions that it is possible to isolate all this from the rest of the world. And I stopped protesting against publicity. Previously, it seemed to me blatantly unfair that those who are nearby become hostages … My son, unlike me, did not choose this profession, this ultra-public fate! So why is he being followed by the paparazzi even at school? But then I, you know… let go of the reins. Now I think that it is necessary to control yourself, and not the reality around. I survived this crisis. And this is not the first crisis that I have experienced.
Psychologies: Were there others?
D. L .: The most obvious – at the beginning of work in the cinema. I was perceived as a charming, seductive young man. And I wanted to prove that I am a serious actor. I had to prove myself like a theorem. I was an axiom for myself, but I proved, I proved. I was looking for roles that would demonstrate how deceptive beauty is. Heroes who seem to have come from the “dark side”. Roles in which I myself could show my dark side – not the sweet, external, but what is perhaps hidden behind the appearance of any handsome man. Beautiful, but such a vile Bosie in Wilde, Eugene in Gattaca, Billy in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil … These are all furious, angry people! Perhaps, by playing them, I freed myself from the anger in myself. From youthful rage. From youthful anger at himself! I let go only after 30. I would not like to return to my 20s …
What didn’t you like about yourself?
D. L .: I was definitely macho to a certain extent. Was not alien to the euphoria from the production of adrenaline when overcoming obstacles. I tried to show what I can do. But … There is such a soothing saying about the three most terrible things that can happen to a person: death, moving and divorce. I have tested them all. Including the death of a loved one to whom he owed too much … When Anthony died … (Director Anthony Minghella. – Approx. ed.) Divorce. But I have to say, divorce is the worst of them all. I do not want to talk about it. But trust me, it’s the worst. Because you’re really getting to know your dark side… After my divorce from Sadie, it wasn’t my life that changed. I have changed. Left in the past the dark in itself. There is no more overcoming for me. My body no longer produces adrenaline. I started working harder, and not because I wanted to prove something, but because I wanted to become… greedy in some way. To have something that only matters to me. This is work. And garden. I finally bought a house with a garden. And I do it seriously when I have time.
“YES, I AM CONVINCED THAT YOU SHOULD LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKE, DO NOT REPEATE THEM, AND NEVER DISEND. GO FURTHER WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR POSTURE.
You got married pretty early…
D. L .: Yes, at 21. And for me it was okay. Of course, there was no family in my plans then, but when I met Sadie (actress Sadie Frost, Lowe’s ex-wife. – Approx. Ed.), It turned out that there is nothing more natural than getting married and having children. There was no boundary between my pre-family life and family life … Now I understand: I am one of those who are always looking for obligations … After the divorce, it became somehow quiet, I had to come to terms with the fact that the children are now not always with me, but I’m used to be with them always. I was left alone with myself, and it turned out that this is possible for me too. Therefore, I now live quietly alone, for the first time since the age of 19 without any relationship. And I began to relate to meetings and partings more easily. My children, work and myself, finally, became the dominant for me. Until the age of 35, I did not know that it was possible to be the center of your own world. That you can get rid of pressure from outside, from tabloids, from attention. From “self-evidence”. And to know exactly the answer to the question “When do you feel truly happy?”.
And when do you feel this way?
D. L .: Now – with a book in the garden. Or with a shovel in the same garden. But this feeling comes with age, no matter how trivial.
You have committed a number of reckless, according to the public, actions. Do you regret something?
D. L .: Of course I’m sorry. About situations that I created that were painful for other people. What is painful to others is inevitably painful to me, that’s how I am made. But we must learn not to regret our mistakes. I say this as a person who is deeply convinced that one must learn from mistakes. And on their own, not others. Learn to never repeat them and never droop – to go on without changing your posture.
Some people think that sometimes you fuel a keen interest in yourself, for example, choosing gay roles or recently, in Fury, a top transvestite model …
D. L .: Why, I have already said that I care little about how manly I look in the eyes of the public. I will survive, if not courageously enough. And these roles contain a challenge. Which for me will always be much more interesting than any romance and heroism. And this is a challenge, if you like, of time: we live in an era no longer of confrontation between the sexes, but of confrontation between a person and his gender. After all, what was unconditional is now being discussed – sexual orientation, gender itself … The boundaries between the sexes have blurred, and this requires reflection. I present … well, a topic for discussion. Discussions of a person – a spectator – with himself.
Do you do everything with such a distant sight? Do all your roles have an overarching goal? Even in a Martini commercial?
D. L .: I’m talking about the fact that I just learned to live, to live without a fight, and you tell me about the most important task! You see, I – along with nature – do not like emptiness. When a free week appears, I can’t lie on the beach, but I start a hike with the children. When filming is off day, I undertake a self-educational tour. For example, when I recently had ten days of vacation, my friends and I went to Afghanistan. I try to bring meaning to everything I do. Maybe in a Martini ad first. In this advertising campaign, in its mood, intonation, there is a lot of my current self-awareness. Although I usually try to isolate the hero from myself. But today what the hero of the Martini advertising campaign lives by is close to me: clarity of being, lightness, inner peace. You may despise advertising, but don’t deny it: it can promote spiritual values just as much as what you consider art.
And what are these values?
D. L .: Calm and peace. Outside and inside the person. Rest from yourself – from the race for success, for being on the crest … Pleasure from every day of life.
That is, hedonistic?
D. L .: No, I wouldn’t say. Rather, it is about feeling and sensibility – the ability to feel. About the feeling of fullness of life. The drink, its taste is only a metaphor for the taste for life, for existence. And in this sense, yes, I have a super task in Martini advertising even for myself. For me, it is not only income, but … an attempt to translate calmness into the world.
Does star status help you with this?
D. L .: You know, despite my popularity with tabloid workers, I don’t identify well as a celebrity. Maybe because of my childhood – my parents were teachers, but they loved acting (after retirement, they indulged in a hobby completely, they now have a small theater). And in our family, performances, films, music were endlessly discussed. But if you grow up in South London, you can’t imagine yourself in films. I dreamed about the stage. About serious roles in the theater. And then, I have an older sister, she was a leader, a beauty, an artist from the age of seven. I was with her, a little behind her, “on vocals”, although by the senior classes I became a “soloist” – because of the roles in the children’s theater. And he hated school: fear of authorities, sheep’s existence in the herd. The desire to be yourself, to have an opinion, to ask questions is dying in you. This really bothered me later – I was afraid to ask the director a question, I was afraid of a dialogue with him, as if he were a teacher, whose dictate is eternal and legitimate. It took me years to learn how to ask, find out, clarify positions. Learn to live by the principle: if you have a question, ask it.
“CLARITY OF BEING, LIGHTNESS, INTERNAL PEACE. A REST FROM THE RACE TO BE ON THE CREST ALL THE TIME. TODAY IS THAT IS CLOSE TO ME.
And yet you as an actor depend on so many people, from the casting director to the lighting engineer…
D. L .: I just like it! I like that you need to understand many people. I like that I’m just the tip of the iceberg. I am visible on the stage and on the screen, but as if representing on behalf of many – from the same illuminator and from the make-up artist, and from the assistant director with a clapperboard, and from the girl who brings me coffee in the pauses between takes! Success or failure depends on us all. We are all just parts of what is called the creative process… And life in general. And I don’t mind being just a part at all.
as Hamlet
Prince Hamlet is a person of blue blood, unattainably high and incomprehensible for ordinary mortals … It seems that it is this thesis, rooted in centuries of theatrical interpretations of Shakespeare, that the actor Lowe is trying to refute. His Hamlet is an eccentric figure, a guy without a king in his head, arranging more and more clowning. Sometimes desperate, sometimes cruel, for someone deadly. “What would you like? the actor wonders. “He killed Polonius and didn’t regret it. He framed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and did not sob about his classmates. He really thinks about the fate of man in the world, but this is only one facet of him. Others … He hides boundless selfishness behind irony. And he is so similar to us, people of the XNUMXst century – he does not know how to repent and even regret about someone other than himself. I play a reckless guy, an infantile, torn by passions. And the theater is not a museum, it is not for storage, but for discussion. And there is nothing to make of Shakespeare a permanent exhibition, as if we were … in the Hermitage!”
Private bussiness
- 1972 In a family of teachers and amateur actors, the second child, Jude David, was born (older sister Natasha is a year and a half older).
- 1984 Becomes an actor at the National Youth Musical Theatre.
- 1989 The first serious role – in the television series “Families”.
- 1992 A string of stage roles earn Lowe the Laurence Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
- 1993 Begins a personal relationship with actress Sadie Frost.
- 1994 Role in the film “Shopping” Paul Andersson.
- 1996 Birth of son Rafferty.
- 1997 “Wilde” by Brian Gilbert; “Gattaca” by Andrew Niccol; marries Sadie Frost.
- 1999 Establishes production company Natural Nylon with friends Johnny Lee Miller and Ewan McGregor.
- 2000 Birth of daughter Iris; Oscar nomination for his role in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley.
- 2002 Damn Way by Sam Mandes; birth of son Rudy.
- 2003 Oscar nomination for his role in “Cold Mountain” by Anthony Minghella; divorces Frost.
- 2004 Begins a personal relationship with model and actress Sienna Miller; The Aviator by Martin Scorsese; Closeness by Mike Nichols.
- 2006 “Invasion” by Anthony Minghella; breaks up with Miller.
- 2007 “My Blueberry Nights” by Wong Kar-Wai; The Detective by Kenneth Branagh.
- 2008 Becomes the face of Martini in Russia and Dior Homme Sport. Filmed by Lowe in Afghanistan, The Day After Peace documentary is a special event at the Cannes Film Festival.
- 2009 “Rage” Sally Potter; “Sherlock Holmes” by Guy Ritchie; The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Terry Gilliam; a love affair with American Samantha Burke leads to a public scandal over her pregnancy announcement from Lowe; starring role in Hamlet by Michael Grain.