Jude Law Biography
Jude Law was born December 29, 1972 in south east London. He started acting with the National Youth Music Theatre at the age of 12 and, at 17, he dropped out of school completely, to star in a Granada daytime TV Soap called "Families" (1990). In 1992, Jude began his stage career. He starred in many plays throughout London, and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award of "Outstanding Newcomer". After doing the play "Indiscretions" in London, he moved and did it again on Broadway. This time, he was alongside Kathleen Turner. He then received a Tony Nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actor". He was then rewarded the Theatre World Award. After Broadway, Jude started on the big screen, in many independent films. His first big named movie was Gattaca (1997), with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. He also had a good role in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). Jude's latest rise to fame has been because of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), in which he plays Matt Damon's obsession. The film did very well at the box office, and critics loved the acting of Jude. He is also a partner in the production company "Natural Nylon". His partners include Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor and his ex-wife Sadie Frost. With his production company producing and Jude acting, his career seems to be on the rise.
Spouse - Sadie Frost (2 September 1997 - 29 October 2003) (divorced) 3 children
More Interesting Information for Jude Law
Former roommate of Ewan McGregor.
On People (USA) magazine's '50 Most Beautiful' list. [2000]
Jude's parents, Peter & Maggie Law, were school teachers, but now run a theater company in France. He has one older sister, Natasha, who is a photographer.
Has a tattoo on his left forearm of words from a Beatles song, "Sexy Sadie", which states "You came along to turn on everyone Sexy Sadie", representing his ex-wife Sadie Frost.
During a guest appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992), Jay Leno asked him where his name came from, and he replied that he was named after the Beatles song "Hey Jude." [15 June 2001]
Dropped out of the movie From Hell (2001).
Welcomed third child son Rudy on September 10, 2002. The baby weighed 5lbs 5oz.
Broke a rib after falling backwards while filming the murder scene on the boat in the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999).
He kept the shirts his characters in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) and Gattaca (1997) wore in the scenes when they were killed.
When joining the N.Y.M.T., he was placed in the wrong dormitory because they thought he was a girl because of his name. He never told anyone but was soon caught and moved.
Supports Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in London, UK.
Engaged to actress Sienna Miller [January 2005].
On People (USA) magazine's '50 Most Beautiful' list [2004].
Was originally considered for the role of Shinzon of Remus in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).
Named "Sexiest Man Alive" 2004 by People Magazine.
Was the host of _"Saturday Night Live" the night of the infamous Ashlee Simpson incident.
Four children: Finlay Munro (stepson, born 20 September 1990), Rafferty (6 October 1996), Iris (25 October 2000), Rudy Indiana Otis (10 September 2002).
Son of Peter Law.
Was nominated for Broadway's 1995 Tony Award as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) for "Indiscretions."
Attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Has done 2 movies with director Anthony Minghella, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Cold Mountain (2003), and got Oscar nominations for both. He is now doing a third movie with Minghella, Breaking and Entering (2006).
Is a former partner in the production company Natural Nylon.
Dropped out of school at age 17, to star in the daytime soap "Families" (1990).
Nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award of Outstanding Newcomer.
Received the Ian Charleson Award for Outstanding Newcomer for "Les Parents Terribles" ("Indiscretions").
At the age of 12, started acting with the National Youth Music Theatre.
Has a sister Natasha.
Learned to play saxophone for the film The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999).
Band Brand New has a song named after him, titled 'Jude Law and a Semester Abroad', featured on their album Your Favorite Weapon.
Publicly apologized for cheating on ex-fiancée Sienna Miller with nanny Daisy Wright. [July 2005].
He and his ex-wife Sadie Frost fought a custody battle for over 2 years.
Sienna Miller ended her engagement to him (July 2005) but they have since reconciled.
Attended the Cream reunion at the Royal Albert Hall in May of 2005.
Kate Moss is the godmother of his daughter Iris
Considered for the role of Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
Broke up with Sienna Miller, again [November 13, 2006].
Good friends with Rachel Weisz.
Voted #3 in Elle (France) Magazine's "15 Sexiest Men" poll (June 2007).
Is a huge fan of Little Britain.
Personal quotes from Jude Law
"My only obligation is to keep myself and other people guessing."
"I would never know how to sell myself as a sex symbol. That's not how I'm programmed."
"[...] you go to the National with your parents and think: 'I'd love to be here.' And then suddenly you are. It's a dream come true."
"I've always thought Prince Charming in Cinderella was the most boring role; I'd rather be the Wicked Witch."
"I honestly have no interest in celebrity whatsoever. If anything, I always cringe at it because it takes away from what I am, which is an actor who wants to be better and do better things."
"I don't want to do anything that I'm not passionate about."
"Success, and even life itself, wouldn't be worth anything if I didn't have my wife and children by my side. They mean everything to me."
"I have no problem with nudity. My friend Ewan and I are starkers in most of our films."
"I think it's a bigger risk following a part that plays up your looks than it is to try and carve out a career as an actor."
On his role in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) - "I told Anthony that if I play Dickie Greenleaf, I want to eat in the best restaurants and drink the best wines every night because he would".
{About working on Enemy at the Gates (2001)) "Yeah, I got blown up, cut up...I remember actually, when I had to go the Ripley premiere which was happening at that time, I arrived with this huge gash in my head. Very cool, really".
(About his injury during Dickie's death scene in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)) "Matt [Damon] broke my rib! But I think I strained his neck, we got a little bit carried away".
(about how he got the role of Gigolo Joe) "Through one of those fantastical phone calls when your agent calls you and says 'Stephen Spielberg is on the phone, he wants to speak to you about his next film.' And once you've peeled yourself of the ceiling you go, *clears throat* Yeah, great."
(about the paparazzi) "I throw root vegetables at them."
"Bosie [from the movie Wilde] was the first part I was ever offered, which I suppose is sort of an insult because he's just the nastiest bastard!"
"Well, I had to do a nude scene [in the play Indiscretions], and you're on stage naked but you get over it, you do whatever you have to do. But the first night, my character is just getting out of the bath, and the rest of the crew had poured in freezing cold water."
The truth is, one can work for another ten years and be playing parts, pushing yourself as hard as you can, and you are still accused of that. You're still tainted with that brush. I'm not called Jude Law, I have three names; I'm called 'Hunk Jude Law' or 'Heartthrob Jude Law'. In England anyway, that's my full name. That's the cheap language that's thrown around, that sums you up in one little bracket. It doesn't look at your life. But if one looks beyond, there is actually a little bit more.
"I've always liked what Thomas More said in Utopia, which is that in Utopia every person is allowed their own lifestyle and religion but no one is allowed to stand on a soapbox and tell others that theirs is right. I thought that was brilliant. Brilliant."
"The only film I ever made for money was something called Music From Another Room, which I really didn't like."
"I only want to do the kind of work that I would like to go and see, that's going to teach me something new, that involves working with people I can learn something from and I can give something to."
"I never thought I had to forge a family, but it felt the most natural thing that ever happened to me - meeting someone and becoming a father."
"There were two instances where the police were called for whatever reason to my old house and they sold the story, telling lies. The police were responding to phone calls that happened, but they were then coming out and creating an atmosphere, a drama, when actually nothing had happened; there were no charges pressed. But that's the High Court and then the police selling stories, so how are you going to live in a country and feel safe?"
"Face it, I didn't become famous until I took my clothes off" - (People Magazine 3/26/01)
"It's not ideal for me that they come out all one after the other in four or five months. I did them all because I found them very different different kinds of films, different kinds of parts. And I hope people recognize the variety rather than the onslaught". [On Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), I Heart Huckabees (2004), Alfie (2004), Closer (2004/I) and The Aviator (2004) coming out within 6 months of each other. He actually did them in the last two years.]
"As a culture, the West has found itself in a strange, not battle of the genders, but battle in one's own gender. There's been so much equalizing that we've all kind of lost a little sense of who and what we're about, and a certain amount of definitions of who and what being a woman and being a man is about. It's almost like a murky middle ground that sometimes diffuses the definition and out of that has indeed spawned, in certain areas, misogynism."
"I just want to say I am deeply ashamed and upset that I've hurt Sienna and the people most close to us."
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Jude Law Filmography
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Watchmen (2008) .... Adrien Veidt/Ozymandias
Sleuth (2007) .... Milo Tindle
My Blueberry Nights (2007) .... Jeremy
The Holiday (2006) .... Graham
Breaking and Entering (2006) .... Will Francis
All the King's Men (2006) .... Jack Burden
... aka Spiel der Macht, Das (Germany)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) (voice) .... Lemony Snicket
... aka Lemony Snicket - Rätselhafte Ereignisse (Germany)
The Aviator (2004) .... Errol Flynn
Closer (2004/I) .... Dan
"Saturday Night Live" .... Host (1 episode, 2004)
... aka NBC's Saturday Night (USA: first season title)
... aka SNL (USA: informal title)
... aka SNL 25 (USA: alternative title)
... aka Saturday Night (USA: second season title)
... aka Saturday Night Live '80 (USA: sixth season title)
- Jude Law/Ashlee Simpson (2004) TV Episode .... Host
Alfie (2004) .... Alfie
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) .... Sky Captain
I Heart Huckabees (2004) .... Brad Stand
... aka I Love Huckabees (USA: alternative title)
Cold Mountain (2003) .... Inman
Road to Perdition (2002) .... Harlen Maguire
Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) .... Gigolo Joe
... aka A.I. Artificial Intelligence (USA: poster title)
Enemy at the Gates (2001) .... Vassili Zaitsev
... aka Duell - Enemy at the Gates (Germany)
Love, Honour and Obey (2000) .... Jude
... aka Love, Honor and Obey (USA)
... aka Love, Honour & Obey (UK)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) .... Dickie Greenleaf
... aka The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley (USA: complete title)
Presence of Mind (1999) .... Secretary
... aka Celo, El (Spain)
eXistenZ (1999) .... Ted Pikul
... aka eXistenZ (France)
The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998) .... Steven Grlscz
... aka Immortality (USA: video title)
Final Cut (1998) .... Jude
Music from Another Room (1998) .... Danny
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) .... Billy Carl Hanson
Gattaca (1997) .... Jerome Eugene Morrow
Wilde (1997) .... Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas
... aka Oscar Wilde (Germany) (Japan: English title)
Bent (1997) .... Stormtrooper
I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) .... Ethan
Shopping (1994) .... Billy
The Crane (1994) .... Young Man 1
The Marshal (1993) (TV) .... Bruno
"The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" .... Joe Barnes (1 episode, 1991)
- Shoscombe Old Place (1991) TV Episode .... Joe Barnes
"Families" .... Nathan Thompson (1 episode, 1990)
- Episode #1.1 (1990) TV Episode .... Nathan Thompson
The Tailor of Gloucester (1989) (TV) .... Mayor's Stableboy
Producer:
In Production
2000s
Dexterity (2009) (in production) (producer)
Sleuth (2007) (post-production) (producer)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) (producer)
Soundtrack:
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) (performer: "TU VUO' FA l'AMERICANO")
... aka The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley (USA: complete title)
Girls' Night (1998) (performer: "Ah, Leave Me Not to Pine")
Director:
Tube Tales (1999) (TV) (segment "A Bird in the Hand")
