Jude Law Career Retrospective | SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations

hello everyone and welcome to this sag after foundation conversation at home i'm dave karger from turner classic movies very happy to be here today before i introduce our special guest on behalf of my friends at the sag after foundation i want to let you know that they have a coven 19 relief fund to support sag after performers who are in urgent need as this pandemic continues since march of 2020 the foundation has given nearly six million dollars in aid to over 6 300 performers and families who are facing extreme hardship if you are a sag-aftra member and you need help please ask if you're able to support our community and this crucial effort please give all the information can be found in the description of this video and now it is my pleasure to introduce our special guest a two-time sag award nominee i should say for his performances in the cast of the aviator and the grand budapest hotel jude law hello jude great to see you hey good to be here how are you really good really good so we're going to go through a bunch of the films in your career don't worry not all of them because then we would be here for about a week and we would run out of space on zoom um but a bunch of highlights before i get into the films though i'd be curious to ask you a little bit about your childhood i know your parents were both educators yeah and just be curious where the interest in performing came from and how and when you knew that you had a talent for it it's uh it's a question funnily enough i was trying to trace back with my parents just recently um because my as you as you just mentioned both my parents were teachers and now they're now both retired um but neither of them had uh families or parents themselves who were particularly uh keen uh singers act as performers in any way um and they they related it back to a group of friends that they met when i was a baby so that's in the sort of early 70s um when they both settled down in southeast london and they joined um i think for social reasons initially really um a local amateur theater company um and i think i'm right in saying that the amateur theater scene in in the uk is is pretty strong i mean most communities certainly used to have an amateur theater or an amateur theater company or an amateur opera company and you know as as is well known that the the theatre uh community the legacy of theater is is quite all permeating in the uk still um certainly in schools and then obviously as i mentioned out of schools in in amateur or amdram uh communities and i grew up my parents both took to it with huge passion and my father is an actor my mom is a director and i grew up with my sister usually in the back of a this drafty old theater in southeast london that was the home to this company um really just watching i guess and listening and learning because i i got involved as a child really young getting roped in to do little parts and then i joined the youth company of this amateur dramatic society and then to answer your other the other part of that question i think like any kid you know if i'm honest i was i was they they i was told i was good at it very young and you know what child doesn't like to be told that they're good at something it became that thing that i did i mean i was okay at sport i was okay at school i i wasn't particularly outstanding but this performing acting was something i remember being told very young oh you know uh jude will do this and you can do that and i just and i loved it and i love the democracy of it i love being in plays as a kid with with adults and there was always a sort of uh shared belief in in the you know the person who had the right idea had the best idea and uh that didn't matter who it was or what age they were and um you know if i it's interesting being in a play with adults when all the adults are terrified and you're kind of not you know you feel confident and you know it's a very interesting environment uh and i found it very appealing and i i conveyed that into school and then eventually from school into another theater company and that's really how i fell into it obviously we're focusing on your screen work here today yeah um but a lot of that early stream work came because of you know some wonderful performances you gave on stage when you when les paul voluntarily came to united states and was renamed indiscretions and you had that that's right i mean if i'm honest where i grew up the idea of being in films i loved being my parents took me to the cinema an awful lot and i was obsessed with films both for forum when i say foreign like you know foreign language uh and art house and old movies and blockbusters i mean i watched and devoured everything but the idea of being in films seemed very far-fetched far reach for me i growing up you know in south east london there was i just didn't see that it was i didn't even think of it as a as a possibility whereas acting in theater seemed realistic and obviously once i fell into the theater as a professional actor uh people would start talking about films and i would audition for them or be offered them and and that's sort of how i find i segued into film acting and the first film i want to ask you about not your not your first film but one of your earlier films from 97 is wild because i feel like that's a movie that was something of a splash for you and if you go back and look at that performance as bosey douglas and i think you're like 24 years old 23 24 when you shot it there's a confidence there obviously a lot of that confidence is because of the character that's how he carries himself but i even sense that in you as an actor do you think it's because you had had some substantial theater work under your belt that you were able to kind of have such confidence in your early screen work yes i think it was a part of it i'd worked at the national theater i'd worked at the royal shakespeare company i'd done a lot of theater in and around uh the smaller theaters and but but really the sort of uh what we would say i guess off-broadway off uh west end theaters so yeah i guess that is where i i knew i knew how to prepare i think if i'm honest a lot of it was also youthful uh confidence you know and swagger um which was slowly whittled away at you know as as i got older um because i do look back sometimes and think wow how did i stroll onto that set and do that you know and i mean there are certain elements to that the sexuality and the and the and the uh i think there was quite a bit of nudity even in that film i was thinking about that recently and i i just had no problem with it i think i was convinced that you know commitment and enthusiasm and uh throwing oneself into something wholeheartedly and being there for the director was was was the best way forward and it served me well for several years uh i mean i think what i realized i had to then come back or or start to nurture was more of a process and more of a a sort of uh studious approach but but wild was wild did it's a good it's good you brought that up because it really did come directly from a play i was doing i was doing uh indiscretions on broadway and i became friends for the time with rufus sewell who was also doing i think he was in translations on broadway and he very kindly i think he had auditioned for bosey and told them that they should meet me because bose was described as this sort of you know prettier than pretty blonde uh uh young thing and he was like oh you should meet jude law because back then i was very a little almost like a little girl um and uh he very kindly sort of shoved them my way so that's how that came about but it was it was what i always considered sort of one of my my first film away my setting my breakthrough yeah yeah this is so fun for me because you and i are the exact same age i'm three months younger than you so every every movie that i'm talking about it's so fun for me because when i was seeing it you were the same age filming it and i feel like i'm going through this with you hey yeah have you have you gotten to that point then where you're you're you're sort of reflecting on all those different chapters because suddenly they are 20 years ago or 25 years ago and and absolutely you're a little more forgiving [Laughter] of gattica i know is important to you and i'm very affected by that movie when i saw it in 97. um jerome morrow your character wheelchair bound my understanding also that this was kind of an introduction for you to kind of the hollywood system to l.a you were spending a lot of time there so there was that to get used to and then also just the logistics of acting naturally in the wheelchair which was you know not something that the character had done his whole life this was a result of a car accident so how did that all play into it the the acting in the chair and making it natural yeah it um so so gataker was indeed the first time i was offered a a film role abroad in particular hollywood so it was a huge deal for me uh and a real landmark moving moving to los angeles and rehearsing uh on a you know in a studio lot and working with great actors that i'd seen on the big screen in in in the company of you know these extraordinary producers danny devito was one of our producers it was it was sort of you know at times mind-blowing what was going on and um and yet going back to what i said before about about my approach i think there was also this part of me which is always about like get the part right and be confident in the part and a lot of that i was whilst i i had this experience as an actor on stage i was sort of learning on the hoof you know um but but with that particular role it was it was key to me to get the physicality right so i worked with um a couple of guys in london uh who one one of whom was um uh born paraplegic and the other was um uh in an accident and uh both obviously were wheelchair bound and they they gave me incredible insight and physical um demonstrations actually of uh the way they moved around their house and um i guess i guess reflecting now it was a a real eye-opener to the potential of of doing the right amount of work thorough physical work and preparation so that you could arrive on a set and be really confident in what was thrown at you uh and also you know this this level of responsibility that if you're playing someone who has uh a physical disability or um uh you know a particular lifestyle you have to study it you have to be clear and truthful to it um and then we worked i worked again with another uh another man in uh and on the set because there's a scene in the film when i have to uh my character throws himself out of his chair to ascend this this this beautiful spiral staircase and uh he and i work together on that uh before we filmed it for several days i think yeah wow when i think back to this early part in your career you know with movies like wild midnight in the garden of good and evil where you played an escort essentially your the early part of your career is marked by a real sense of daring um and i'm curious as to whether that was just kind of ingrained in you is that because of theater work and so things like that didn't scare you did you have any pushback from people like maybe you shouldn't be taking all these sexually frank roles what's your recollection of that time in general i don't remember getting much pushback and but i don't know obviously whether that was because i was very clear about what i wanted to do i i don't know i remember you know those particular roles that you've mentioned it it would have been foolish not to do them uh wild mostly wild was a was a terrific supporting role with a with a wonderful direct you know a midnight in the garden of good evil which you mentioned again was you know directed by clint eastwood and it had kevin spacey in it and i mean at the time it was it was very clearly a good decision i think i was i was aware that i was being sent up for and perceived as this kind of good-looking uh uh pretty boy um and i was really keen to play against that i was really keen to set up my stall as a serious actor and as a character actor as an actor who could was versatile and not a one-trick pony who was sort of relying on on looks in any way so that was if anything my sort of modus operandi if i had one but in truth i was sort of following my my nose a little and as with and as most actors will tell you i you know you're also you've got to deal with uh what's in front of you if nothing's in front of you you've got to look for for something and uh you know if there is something in front of you you got to sort out which of these suits me best or which of these will uh uh get me the next job yeah well if there was a role that ever allowed you to achieve both sides as dickie greenleaf in the town well funnily enough that was the one film i pushed back against i mean this is the most ridiculous story now or or decision making so i had done several of these smaller films and as i told you i uh i had this sort of fight in myself that i didn't want to be perceived as this good looking guy and i get offered this incredible role and my first instinct is not to do it uh i don't i don't know what i was thinking um and it anthony then had to come down to this set i was making this tiny little weird little movie called wisdom of crocodiles or something i don't think anyone ever saw possibly fortunately uh and ant came down to sort of persuade me and and of course once he sort of first of all once i engaged with him he was the most uh warm and and and uh spirited and lovely man people you're talking about the direction i think anthony miguel yeah but also he obviously clearly set out his vision of the film and and the other actors involved and uh i realized that i was maybe um fighting the wrong end so i jumped but you talked you into it anthony did he did successfully yeah okay good and i mean it sounds as if that was really an idyllic i mean you've told so many great stories over the years of just you know being down in iskia and being forced to get a tan and you know having this wonderful life with the cast it was it was an extraordinary experience um yeah so the trappings that you mentioned were all were all rather all added to this sense of uh a kind of golden memory but in truth the collaboration on the set and the the focus of what anthony wanted to make and how he communicated that and shared that with all of us cast and crew alike was really the overriding uh uh memory and experience that i took away and of course it being in and on the coast of italy and in the summer and and and on boats and in the ocean and all of that made it this this this blissful experience but i had the same experience with him in the uh you know sub-zero uh mountains of romania and in the swamps of uh virginia when i was working with him uh on on cold mountain and beyond and um i suppose what i'm saying is really the overriding memory with the people and the and the work yeah the climactic scene in the boat with the ore yeah it's i mean i just remember how true i had not read the book when i saw the movie um i just remember how truly shocking that was um and i i've heard you tell stories about kind of laying in the heat on with in that boat with matt damon with the fake blood caked all over you but just as far as shooting the emotion of it and the action of it and the intensity of it what's your recollection of of that so i remember us we rehearsed the film in parts for a couple of weeks in rome at china cheetah the studio there and i remember the three of us matt anthony and myself in this boat and in truant style you know he he he got everything one needed for the rehearsal so even though we're in a studio uh uh we were rehearsing with a boat and so we can get the proximity and the physicality and it was very clear emotionally how far he wanted us to go and the antagonism of from dickie to tom the idea that that tom in the end is is is sort of stamping out the the the um the vitriol i suppose that um that dicky is throwing at him almost like like swatting a bug away and this this notion of also that in a way because of it was a very strong idea that the first blow he he he he gives dick he kind of cuts dickies you know golden face in half so in a way you i think ant wanted one to feel that if if tom hadn't killed dicky dicky would have probably killed tom so there's so the fight had to be and if you notice we go from one end to the other like this it's like it's like a kind of arm wrestle until as i as i mentioned tom kind of stamps him to death really so we were pretty clear of course a lot of that rehearsal goes out the window when you're in the middle of the ocean and the boat's rocking and the oar breaks and then you know you know it's mid-day and it's 40 degrees or 100 something degrees and which is all part of it you know you play you play the the situation the truth of the situation but a lot of the work that had gone in was sort of in the dna of us and it already and then it was a case of just i think we did it over two days maybe three just getting the um getting the beats right i think the first part of that was shot actually on a jetty with just half a boat looking out to sea because we had this huge prosthetic on my face that needed constant treating and that was the first day the second day we were out at sea where where they could actually get a pontoon and see the boat and see us much more physically and then the last day was in the pot in the boat with us wow well it was so powerful and a very well deserved oscar nomination for you the first of your of your two so far um i because i work at turner classic movies i'm so curious to ask you about the preparation that you did for ai because my understanding is that you to play gigolo joe you really studied people like fred astaire and in order to get that right i i want to hear more about that and what that was like for you to do um it was uh it was extraordinary to me that after an initial conversation with spielberg he empowered me to go away and do all this work and just investigate my to follow my kind of curiosity really and we had this idea that he could be i remember i remember off the initial conversation stephen had this idea that he wanted him to feel sort of gentlemanly and old-fashioned even though he was a gigolo and a robot um and so he came up with the idea of the music and the old old tunes and that he maybe could have a jukebox inside him that he could change every time he tilted his head a new record would come on and and then it became obvious that he would also therefore need a physicality and the physicality had to hint at something robotic and mechanic but at the same time be fluid um so yeah i went off and worked he let me then what i'm saying is he let me then go off and really work on that any which way i thought necessary so i worked with a choreographer for months um i wish it had been years because of course you know you can't become gene kelly or fred astaire overnight that takes decades uh but i worked hard and would send these little videos of different ideas movement little tap dance routines little ways of standing or walking and and uh and we would send them weekly off to stephen who was prepping in la and i was in london and he would send back notes and we'd have conversations so that's how that all evolved and it was really handy it kind of gave joe uh a limitation that made me comfortable with his robot you know the thing about creating joe was i had to limit what what he knew and what he didn't know there was only so much that he was programmed to understand and the evolution he goes on is to make this tiny little recognition of oh he is he is he is present uh his last line is so profound uh i am i was knowing that he's about to die he's about to be finished and therefore his existence is over but i mean whilst it's a tiny leap it's a profound leap for a programmed entity to make um and the physicality gave me a lot of that confinement if you like that's great uh road to prediction is one that i find so fascinating and my god what a cast i mean as from people who were legendary like paul newman someone at the top of their game like tom hanks a future superstar like daniel craig and you i mean it's just kind of and sam mendes is all kind of mind blowing um mcguire who you play very kind of um you know unsavory character with the rotting teeth and all that i want to ask you specifically about the scene in the diner with you and tom hanks where you're having the conversation with each other from different booths and he's basically outsmarting you in in the moment that must have been very exciting to to shoot because the dialogue is great but also what you're doing with your face is really interesting what are your recollections of that so you know all the elements you just mentioned made that experience the whole experience really wonderful uh both as a as an actor and as a human being you know they were all very very great craftsmen from whom i learned so much but also really lovely people from whom i learned so much so it was a very special time that and uh you know living in chicago i i didn't know chicago well uh and i and i was fortunate enough to spend you know the months there and i loved it i fell in love with that city um that scene was a night shoot we were shooting in a in a beautiful old um diner roadside diner that thinking back they must have built it i can't believe it was an original or maybe it was an original that they'd sort of spruced up but there it was on the side of this dirt track in the middle of nowhere outside of chicago so that we could do all the drive ups and it had to be clearly in a rural setting because of the dark fields around us and you know it was lit and and and filled as if for real and so we just go in and we block it out and we get on with it we get our heads down and we shoot it uh you know as with so many of my memories and experiences of of of working with these really great actors and and and great directors you prep you discuss you rehearse and then you just you just shoot you you you see what happens but all the conversation all the talking is over and done with and you just pick it apart when the camera's turning over my i have a i have a memory of being blown away at tom first of all tom hanks tom's bit tom being had to eat steak after steak after steak because he's eating a steak nervously during that scene and doesn't stop eating and he may be ate about six steaks but not only that he's the only person i've ever worked with who seems to be at a he he can sweat on cue like there's one there's one moment where this perspiration just gets ripped down his face and he would do it maybe not exactly on the same line but every single time on his close-up this bead of sweat somewhere would run it was like how how's he doing that uh i was i was yeah that i so going back a little bit i was i that was around the time i realized i wanted to sort of evolve a bit more of a process to my preparation uh i've talked a bit about you know learning learning like you know skill sets whether or or or um adding you know understanding to to a part physically whether it's the dance or talking to people um who uh are perhaps paraplegic or whatever it may be um that one should study and with mcguire there was such a sort of physical embodiment that i i went much more into this sort of animal and uh kind of almost a sort of uh a physical uh mental i mean um other place to sort of find him because he was he was so sort of distant from me and yet there also wasn't anything i could necessarily hang a hat on saying oh that's who he is so it was sort of trying to create this this other person this being and there wasn't a lot in the script to go off um it was quite fleeting the mentions of him and there was a graphic novel that that they based the script on which they um adapted and again maguire i think was either a a composite of characters or just mentioned at the end so i had free reign but that's not always the easiest way to start but i do remember you know creating this this man sort of living in him uh and trying to stay in character because because that was the best way to hold on to him through a long night shoot like that one or um you know uh in all these scenes when he was on his own because he's always one step behind the rest of the team who the crew who are kind of moving on he's chasing them you also have quite an unforgettable death moment in that just the way he falls he like falls to his knees and then block on the face was that like all planned out i'm assuming that's you and not a stunt person that was me yeah i remember i was really proud of learning to do that it's basically a face fall but you take it on your hands you kind of hide your hand somewhere else but it looks like you're just going bang on the floor and i work with that with the stunt guy no again that was something we came up with i think we were all so bold over by the way the great conrad hall had lit this room and if anyone ever wants to go back and look at that scene nowadays you would look at that scene and there's a reflection through the glass of the shore and all you keep hearing is this beautiful sound of water lapping on a beach and it looks like it's been projected but connie lit it in such a way that actually that is the sea outside coming in sort of like a like a like a refraction through the glass and i think we all walked in and were sort of under the spell of this this incredible intoxicating light and sound um and then as i've mentioned before it was really just the practicality okay how do we film this how do we best create this shocking ending both for tom and for me um yeah you did it together um i want to ask about cold mountain which you've alluded to already like go ahead and make another movie with anthony miguel and get another oscar nomination for yourself that's a good way to do it um there's so much to talk about with cold mountain if you don't mind i'm curious about the dialect because i'm always amazed at how well most british actors great british actors can do american dialects in this one i mean you've done them before you had done them before but this was a southern dialect which you do so well did you find that easier or harder than other american dialects that you had done [Music] quite honestly i've found others harder uh but they're always hard and they should be because you know they were you you don't want to insult anyone you want to get things right and um i i i tend certainly when i'm uh trying to find an american accent i tend to work with tim monach uh who is just the greatest and the loveliest man to have around but also a fountain of wisdom linguistically and just in general um he always brings so much more than just you know um say it like this or uh you know you're dropping your h's or whatever it may be he brings a warmth and insight to just language itself and he would phonetically give you wonderful um um uh little uh lessons you know for you to go away and really educate the muscles in your mouth and jaw and throat to to make these sounds that perhaps you're not used to making and so that you just feel fluid with it and you can not that you're always looking to be able to improvise around it but you don't want to be limited to oh yeah don't change the line i can only say it like that you know um and and a lot of that again you do that beforehand and prep really really hard and whilst you're making the film and having then tim there as i always call it my catch net you know he's listening to every word and every arm and every sound and uh it gives you more confidence uh having the person there and um just having done the work doing the prep you know it's interesting as i've spent the last couple days you know researching you and learning all the things that you've done like i have this mental list in my head of like the 10 000 reasons why i could never do what you do one of them is all the kind of close animal contact that you clearly had to have i really get it i mean i don't know if you were cutting chicken's heads off i'm not sure what you had to do but it was just all a little bit too close for comfort for for it was all very real too i remember getting early on getting to romania we shot a lot of the uh large scale scenes in romania because this was 20 years ago 18 years ago and um it largely was undeveloped and so you could film for miles and miles without the tattoo of modern man you know there were no pylons there were no roads and it had a sort of symmetry also to the um the areas of the states that we were looking to replicate but but anthony referenced um um the tree of wooden clogs this incredible italian film from the i think early 70s late 60s and um it was made actually within an italian rural community but you know you know that the bulls that they're milking and the chickens that they're killing and the the mice that they're stamping are real and he always he said early on when we were rehearsing that i want this to be as real as possible so the fish i'm catching is a real fish and the cow are gonna you know all of the nasty stuff but it gave us much more a funny ins it gave us much more authenticity but another insight was that we were staying in this little village just outside of uh funnily enough just outside of um uh down from dracula's castle the real castle right you can see the castle up on the hill and they're all these beautiful woods around it and then we're in the village at the foot of the hill well the the villages certainly back then had no fencing so the cattle would just wander around the streets you'd wake up with a cow in your front garden uh and then when you got milk it was always just in a bucket unpasteurized and um you'd have bears in your garden sometimes i mean it was you felt this proximity with animals anyway just being in rural romania at that time and again it all kind of helped i'm sure i'm sure anthony planned it all maybe anthony sent those bears and cows into my garden i don't know that's great quickly about alfie and sleuth because in the both of these films you're taking on kind of roles famously portrayed by michael caine and then yeah in the second one you're doing it with michael caine who's yeah lawrence olivier my michael caine chapter what was that like i mean did i i should be so curious to know if he had anything to say to you about alfie after he saw it and you guys were working together did that did you guys not really go there what kind of conversations were you having um i don't remember him ever specifically commenting on it i think we he recounted as he is so brilliant at doing many many of his memories of him making that his version and and the original and and many of his other great films in the past he's a fantastic rack on turn he he tells stories with such humor and love he loves acting and loves making films um and so you know has has really fond memories um i don't remember him particularly sort of ever sort of saying you know what he thought of it particularly i think i think he was we became very close and um uh so i can only imagine he he he was all right with it um it was a pure accident it wasn't like some obsession of mine or any great you know desire and and you know it's not like i i feel like we're even particularly similar in style or certainly not in in background but um they were both interesting roles at that time and challenges that i i sort of thought were worth taking well i look forward to your remake of blame it on rio about 15 years from now i have to talk about closer because well that was a national board of review award winner for best ensemble for you and clivo and julie robertson natalie portman and reason thousand four that i couldn't do what you do is to learn that the role that you played in closer was the role that clive had played in the stage version and i would just be paralyzed here thinking what does he think about how i'm doing with the role that his how did you get past that um to be honest get stepping in to the my concerns stepping into that project were were was were along those lines but but tenfold because i'd seen the play in london uh with a complete with clive playing my part i'd seen the play in new york um i knew the play very well i knew the writer i knew patrick well i it felt like there were fingerprints all over this thing but at the same time it's mike nichols it's natalie portman it's clive obviously it's julia it's it's this incredible team of course you want to get involved and mike had this incredible ability to make you he would just through love he would give you such confidence and our rehearsal process was really just sitting around this table in new york talking through every scene and about each other and about each other's characters and about what happens in between because the film starts and is is really only meetings and breakups uh on the whole and by the end of that process you felt so you felt so confident safe uh in his hands that it really did never come up again um and uh i think that also goes for the fact that clive is a really good guy and he wasn't like he was sad watching me or saying you're not going to do it like that are you you know he was generous and and yeah from the get-go very generous oh um again being from tcm i gotta ask you about the aviator playing errol flynn and i went back and watched that just fantastic scene with you and like modern dicaprio cape blanchett as catherine hepburn adam scott as the press agent night club what i mean that must have coconut yeah coconut grove oh oh right that must have been so fun to do it was such fun and one of the first times i'd ever sort of flown in to just work for a couple of days you know on something uh of that scale obviously you do that when when mr scorsese asks you to uh and to join in what feels already like a party because i think leonardo have been there for months maybe already and this film was huge i remember that it was kate's first day so kate was sort of more anxious obviously than i was because i was just there to kind of have the ball and um i think i was in and out in like four days and kate was just beginning what became an oscar winning or certainly oscar nominated no oscar winning right performance um but again and i feel like i'm repeating myself but there's a theme here isn't there that that you know my memory was that marty had just created both in scale visuals but also in mood the growth the coconut grove so when by the time you arrive and sit down and film that people having dinner there's dance girls there's a band playing you know the atmosphere is so conducive and authentic and prior to that gosh i'm gonna have to remember the name of the film prior to that in in in marty fashion he screened this beautiful movie for us all the night before or or a couple of nights before to get a sense of the um the rhythm of the speech of that period and um so you felt again confident again i'm using the same words confident and safe in the hands of this great director and if you've done your homework you can just go in and enjoy it and let it come alive you know and i loved playing i loved the opportunity to investigate errol flynn a little i remember going to the um library the audio library in los angeles to listen to interviews of him on the radio and on tv so i could again work with tim i worked with marty and leo i think on most of their projects so we're working with tim monic again and trying to get that uh that particular tasmanian english american accent of flynn's right was yeah a treat well clearly you made an impression on scorsese because he had you back years later for hugo so good on you there um okay the holiday i mean there's no way we're doing this and not talking about the holiday and because it's so fascinating because that's such a different movie for you like you're making this you know solidly nancy myers yeah and i love her movie straight ahead romantic comedy i imagine it helped that you had kate winslet there you you guys already knew each other from before although stuff is there with her and then my understanding is that nancy wanted you to study some clark gable in preparation is that true i think yeah it was it was more uh clark gable and uh um not not in specificity but more in uh that that era and that era's um romantic comedies jimmy stewart's you know uh carrie grant um i think she wanted to try and capture a sense of the the origins of the romantic rom-com genre and in in in ambience and in tone and so yes she sent me off to re-watch all those great romantic comedies that that just had a sort of lightness of touch and humanity and a sense of being unabashed about their romance and and again i was i i i think i up to that point had only just realized i had to stop sort of fighting against this oh you know romantic lead um because i always saw it as a as a as a a trap in a way and then i got to a point where i thought actually you know first of all that's a challenge i want to take on that challenge can i pull it off can we pull it off but also it just felt suddenly like something i wanted to lean into rather than uh run away from and um it was a real sharp learning curve like getting the learning learning to really punctuate humor and what it takes to punctuate humor on film with with people like jack and cameron and and and kate and then obviously nancy around is is it was a real learning curve it's all i'm saying yeah it was it was tricky to learn um but such lovely people super super super people to work with and it sounds like people love to come up to you and talk about that movie well who knew yeah i mean it's a really especially this time of year it's a really popular film and it's become how wonderful it's become for some people part of their annual festivities it's great speaking of popular films we gotta talk about sherlock holmes and i can only imagine when you first heard about this and you know started talking to guy ritchie and robert downey jr who i know you really hit it off with was it kind of instantly like oh if this goes well we're gonna do a few or let's just try one and maybe that'll be it what was the thought process in all of your heads going into it well you know a bit of both i think there's in the background the mechanical whirrings of hmm this could this could run and run this could keep working right if we get this right uh but what it's clear also that you have to get the job at hand right and you have to make it a success and you have to create something that people want more of that's always the case so it was also a case it was also a daily uh exercise in how to extricate and use the people on board to their best and by the second what was exciting was that we'd sort of honed down this process that involved all of us really contributing to the evolution of each scene so there would be the framework on the in the script uh i would arrive most days with my this sort of tome of um quotes and lines that i'd taken out of the conan doyle books we'd improvise uh downey is boundless in his ideas imagination bravery hilarity so we would come up with these zany ideas guy who is a writer himself would sort of whittle it down and structure it and give us guidelines and always tell us something was too much too much too much take the dress off that's too much or you know what i mean um you can't come in on your hands what do you do you know whatever and um and then we would nail the scene we'd go away they'd light it set up the camera and we'd go back in and shoot really really quickly so it became this sort of organic process and that felt like the most expressive the most natural of that team and by doing so i think people pick up on an energy and an inclusion that comes from that process and that's i think why we we tapped into an energy that was kind of unique and if you think back the sort of banter that we were trying to play with sort of i mean we were looking at films like uh butch and sundance right but in truth that's become now much more of the the sort of language of actiony movies it's that sort of trying to find that rapport sure yeah a contagion i just want to touch on quickly and this is something you've spoken about several times especially recently because people are bringing it up but my understanding is that even in 2010 2011 when you were making this movie the conversations were it's a when or not if this is going to happen in the real world did you when when those when people were telling you that the experts did you did that sink in at the time like wow this is probably going to happen in my lifetime or were you kind of just focusing on the movie at that point well you're focusing on the film obviously and and you're also listening to the advice of these brilliant people around you who are adding authenticity to the project whose subject matter is so um alarming but as i think i've said before you know i think the effect of what was being said and the shock and the the the the sense the daunting sense that this was a reality certainly sits in the surface of your mind and body for a period of time but you don't necessarily you know if nothing happens if nothing changes then it's not like you you you live with that um threat always and that was 10 years ago so i remember being very aware of everything we're being told to do now you know distancing how and where to sneeze hand washing all of that stuff but you know after i can't remember maybe a year 18 months life's normally you carry on it was really when it hit the beginning of this year that the alarm bells went off and all the um advice and uh the the different ways in which people have had opinion or been instructed to um guide themselves through this it all kind of came back to me and i guess i was both sort of i was in a way not surprised because of what i've been told but also shocked at myself that that i'd if you like been given this view into the crystal ball and i'd taken it seriously but i'd not necessarily thought i'd better remember that daily you know wow grand budapest hotel is my favorite wes anderson movie and i love all of his movies what strikes me when i go back and watch some of your stuff in that is the intricacy of what you have to do performing and then with the voiceover because you're narrating and there's moments where a character will say something and then we hear your voice over he said yes and and i'm wondering if you had to do all that voiceover and particularly like these two-word little inserts almost in like a vacuum or did he have you reading it more like a book and then he would take out the little snippets that he would need to make seem so seamless if that question makes any sense at all no it makes absolute sense and and it's easy to answer because wes is so particular in his visions and in and and from my experience obviously i've only i've only made the one film with him but but in in how he went about constructing that that beautiful film and he it was he had already storyboarded it um and uh drawn drawn up almost everything i believe everything prior to us making it so so it was a case of just piecing together obviously visually what he had already envisioned and then rhythmically he had uh recorded so that you could look at this thing and hear that like like a like a piece of orchestrated music the dialogue so when i got to um i don't remember the name of the town we were right on the border of germany and poland literally i would go for a run and i could run into poland and back out again on my run in the morning until the snow came and then it was sort of five feet of snow that no one was running anywhere um but um he we lived in in a hotel that i think serves as part of the hotel in the film and we had he had taken over this um disused uh a par old um department store uh which became the the lobby of the hotel in certain areas of the hotel and within that he he had all vast space so we had this little recording studio that he had built and i went in again it was um you know a part that only took a ten days maybe maybe two weeks um and i went in to this little booth and as you rightly noticed read it really like a book but if you think about it tonally and stylistically you know his films are sort of like that or that one certainly it's almost like you know the the the position of a head is as if it's been illustrated it's not sort of there it's it's there they're always sharp angles and and the the the use of um people speaking or being introduced or or or a sentence being finished by a narrator as opposed to the person in the scene is all again as if you're turning the pages and and reading something either in um in the voice of someone else or by the narrator of the book so he had all that down and it was a case really i suppose of the production of him just accumulating what he needed but i felt very much in his world and in he and i was happy to just give him what he wanted like you i was a huge fan and i just wanted to be in that world for a bit and it was uh it was very uh very warm and very comfy being in it a similar um challenge i think was presented for you in the movie spy and after i asked about this i have to ask you about melissa mccarthy and just working with her because she's the greatest but when i was watching some scenes back on that one you know the in the early parts of the film where she her character is in your character's ear and you're doing all this action stuff but of course all that audio was not in the moment she's not in your ear as you're filming the movie that's all added later so what was it like to get the precision right of you knowing exactly when to react as if she was saying something to you when you're responding to her and when you're doing all the physical stuff too that must have been like a mathematical equation in some way yeah hold on i'm trying to remember first of all it was definitely much harder for me because i did all my stuff first and so when she did her bits she was able to watch and see what i was doing no i think that's right yeah that is right not that not that she needed it to be easier because she's a master at what she does uh and then shouting out what she would eventually be heard saying in your ears he recorded it and they would play it back to me and then we'd do different versions but as on most of paul feig's films there are always alternatives right so he's got he's got both his own genius mind and those writers around him who are coming up with oh i'll say this or wouldn't it be funny if she said that and he said this so you're always doing alts and you realize from day one okay i better stay on my toes here you know this can go any which way um as indeed not just when they're in your ear but also obviously when you're in a scene in front of in front of them um oh it's so fun to watch the blooper reel of you just great i've never oh really i've never watched it i've got to watch that back i bet that is fun just search spy just search your names by bloopers and there's a whole bunch of you guys in the restaurant oh yeah they're at the table where you just can't you cannot keep it together what is extraordinary is how you can take a single moment or a single gag and just keep keep coming at it with different ideas and the speed the speed at which melissa could deliver stuff or think of things i was just or or inspiring and what i learned very quickly was a i was very happy to play the straight guy because i was like okay that is not what i do you do what you do brilliantly i'm gonna just i'm gonna hold my own by being the straight guy i'll be the full guy you know well i worked at work brilliantly okay so now we're getting to the last couple of years just a few projects left to talk about um the young pope i'm fascinated by because by and large you hadn't done much of any television work and obviously like a movie anyway so it's not like you know typical tv but i love the fact that you you know make sure i'm getting this right you really were a fan of the great beauty and yodivo and his work had you written him a letter or had you just thought to yourself i'd love to work with him and then he reached out to you oh it was a real uh it was a sort of it was a moment of just great fortune i had i had seen all his films and he was someone you know i like to try and always keep an idea and have a take take notes of who and what i've seen and who i'd love to work with in the future or dream list or whatever it may be and as i said at the beginning of our conversation i i'm a fan of film i'm a fan of filmmakers and i love watching and learning of new people and um he was someone at that particular time i was just in awe of and i it was just this wonderful moment i suddenly get this letter that he's in town and wants to meet me and he has this idea and he pitches me this idea and gives me this um two sheets of uh description of the the sort of life of this extraordinary character lenny vallado who becomes pope and loses his faith as he becomes pope and all the odd uh personal um little quirks of of this man he's smoking and he's drinking of cherry coke zero and can't find anymore in the pandemic and i'm devastated about it oh no really so much my cherry coke zero but go on we drank it all i think that's what happened we had stacks of that stuff um and it was it was an extraordinary uh opportunity it was um it never you're right i hadn't done television since i was a really young young actor young lad really starting out uh and it was right at that time really where it felt that television was um becoming a sort of uh uh or finding a new a sense of um uh respect and people were curious about you know the opportunity of expanding these these stories these ideas over five hours six hours ten hours so to receive this tome of a script from paulo which was ultimately like a ten hour film that we shot out of sequence and really like a movie over uh 13 months 14 months and learning a new rhythm to storytelling because you know i what i realized was i was hardwired to address a character in the sort of three-act structure over 90 minutes or 100 minutes and suddenly you're dealing with with this slow uh reveal this slower sort of peeling of a character slowing that down and slowing down the um the sense of uh the arc was well it was new for him too because he had never done such a long piece either but um similar to wes he has a whole world in his imagination a whole a whole clear thought through visual oral and tonal kind of um layered idea that you step into and you're free to sort of play in but i remember one i remember an insight that that might explain this there's a scene when i'm talking about an empty plate because uh the press officer of the vatican is trying to persuade lenny to put his face on the plate but they make great money from this and he he he he sends for a plate and has his plain plate and talks about he has this extraordinary speech about all these great artists that never reveal themselves and that his anonymity be because only god has a voice you know he is in he is not important and it was a long speech i have several long speeches in that uh in that show and i had this whole idea of him parading around this room and throwing the plane he just wanted me to stand still and hold this plate and talk but i it was like three pages long i remember thinking oh my god i'm really uncomfortable doing this this i just feel so static but then he shot it on all these incredible moving lenses and when you see it it's like it's pulling in and shifting focus and moving around me and he did all the work he did all the work and all he needed was for me to know my lines and deliver the passion and i i just handed it over but it was it was clear he was he had he had seen it in his head and was like this is how we do it trust me and that's why he is the maestro you know so he didn't necessarily explain to you on the shoot day that the finished product would look like it would because of what he was going to do no not particularly i don't remember him describing the finished product i remember him describing a little of how he was going to cover it and me realizing wow okay you're really covering this uh if i'm honest i still felt a little rooted and static but but what i'm saying is i learned very quickly from watching back what he was filming that he was adding the movement yep amazing a fantastic beast has been such a gift for you in the last couple of years i imagine for several reasons that must have been it must be a rewarding part to play a you have children of different ages so i'm sure different of your various of your kids probably read harry potter maybe you read it to them there's the michael gambon of it all there's the joe rolling of it all i know you've gotten to know her a little bit and she's explained the character in quite a lot of detail to you what what in your from your point of view has been the best part of playing dumbledore and being a part of this franchise well this is easy to talk about because i'm still in the in the middle of finishing um the third film the second film which i appear in and i actually i said this to my wife just last night i quite i just love this man it's really you know you have to learn to understand the characters you play and you learn i think to find yourself in them and them in you and it's always refreshing to learn to not judge and to fully appreciate a different perspective on a world but when you get to play someone that you are genuinely inspired by and so stepping into their shoes and their skin in their and their and their senses every day is is a sort of uplifting experience because they are ultimately greater than you um is a wonderful experience but there's also a you know i don't want to give too much away but there's a pain to him that i find so moving and touching a sacrifice that we're investigating a little more in this new film that makes him so touching and it's it's nice to play a good man he's a really good man and you know i i've reveled in the past playing i hope bringing a bit of humanity to people who are maybe not good uh or certainly not straightforward and i i like that i like finding humanity in flawed people but it's really enjoyable playing a good person and someone who also doesn't necessarily see just how good they are um and in addition of course it's it's pretty fantastic playing someone who is magic somebody who has incredible wizarding skills because i can do all sorts and i have it's basically what what my imagination you know uh can dream up i'm like oh can i do this and then like of course you can your dumbledore's oh okay you know um that's pretty cool that's that's some that's a that's an application to a part that no other has ever given me when it comes to the third day which is a show that people have discovered in the last obviously couple of months when since it's been released is that something that felt in the doing of it as experimental as it sometimes appears in absolutely oh yeah and that was the attraction to me it's so interesting talking about ev you know one's career because you suddenly maybe start to see the patterns that you maybe wouldn't have seen otherwise uh so i feel like i'm repeating myself and i apologize if that's the case but you know it starts always for me with the relationships with the people i had uh i'd work with dennis kelly the writer he's a brilliant writer and we've worked together before felix barrett who was one part of the production team and also the great mind artistic director behind punch drunk theater was a very important element mark munden the director and philippa lothol the director were both people i knew um of and wanted to work with but there was this yes there was this unknown quantity to the whole experience ahead of us which was you know can we do something live can we do something that draws people in um can we uh approach serialized drama without fully explaining everything and uh through the eyes of a flawed narrator so all those things were very apparent and they were all reasons to get on board i love i love the fear you get when you're stepping into something because it's unknown yeah uh we have to talk about the nest um which a lot of people are talking about now you and carrie both got gotham award nominations for that very deservedly i love martha marcy mae marlene so i was very curious to see what else sean durkin you know had up his sleeve and what intrigues me the most about this movie and your performances in you and carrie i mean in film you almost never have the luxury of shooting chronologically and this is a movie that is such a slow burn if you will you know with the the temperature between these two people in this couple that i imagine that must have been one of the biggest challenges was in each shooting day to figure out exactly where you both needed to be shooting out of order but to make sure that when it was edited together it all flowed and was calibrated right yeah yeah first of all um i think wherever we possibly could sean tried to schedule it so that it was chronological that there was i mean i mean i'm talking about you know those those those little decisions that one can um influence on the whole though you're right for example he he just reminded me the other day that we spent i think a day maybe two in the bedroom of the couple just shooting all the bedroom stuff and he remembered it because he said that alone was like its own mini drama of a couple just sort of going through all these um extreme emotions of from sort of comfort and love to to passion to breaking up to arguing um and i also feel like i'm repeating myself again i apologize but you know sean had written a very strong script for us as to use as a map and it was clear and precise uh what i always loved about it was that it was about surviving a family not about a family falling apart and that at its heart he really wanted it to be about the love story really of this couple even though they're going through or becoming aware of each other's failings um and when you have uh someone across from you as instinctive and as naturalistic and as brave as carrie is you really do have the confidence to turn up every day and just play each and every moment for real uh we both knew the thing inside out and we both had sean there who was very clear about tonally how to keep it real and gentle but we approached i remember every moment and every decision calmly and from here you know it was about really playing these people um honestly and uh the calibration was really in the hands of sean and i i was so this is this is like saying i i didn't think it was going to be good when i made it i i knew it was a good piece of work and i knew i knew that when we when i read it and i knew working with carrie and the work that we'd done in the production was was was good and sound but i think sean as a filmmaker has all great look in the end film is a director's medium and every film really is about the film director but what i'm trying to say is sean sean is a really great filmmaker and he his calibration and what he saw us doing and then what he and how he took that into the editing room finessed our journeys and simplified things and you know sadly lost bits but that's what happens in in the hands of a great filmmaker they they reduce and reduce to the essence and so what you picked up on i think really is his instincts and subtleties and sophistication actually as a filmmaker and i think he's going to go on to make many many more brilliant films he's he's a he's a real author uh and uh i was thrilled to work with him in just his second third film um were you as obsessed with the leftovers and carrie as i had you seen it beforehand and um and i'd seen him on stage too and so of course as soon as he just said oh carrie is playing allison i was i was i was so in and excited yeah it also is a movie that really delves into the idea of sometimes you don't know the person that you are actually closest to yeah and it's uh that's part of so many layers both that and also even though i don't know everything about this person i still kind of know them like that's the weird amp you know what i mean because really for all rory's layers and lies and half truths she does know him and and so in a way it's also about what you choose to not know about someone but what you choose to you know the complicity of a couple that in a way as he says to her you know you you you came along for this ride you love the money you love the you loved all the the so you can't now say oh that was you it's like because you loved it too right so in a way they're both it's more about revealing the truth and then saying do we still love each other you know yeah wow it's fascinating it's just great to watch you two together um okay let me end with a four question kind of lightning round you don't have to go into much detail here i'm just curious to hear if you have answers to these questions so we've talked about 18 or so of the films that you've done is there one a lesser known one that maybe that we haven't brought up that you particularly love um i have to recount what we just discussed and what um uh [Laughter] what's coming to my mind i'm trying to think of things recently uh to to pop out but not i i i mean it wasn't particularly well received but i i i was really fond of what joe wright did uh with anna karenina and the bravery of really reducing it to uh almost a piece of theater an opera on film i think elevated a very well-known story book that's been adapted many times before into a really beautiful piece of art and um certainly the way he and tom stoppard uh addressed the character i played her husband who's often used or seen rather as the um the the the the the fuddy-duddy sort of stiff husband unloving who sort of forces her out of the home instead they gave him much more humanity and warmth and i think that's truer to the book than other adaptations okay uh question two is there one that that you're in that if you're flipping the channels on the tv and it pops up that you'll actually sit and watch uh probably not no it happened recently uh and my wife had the controls and i had to sort of wrestle them off and say please no please uh what was it do you remember uh i think it was ai actually i just i just have this funny thing i have to move on and my voice always uh uh great with me i i know that's not true i've i've uh enjoyed watching some of the sherlock holmes they make me laugh i love watching downey and and they remind me of a lot of fun that we had together my third question was is there one that you would never watch well it sounds like that's the answer all the time most of them yeah okay um and then just in general are there one or two or three including ones that we probably talked about that you when you think back to all of these last 25 years that you're particularly proud of well yeah and and that's a terrific question to ask answer actually because it means i can shed a bit of light some on some that i didn't particularly think the end result was terrific but the work that went into it was worthwhile i mean i certainly will always you know look back on gatica because it was um the first time i went to hollywood uh uh talented mr ripley because it was the first time i worked with anthony and on a film of that sort of scale and um uh it changed my life because of the nomination that i received because of it um i mean gosh so many to me they're all quite pivotal really um i was going to mention dom hemingway which is this bizarre little film i made about this appalling man um but but playing someone so unleashed and vile and vulgar and out of control was was kind of mind-bending for me and it it unleashed in me but interestingly i played him just before i played lenny and and i found in lenny a kind of wonderful uh peace and stillness that i don't know i've necessarily discovered had i not gone so crazy playing tom out of your system that was very clever very clever whether you knew it or not well all i can say to you is it's been a fascinating 25 years to see what you've done and i can't wait to see what you do in the next 25 really because i think there's a whole other bunch of chapters ahead that are going to be really fascinating if the nest is any indication of of that so i'm here for it and it's really interesting talking about it it feels like i said to you before sometimes discussing them it's not something well i certainly don't sit or thinking about and listening to them listing them and discussing them in order has highlighted certain things that i i've never really strung together but i'll also say this the fact that we're the same age we'll have to do this in 25 years time and uh and do it again right i'll put it in my calendar for okay 2046. wow and i was like a long way away yeah that would be great what a pleasure to spend some time with you jude i really appreciate on behalf of all everybody at sag after foundation just really nice of you to share your time and share your experience so um really really appreciate it and thanks to you all for watching this this has been so much fun to do i wish everybody a great day thanks so much again jude best wishes you

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 28,744

Keywords: SAG Foundation, SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Acting, Actors, Q&A, Interview

Id: 0RGSvFhb0Tg

Length: 78min 54sec (4734 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021