British actor Jude Law has played a variety of characters on screen in an acclaimed and successful career, but he says he saw himself turn into an “obsessive” watcher of Vladimir Putin as he prepared for his role as the Russian leader in his new film. Law plays the Russian President in The Wizard of the Kremlin, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
While the 52-year-old actor already bears an uncanny resemblance to Putin, he added to that visual appeal by aping his scowl and distinctive walking style in the film by French director Olivier Assayas, which charts the rise of the former intelligence officer.
Jude Law on playing Putin
“There’s a lot of footage one could watch and, personally, when I start going down that rabbit hole, it becomes sort of obsessive,” he told journalists. “You’re looking for ever more, newer material.”
Portraying Putin was a challenge because of his famously deadpan expression, he said. “The tricky side to me was that the public face that we see (of Putin), we see very, very little,” Law added. “There’s this mask.”
Law credited his likeness to the real Putin to “an amazing makeup and hair team”, adding that he had no fear of repercussions.
Based on a bestseller
The movie, which runs for two and a half hours, is an exhaustive look at Putin’s career muzzling political opponents, cowing oligarchs, and enriching his entourage.
It is told through the eyes of a fictional political advisor, Vadim Baranov, played by Paul Dano. It is based on a top-selling book of the same name by Italian author Giuliano da Empoli.
Assayas said it was first and foremost a story about authoritarianism, with Russia’s transition from a chaotic democracy in the late 1990s to Putin’s modern autocracy a warning for the West.
“We made a movie about what politics has become and the very scary and dangerous situation we all feel we are in,” he explained.
Early reviews were mixed. While the Hollywood Reporter praised Law and Dano for their performances, it said the film “gets bogged down in too many characters and events”.
Screen International was more positive, praising “a screenplay dense with incident” and “fast-moving, sleek direction”.
The Wizard of the Kremlin is one of 21 films competing for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, a key platform for international launches, which runs until Saturday.
(With AFP inputs)
