Quotes

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 McGregor 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 in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)] Through one of those fantastical phone calls when your agent calls you and says Steven 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 (1997)] 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) 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.

(2004 quote) I've spent most of my free time the past 10 years traveling in Southeast Asia. It started with a trip to Vietnam, because we were told it could be a wonderful place to visit. I loved it and have been to Cambodia, China, Malaysia and Bali. Now I'm intrigued to see places like South America or Africa. I like the idea of constantly discovering.

[on filming Enemy at the Gates (2001)] It was cold, very, very cold. I don't remember a lot of daylight, just endless hours of being buried in rubble, interrupted by lots of raising collective spirits by singing Russian folk songs. Can our genuine physical suffering be seen on film? I bloody hope so.

[on making Gattaca (1997)] It was the first time I felt I was making a script I believed in, and that I'd see something on screen close to what I'd hoped, rather than this vaguely confusing wilderness my jobs had been to this point. It was my first project with quality minds behind it, Jersey Films, Andrew Niccol and Ethan Hawke, who was a joy to work with. I felt we had a real meeting of the minds.

[on his role in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)] Steven Spielberg's approach to Gigolo Joe was the perfect middle ground, compared to Kubrick's far darker original vision. The character was originally much more aggressive, sinister, and far from Spielberg's revised conception as an innocent who's abused. He's a hooker who ultimately comes round to learning to love in a different way.

"Hamlet" is a bit like a great song that's been covered by a load of different singers. It's like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell all covering the same song. But they would each bring a different sound and colour to it (May 2009).

[on his desire to make a foreign language film] I'd be very keen to act a foreign language film, especially French. I like Jacques Audiard - especially Rust and Bone (2012) and A Prophet (2009) - and Michael Haneke, to me, he is probably the great director of the moment. His last four or five films have been pretty much faultless. I'd learn Congolese for him.

[on working with Richard Shepard on Dom Hemingway (2013)] We both sort of knew, from the off, that in order for the film to work, Dom had to work. And we both kind of fell in love with the character, and bonded over our mutual love of this insane, excessive rogue. I needed him and he needed me, and Dom needed both of us.

I've never been a great believer in relying on good looks to get you through. To me it's all about the work and what you do in the workplace.

[on stages in choosing acting roles] There's the part that feels like you get over the minefield of being 20 or early 30s in Hollywood..and stick your fingers up and go ''vanity has to go out the window and character has to come flying in'. It's kinda nice to shock people I suppose.

[on playing Dom Hemingway (2013)] It was a wonderful cathartic purge. There were nuances and tones to him, cause he's a deep and complicated and layered kind of human, as we all are. There's a wonderful kind of swagger that is incredible to step into. And that rubs off on you, you know? When you walk around in an electric blue suit and Cuban heel boots, you can't help but walk around with a bit of attitude.

[on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)] The funny thing about Sky Captain is that a year later, Peter Jackson was doing retro-style CG movies in colour, and it was suddenly making hundreds of millions of pounds. That's not to say there weren't other faults with Sky Captain - you could argue that the script could have been tighter - but when you look back at it, there's a lot about it that really worked. And maybe we were just a bit early. Nowadays, film has become a kind of sport, all played out on an opening weekend.

[on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)] I liked that movie. I think the thing that shocked me about that film was that the appendix to the film wasn't in the script I read and was an addition that Steven (Spielberg) came up with later. Maybe he always knew he was going to do it, but I certainly had no idea. It must be the only subtitle in the world that reads "4,000 years later". You're thinking, "What?!" I personally felt it could have ended with him underwater. There's a lot in that film that's very, very interesting and dark.

I really try and mix up what I do. The parts that interest me are very varied. I'm really not, and never have been, an actor who's particularly keen on playing one type of role or fitting into a pigeonhole. I'm still aware that people think, "Oh, he does this kind of part." But if you look at the work I do, it often isn't the case. And every time I do something that's slightly different they go, "Oh gosh, that's a first." I think, "Well, I haven't done a hundred dashing leading men." I like changing it up.

[on comic book films] I've got nothing against them, I see them with my kids, we analyse them over dinner after. Some work in my mind, some don't. I just think it's a shame. I was talking about this with a friend of mine who was very excited about one of those movies. And in the end, I said, "Mate, he's a cartoon character!" I was like, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were talking like this about a film like Apocalypse Now (1979) or The Godfather (1972)?" Films that I grew up watching, that to me were adult movies. Event movies that were for adults, like The Deer Hunter (1978). Instead we're all getting excited about cartoon characters! We're grown-ups! That to me is a sad situation. There's a place for those films, and I love them, but it seems it's either all that or nothing.

[2013, on privacy] I find it terribly hard to talk about it, because I hear myself as a whingy, moany, lucky person. So it's an awkward thing to voice fairly. But I certainly sometimes weighed up what I was getting out of the job with the hassle and the grief that I was being caused at home. And what I took from that was, "Well, I'd better start making better choices at work." Because I didn't want to give it up. I thought, "Well, if I'm considering stopping, then it means the work's not worth it, so the work should become worth it." I'm only interested in what people do in their work life; I'm genuinely not interested in what they do outside of their work. It just seems disappointing to me that people are. I'm lucky to work with some really interesting people, I'm lucky to work in some really interesting stuff. Yet apparently it's more interesting to talk about my hairline, or whether I've gained some weight or not, or whether I'm seeing someone or not. And I just think we're allowing ourselves to go into a real slurry of lowbrow, gossipy crap. It seems that's becoming a national tendency.

You know, I'm not a great one, not a great one for, you know. I dunno, I'm not a great one for starting conversations.

[Are you a typical Capricorn?] What, a loner? I think there are strong similarities between me and the goat - thinking one can cope in any situation, one can be stubborn, grumpy I suppose at times. If I ever dip into astrology, I like to combine it with the Chinese year. I'm the year of the rat. The rat and the goat combined seem to make more sense to me. The rat is someone who enjoys the family situation.

[on being considered considered for Superman in 2002] I didn't want the burden of living up to Superman's reputation. Get caught smoking a cigarette and you ruin the lives of children around the world.

[2007 interview on Alfie (2004)] You just have to take risks. I thought Alfie was an interesting idea. But maybe I'm an idiot, maybe I'm just walking into this. In the end it proved that the film was more a film of its time and it didn't work now. But there's no point playing safe all the time. And Alfie paid me more money than any other film's ever paid! You know, paid for my divorce.

You see this Frankenstein's monster being created, this puppet that has your name and your face attached, and it's an odd thing.

Chris Rock slagging me off at the The 77th Annual Academy Awards (2005) was upsetting. It felt like, Fuck, am I that guy that you point fun at? Obviously, I've realized since that a gag is a gag is a fucking gag. Whatever, it could've been anyone. It was probably a bubble that needed bursting around myself. Like, Oh, this could be brutal. This isn't all plain sailing.