NEW YORK: With an extra 20 pounds, impressive paunch and bad teeth, actor Jude Law, best known for his golden boy roles, transforms himself into a sleazy, ranting southeast London safecracker in the film Dom Hemingway.
It is Law, Oscar nominated for The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain, as he hasn’t been seen before — unfit, unkempt and with a penchant for delivering expletive-filled speeches.
In the film, which opened in select US theatres on Wednesday, Law plays Dom Hemingway, a damaged, hot-headed crook released from prison after a 12-year stint for not ratting on his crime boss.
He paid a high price for his loyalty in lost years, missed opportunities and estrangement from his daughter and is hell-bent on collecting his money and making up for lost time.
The role enabled Law, 41, to mine the southeast London streets of his childhood for the character and to discard any lingering remnants of his matinee idol image.
“The golden boy thing was never a mantle I went out looking for. That was something I was told I was,” said Law, adding that for him it was always about the work.
From the opening scene when he pontificates about his manhood through drinking binges and brawls, Law holds nothing back as Hemingway.
The website film.com called Law’s Hemingway “a career-best performance,” and Scotland’s Daily Record said he “fills the screen with a gloriously over-the-top character.”
“Dom Hemingway gives (Law) a chance to sink his teeth into one of the meatiest personalities in a genre know for larger-than-life types,” said the trade magazine Variety.
The film’s director, Richard Shepard envisioned an actor who had never played a gangster type before for the title role.
“I wanted someone who is a matinee idol a hair or two past his matinee-idol time and who is a risk-taker by nature,” he said. “Very early on in the process Jude’s name came up.”
Law, who collaborated with Shepard in fleshing out Hemingway, was attracted by his honesty, unpolished offensiveness, poetic wit and explosive energy.
“It was a chance to play someone who is completely unfiltered and raging and ranting. It was wonderfully cathartic,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2014.
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