Jude Law Defends New Film In Which He Plays Vladimir Putin

Jude Law at the Venice Film Festival last week via Associated Press

Jude Law is shrugging off any potential controversy that could end up surrounding his new film, in which he depicts a younger Vladimir Putin.

The Oscar nominee stars opposite Paul Dano in the new drama The Wizard Of The Kremlin, which had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last week.

At a press conference to promote the new movie, Jude was asked if he had any concerns about the repercussions that could come from portraying a character as divisive as Putin.

Per Metro, he insisted: “I hope not naïvely – but no, I didn’t fear repercussions. I felt confident in the hands of Olivier [Assayas, the film’s director] and the script and that this was a story that was going to be told intelligently and with nuance and consideration.”

“We weren’t looking for controversy for controversy’s sake,” Jude added, insisting that The Wizard Of The Kremlin doesn’t attempt “to define anything about anyone”.

Vladimir Putin via Associated Press

Jude went on to speak about his transformation into Putin for the movie, noting that the director “didn’t want me to hide behind a mask of prosthetics”, while Metro also noted that the Sherlock Holmes star also doesn’t adopt a Russian accent in the movie.

“We had a lot of [photographic references] for that period of Putin’s life, and we just tried to find a familiarity on me,” he said of his transformation. “It’s amazing what a great wig can do!”

Director Olivier Assayas told Variety recently that he intends for his film to be as much an exploration of the “modern political world” as a straightforward “origin story of Putin”.

He claimed: “What makes this film unique, and ultimately what fascinated me, was precisely that it showed the consequences of political evil, but also tried to portray its nature. How it works, its inner workings.”

The Wizard Of The Kremlin also features appearances from Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, Tom Sturridge and Jeffrey Wright.