With nine extra kilos, an 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 has not been seen before – unfit, unkempt and with a penchant for delivering expletive-filled speeches.
In the film, now showing in US theatres, 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 has 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 matinée 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, who is the complete opposite of the tightly-coiled Russian aristocrat Karenin he played in the 2012 drama Anna Karenina, based on Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel.
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 known for larger-than-life types,” said the trade magazine Variety.
Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I) plays Hemingway’s loyal friend Dickie, a part Shepard wrote for him.
Mexican actor Demian Bichir, a 2012 best actor nominee for A Better Life, is Hemingway’s former boss and Emilia Clarke, of HBO’s Game of Thrones, is his daughter Evelyn.
The golden boy thing was never a mantle I went out looking for. That was something I was told I was
For the title role Shepard envisioned an actor who had never played a gangster type before.
“I wanted someone who is a matinée idol a hair or two past his matinée-idol time and who is a risk-taker by nature,” he said.
“Jude’s name came up very early on in the process.”
Law, who collaborated with Shepard in fleshing out Hemingway, was attracted by his honesty, unpolished offensiveness, poetic wit and explosive energy.