Hiding in plain view

For a guy whose last film was called “Cold Mountain,” Jude Law could scarcely be more hot. Between now and December, the actor will be seen in six films, although “seen” may not be quite the right word: Law narrates but doesn’t actually appear in “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which stars Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep, except, presumably, as a series of silhouettes.

No matter. That still leaves five movies to form a Jude Law juggernaut the likes of which is virtually unique these days. To start with, there’s Law careering around the skies against a lot of blue screen in “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” a film in which conversation is pretty much relegated to some sub-Tracy/Hepburn banter between Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. In the ensemble comedy “I [Heart] Huckabees,” Law dons an American accent to play the ironically named Brad Stand, a corporate louse who does learn to take a stand -- sort of -- by the end of the film. “The Aviator,” shot just after “Huckabees,” represented five days out of Law’s life: two filming and three rehearsing the cameo role of Errol Flynn under the watchful eye of Martin Scorsese.

In “Alfie,” Law, by contrast, is the movie, impressively so, which is by no means to discredit a terrific supporting cast of women (Susan Sarandon and Marisa Tomei, just to start with) who could fill that category at the Oscars more or less by themselves. “Closer,” the last in the sequence to be filmed, returns Law to the ranks of ensemble, albeit of a fairly heady sort: adapted from Englishman Patrick Marber’s corrosive play, the film also stars Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen.

Is such intensive exposure good? Law smiles in between forkfuls of spicy huevos tostadas at a mutually favorite haunt up the road from his north London home.

“Probably not,” says the actor, who, fresh from a vacation in Italy with girlfriend Sienna Miller (the two met on “Alfie”), is looking a bit more golden than usual. On this particular morning, Law sounds in no way pressured, even though he has been back barely 24 hours from Venice and is off the same afternoon by private jet to Chicago to promote “Sky Captain” on “Oprah”; co-star Paltrow -- a friend from their time together in “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” the film that generated Law’s first Oscar mention -- is coming too.

We are talking at the same funky wooden-tabled eatery where Law and director Anthony Minghella spent many meals charting the character of Inman in “Cold Mountain,” for which Law last February was nominated for his second Academy Award. But that was the only movie in which the actor appeared during 2003, as opposed to the cinematic Law landslide that is about to happen.

“There’s a certain sense of a house of cards, that one sort of holds the other up,” he says. “But at the same time, I sort of wish they could have been slightly spread out. I certainly didn’t do them all in six months, so it’s a shame that they’re coming out in six months.” Law goes on: “Part of me doesn’t want to think about it too much and is just hoping that they all get enjoyed and seen; another part of me tries to be very practical and think, ‘Well, at least they’re all different types of films. They’re not necessarily treading on each other’s toes.’ ”

That’s the actor’s view. How do his colleagues feel about the near-ubiquitousness of their star? “I don’t know,” says David O. Russell, the director of “I [Heart] Huckabees,” speaking by telephone from a cutting room in L.A. “I’ve got to tell you; I was kind of shocked. I could argue it both ways, both good and bad. We’ll have to see.”

With “Huckabees,” says Russell, “I feel we’ll be at the very top of the pack in terms of the work that we did; this is somewhat different in terms of anything Jude’s ever done before, and I feel good about that.” Although, says Russell, tossing in the expected caveat: “Obviously, as a director, you always prefer your guys are mostly just in your movie and not kind of in any other movie at that time.”

Other collaborators say this sort of thing mattered less. “The thing with Jude,” says “Sky Captain” director Kerry Conran, “is that none of these are going to be typical roles, and they’re not going to be the same role. He’s been very much a chameleon of sorts.” Marber, “Closer’s” screenwriter, spent a lot of time on the set and was able to observe Law at the very end of this formidably busy time. “To me, how much he’s done before doesn’t matter as long as once the guy’s in the room, he’s focused on the job. That’s all you care about, and Jude was totally focused, always on top of it.”

Besides, one could certainly argue that Law’s avidity for work is nothing new. It was in February 1995 that a then-22-year-old Law could be found mostly in the Club Class lounge of British Airways flying back and forth to New York to rehearse for his Broadway debut opposite Kathleen Turner in “Indiscretions,” for which he went on to receive a Tony nomination. At the same time, Law was appearing in repertory at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Pit Theater in London in a little-known Euripides play, “Ion,” which had seven performances remaining in the run.

Another actor might have insisted that an understudy play out the engagement, but Law was having none of that. “I wouldn’t be crazy about anyone else playing that part,” he told me at the time, so why should he sit back and watch someone else play Alfie, or Errol Flynn, or the wounded Dan in “Closer”?

“I know Jude’s a workaholic, but he loves it,” says Law’s friend and colleague David Lan, the theater director who first met Law during “Ion,” for which Lan had done the adaptation. (Lan’s partner, Nicholas Wright, was the play’s director.) Since then, Lan has himself directed Law’s two major stage gigs, both at south London’s intimate Young Vic and at a salary for Law of barely $400 a week. The actor first appeared there as Giovanni in “ ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore,” John Ford’s Jacobean classic, in 1999 and, 2 1/2 years later, playing the title role in Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus.” The men are quietly contemplating yet another go-round together in 18 months or so, this time with -- well, why not? -- “Hamlet.”

“Sky Captain” one year and “Hamlet” the next? Lan laughs. “Let the theater be as much like the theater as it can be, and let films be like films. When Jude and I think about what we should do, we think about big plays.” Thinking -- or, shall we say, time for prolonged reflection -- can be hard to come by when pursuing a daunting workload, exactly the kind of project-after-project lineup that anyone steeped in the British theater, as Law is, would regard as second nature.

And the actor speaks directly to the appeal of sustained activity during what in 2003 was a difficult year off screen. Last fall saw the end of his decade-long relationship with actress and underwear entrepreneur Sadie Frost, five years his senior, with whom Law has three children: Rafferty, 7; Iris, nearly 4; and Rudy, who turned 2 Friday. Since their split became British tabloid fodder, Law is dogged more than ever by the paparazzi, with the actor’s driver interrupting our breakfast to report that the cameras were, per usual, waiting across the street.

In the context of a meal in familiar company, Law is philosophical about such intrusions. “It’s, I don’t know, very sad that they don’t have better things to do; it’s sadder still that editors don’t tackle the responsibility of preserving freedom of the press when it’s really needed because it will be stopped eventually and they’ll be complaining there’s no freedom of the press to use in the right scenarios. And there won’t be any left because of the misuse.” (In a previous interview with Law nearer to his actual home, we had to move tables when it became clear that someone was aiming a telephoto lens at us through the window.)

So the work, then, became a kind of refuge. “Very much so,” says Law. “It’s something you can lose yourself in. If you’re committed and you’re there to concentrate and apply yourself and give your all, then you can work things out in a positive way by applying an energy that would otherwise be spent worrying or fretting or feeling guilt.”

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PUTTING HIS LIFE INTO IT

Russell recalls the sense of near relief experienced by Law during the “Huckabees” shoot: “The way we lived on the set was crazy and fun; Jude was in Malibu, and it was good for him to be out of town” -- that’s to say, out of London -- “and working.” Law’s private concerns, says Russell, only fed his on-screen performance, which lent real gravitas to an existential comedy. “Jude was going through a bit of a crisis himself at the time, and the movie was a good opportunity for him to pour all that into the role of a guy being disoriented, angry and sad, all those ways that Jude was feeling as his own life was being dismantled. He likes to go to the raw stuff.”

In “Alfie,” Law reinvents Michael Caine’s cheeky Cockney as a New York-based English chauffeur whose success with the ladies cannot stave off loneliness and self-doubt: the performance is at once beautiful -- literally so, with Law in the role -- and bruisingly sad, with Law always inviting sympathy in a role where a lesser actor would have shut the audience out. The movie, says Charles Shyer, its director, came during “really hard times for Jude, really hard, and I think for Jude, who is also a kind of shy guy, this is such a bold thing. What a big deal it is for an actor to talk to the camera,” as Law’s libidinous driver does throughout. “Especially an actor like Jude who’s just so exposed,” says Shyer, “there’s nothing held back. No place to hide.”

That is especially evident in one scene that finds Alfie all but abandoned, his conquests having come at a huge emotional price. The moment calls for the character, who is at the wheel, to bash the car windshield. Recalls Shyer: “I just went up to Jude and I said, ‘The windshield is the paparazzi,’ and he hauled off and hit that thing so hard that he cracked it; that’s Jude Law with his fists, not a special effect.”

Then one wonders are films like “Alfie” and the presumably even bleaker “Closer” cathartic for the actor? “Absolutely,” comes Law’s reply. “They can’t help but be. Sometimes, there’s nothing more revealing than letting it all kind of hang out in front of a crew and cast and eventually an audience. At the same time, you also think, ‘OK, I’ve gotten rid of it, I’ve sorted it,’ but of course you haven’t: That’s just there -- there on set and as part of the work; you’ve got to deal with it in real life now.”

That in part explains the lengthy down time Law has had most of this year, especially when a John Madden movie, “Tulip Fever,” due to start filming right after “Closer,” collapsed when the financing fell out. Instead, Law has been reading (Italo Calvino and Philip Pullman), traveling and spending time with the children.

In November, he joins Sean Penn in Louisiana on a new film version of “All the King’s Men,” directed by Steve Zaillian, and will move from that to “Dexterity,” based on the Douglas Bauer novel; Gavin O’Connor (“Tumbleweeds”) directs. Further ahead is a hoped-for remake of “Sleuth” on which Harold Pinter, of all people, is handling the writing chores.

For now, however, Law is pondering the effect on a moviegoing public of seeing so much of himself. “They’ll think, ‘I don’t want to see another Jude Law movie,’ I would imagine. Oh, God.” Perhaps, but when the camera loves you as much as it does Law, why say no to a good thing?

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Jude Law previews his coming attractions

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

Opens Friday

It was weird but great fun and a huge release and adventure to me off the back of “Cold Mountain.” The energy on set was one of intrigue, really, and experimentation. I’m always looking to try and look toward fields and genres I haven’t necessarily done before, and I had never done an action-y, adventure-y-type film.

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I [HEART] HUCKABEES

Opens Oct. 15

I’ve never seen a film with more theories, with more individuals trying to discover their theories, and then in the end you realize that no one’s theory works. I kind of like the fact that a film on one level about expression and trying to understand is actually about not understanding, not being able to express, which I think is very true.

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ALFIE

Opens Oct. 22

“Alfie” was something that scared me. I’d never had an interest in looking at films about relationships, sexual relationships in particular, centered around the world of a guy who’s sort of 20. There’s a sort of flippancy about them. What was interesting about “Alfie” was that it was about crux time -- about hitting 30 or 31, when you can’t pretend you’re not a man now and, in fact, your responsibility is as a man and not a kid. Which is something I’m going through.

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CLOSER

Opens Dec. 3

I think the film will, if anything, get closer -- excuse the pun -- to those four relationships than even [Patrick Marber’s] play. On the whole, the audience is going to be able to get in and see every nuance of a breath or a reaction.

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THE AVIATOR

Opens Dec. 17

I grew my ‘tache, grew my hair, and ran off to play Errol Flynn and spent two days on set drinking whiskey sours and smoking filter cigarettes. For me it was just a joy to sit back and watch Scorsese, Leonardo, Cate, all of them at work. That’s how I saw it -- I just sat back and watched and learned and then started off.

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LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

Opens Dec. 17

From what I’ve seen, my work pales into insignificance when you see what the three kids are like -- these three children who are made orphans through a mysterious fire. I’m someone telling you a story, but I’m kind of warning you not to listen. Literally, you shouldn’t listen because it’s a horrible story.

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Matt Wolf is London theater critic for Variety and author of “Sam Mendes at the Donmar: Stepping Into Freedom.” He first interviewed Jude Law in 1995.