Jude Law is known for playing a wide range of characters throughout his long career. However, he believes his new role, based on a real-world personality, “doesn’t have a face.” He is referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he portrays in the upcoming movie The Wizard of the Kremlin.
During a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, where the movie debuted, he spoke about the challenges of playing a politician. The 52-year-old actor noted, “The tricky side to me was that the public face we see gives very, very little away. There has been a term for him and that: ‘the man without a face.’ There’s a mask.”
This, in turn, made Jude acknowledge that portraying Vladimir was challenging. He added, “So I was conflicted as an actor because understandable Olivier would want me to portray this or that in a scene with a certain emotion and I felt the conflict of trying to show very little.” In addition to the Sherlock Holmes star, the movie also features Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright, and Tom Sturridge.
The logline for The Wizard of the Kremlin reads, “A young Russian filmmaker, Vadim Baranov, becomes an unlikely advisor to Vladimir Putin as he rises to power in post-Soviet Russia, navigating the new era’s complexities and chaos.”
