Jude Law

David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor.

Law was born on 29 December 1972 in the Lewisham district of London, to Peter Robert Law and Margaret Anne Heyworth, both teachers who married five years prior.

His father later became, according to Law, "the youngest headmaster in London".

His mother was adopted but was later reunited with her Welsh birth mother, Meinwen Parry.

He has an elder sister, Natasha.

Law was named David after one of his parents' best friends, but called by his middle name since birth.

The name Jude was taken from both the book Jude the Obscure and the Beatles song "Hey Jude".

He grew up in Blackheath, an area in the borough of Greenwich, and was educated at John Ball Primary School in Blackheath and temporarily attended Kidbrooke School, before attending Alleyn's School.

Law began acting in 1987 with the National Youth Music Theatre.

He played various roles in the Edinburgh Fringe-awarded play The Ragged Child.

One of his first major stage roles was Foxtrot Darling in Philip Ridley's The Fastest Clock in the Universe.

In 1989, Law received his first television role in a film based on the Beatrix Potter children's book, The Tailor of Gloucester.

Following this, he took on minor roles in various British television series, including a two-year stint in the Granada TV produced ITV soap opera Families.

He also appeared in the episode "Shoscombe Old Place" in ITV's Sherlock Holmes, and he played the leading role in the BFI/Channel 4 short The Crane (1992).

In addition to his film work, Law has performed in several West End and Broadway productions including Les Parents terribles in 1994, Hamlet in 2010, and Anna Christie in 2011.

Law has received multiple awards and nominations, including a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and the Honorary César.

He has been nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, as well as a total of two Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards.

Additionally, Law was named a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.

Law went on to appear as Michael in the 1994 West End rendition of Jean Cocteau's tragicomedy Les Parents terribles, directed by Sean Mathias.

This performance earned him a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Newcomer, and he received the Ian Charleson Award for Outstanding Newcomer.

In 1994, Law appeared in his first major leading film role with the British crime drama Shopping, which also starred his then future wife, Sadie Frost.

Following a title change to Indiscretions, the play was reworked and transferred to Broadway in 1995, where Law acted opposite Kathleen Turner, Roger Rees and Cynthia Nixon.

This role earned him a Tony Award nomination and the Theatre World Award.

At this time, Law and his then-wife Sadie Frost were members of the Primrose Hill set, which, along with other members such as Jonny Lee Miller, led to the 1996 creation of production company Natural Nylon, which he would later leave in 2003.

He later gained prominence for his role in the Oscar Wilde biopic Wilde (1997), for which he won the Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer as well as a London Film Critics Circle Award for his portrayal of Lord Alfred Douglas, the glamorous young lover of Stephen Fry's Wilde.

The New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin noted that Law's "voluptuous beauty and mocking, boyish petulance gives [Douglas] a rock star's presence."

Other reviewers including William Gallagher also complimented Law's appearance as the character.

In Andrew Niccol's science fiction film Gattaca (1997), Law took on the role of a disabled former magnetic swimming star living in a eugenics-obsessed dystopia.

In Clint Eastwood's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), he played the role of Billy Hanson, a male prostitute killed by his partner, an art dealer portrayed by Kevin Spacey.

Law also played Steven Grlscz, a vampire and an expert seducer, in The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998).

He began his career in theatre before landing small roles in various British television productions and feature films, later gaining recognition for his role in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and was nominated for an Academy Award.

In 1999, Law starred alongside Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the psychological thriller film The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by Anthony Minghella.

Law learned to play the saxophone for his role in the film, and his performance earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, as well as nominations for the Golden Globe Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw commented on Law giving "a very stylish and charismatic performance as the exquisite Dickie, all cruelty and caprice."

Law found further critical and commercial success in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition (2002), Minghella's Cold Mountain (2003), for which he earned Academy Award and BAFTA nominations, in addition to the drama Closer (2004) and the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006).

In 2001, Law starred as Russian sniper Vasily Zaytsev in the film Enemy at the Gates, and learned ballet dancing for the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

In 2002, Law played a mob hitman in Sam Mendes's 1930s period drama Road to Perdition.

In 2003, he again collaborated with director Minghella for the period war film Cold Mountain opposite Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger, for which he received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Actor.

He would go on to take various roles, including Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), a younger Albus Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022), and Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel (2019); all of which rank among his highest-grossing releases.

Other notable roles include in Contagion (2011), Hugo (2011), Side Effects (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Spy (2015); and the television series The Young Pope (2016) and The New Pope (2020).