Jude Law's new stage: Maturing lead, character actor

• Law currently stars in a critically praised London production of Shakespeare%27s %27Henry V%27
• Director Grandage says Law %22gives audience access to every part of his %28character%29%27s emotional journey%22
• His children %22keep me sane%2C%22 says Law%2C who lists parenthood as his chief priority

LONDON — If Jude Law hasn't seemed as high-profile a film presence in recent years as he was earlier in the millennium, it's at least in part because of the good chunk of time he's spent brushing up on his Shakespeare.

The British actor is currently starring in an acclaimed West End production of Henry V, directed by Michael Grandage, who in 2009 guided him in a Donmar Warehouse staging of Hamlet that transferred to Broadway, earning Law a Tony Award nomination. In between, in 2011, Law squeezed in on a Donmar revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie.

Chatting in his spacious dressing room at the Noel Coward Theatre before a performance of Henry V, Law — who became one of Hollywood's most prominent rising stars in the late '90s and early '00s, collecting Oscar nods for The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain — stresses that live theater "is what made me want to become an actor. The idea of not indulging myself in the thing I really love would seem insane to me."

Seeming relaxed but animated about two hours before curtain, Law notes that he had been, in particular, "very, very keen to do another Shakespeare part. When I first discussed doing Hamlet five or six years ago, Henry was also on the list of roles I wanted to get before I turned 40 or 41, which is the age that I'm at." (Law celebrated a birthday Dec. 29.)

Like Hamlet, the role of the 15th-century king who led England to victory in the Battle of Agincourt requires "something remotely boyish," Jude says. "You can't be older and get away with either of them." Henry has always been "iconic" for Law "because of the role it played" in the careers of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, who both appeared in screen adaptations of the play.

Still, Law admits, "I wrongly assumed, perhaps because of having done Hamlet, that (Henry) wouldn't be that big of a part — when in fact, it was at times more complicated. There's a sort of isolated, almost narcissistic drive to Hamlet, where his soliloquies are sort of conversations with himself, whereas Henry's speeches are almost always rhetorical, and in some way have to have an impact on the people around him, whether he's trying to inspire or persuade or scare or explain."

Law decided that the king was something of an actor himself, "a role-player. It's no coincidence that halfway through the play he puts on a costume and pretends he's someone else. There are more faces to him — he's a politician, a soldier, a fighter, a man's man, a lover. He's all those things, and he plays them very matter-of-factly."

Henry V is the final production in a series presented by the Michael Grandage Company, which Grandage formed after leaving his perch as the Donmar's artistic director. The company's previous offerings have featured Judi Dench, in Peter and Alice, a new play by John Logan, and Daniel Radcliffe, in a revival of Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan.

Law was eager to team with Grandage on another Bard drama: "I like how he approaches Shakespeare as if he were a new writer, with no over-thought conceit. He stays very true to the text, so that as an actor you're not trying to force modern nuances onto old lines."

Grandage, similarly, praises Law's "clarity of performance. One of Jude's great achievements in this part is that he's taken a play that's famous for its rhetoric and oratory and gotten people to talk more about Henry's personality. He's mined the deeper anxieties of the man, and he gives the audience access to every part of his emotional journey — which is something (Law) does in all of his work."

Law's dedication to the stage stems from his youth. "I grew up in a time and a place in London where being in movies didn't seem feasible. But there was a local theater," and others nearby. "I wanted a way in, even if it meant beating down the doors of those buildings. I didn't have to do that, luckily."

He continues to encourage that passion in others, having recently joined a group of thespians, including Ian McKellen, in voicing support for a new community theater in the Southeast London district of Peckham, "close to where I grew up." Not far away is the Young Vic, which Law "went to a lot a young boy" and still actively champions; he's also a patron of the National Youth Music Theatre, where he performed as a teenager.

While Law has no intention of abandoning his movie career, his recent choices show an awareness that he is maturing beyond the dashing leads and pretty-boy parts he was often sought out for well into his 30s. For the British caper Dom Hemingway, which premiered at September's Toronto Film Festival, he gained weight to play a crass ex-con with a grown daughter, portrayed by Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke.

Next year Law will appear in the Kevin Macdonald thriller Black Sea, which he filmed last summer, as an unemployed ex-Navy submarine captain who hopes to revive his luck with an expedition aimed at finding gold supposedly sent to Hitler from the Russians as a bribe. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Macdonald said he "wanted somebody in their middle age" who "could convincingly be a blue-collar guy," and hadn't thought of Law before meeting with the actor.

More glamorous parts "never really interested me," says Law, who played against that type even early on, in films such as Gattaca (1997) and Road to Perdition (2002), which respectively cast him as a disabled former athlete and a hit man. "I've always wanted to play different things with different people. Variety is the spice of the job."

And film doesn't necessarily offer less than theater, he points out. "Stage is just a different approach — like being on tour for a musician, as opposed to making an album. In the studio you have all these toys available to you, but when you're live, you have that adrenaline rush from knowing that at 7:30, you're on — and you're off."

Grandage notes that Law has always chosen stage and screen characters "that push him. He hasn't changed as an actor, but what is changing, I think, is the way people see him. He isn't the curly-haired, beautiful young boy in The Talented Mr. Ripley; what we're seeing is the emergence of a great character actor. It's not often that beautiful men and women can have the public get past their looks and decide their own path, but Jude has always had something richer and deeper going on."

One role that Law doesn't mind having lost as he ages is that of a tabloid fixture. "I'm not followed anymore, and my phone's no longer tapped, which is a good thing," he says, alluding to his and ex-girlfriend Sienna Miller's involvement in the scandal in which the U.K.'s now-defunct News of the World was charged with hacking the phones of various celebrities and public figures. (Miller received an apology from the newspaper and financial compensation as part of a legal settlement in 2011.)

He doesn't discuss romantic relationships — "I never did" — but will enthuse, in general terms, about his children. He has four, three by his ex-wife, actress Sadie Frost, and one by model Samantha Burke, with whom he had a brief relationship in 2008. The elder two are in their teens now, and "in equal parts delighted and embarrassed" by their father's stardom.

Parenthood is in fact his first priority, Law says; acting "is what I get to do only in the hours I'm not doing that, which is everything to me. My children keep me sane in what is a mad world — particularly mad if you choose to be an actor."

Law has already accumulated a list of classic stage parts he'd like to tackle in the future. "I could rattle them off, but I won't, because I'll probably just say all the predictable ones, by Russian and English and American writers. And I was thinking the other day about how much I'd love to work on a brand-new play; that's something I haven't done yet."

He has no immediate plans after Henry V closes on Feb. 15, however. "I'll be unemployed as of then," he says, chuckling slightly. "It's not like I want to stop working — it's not like I can. You've got to pay the bills, like everyone else."

But "I'm not desperate," Law quickly adds. "There's a certain physical demand to doing eight shows a week, and I haven't had a break in 18 months. By February I'll be quite ready for a break, and I'm going to take one."