Jude Law became ‘obsessive’ Putin watcher for role as Russian leader

This image shows Jude Law, as Vladimir Putin, left, and Paul Dano, as Vadim Baranov, in a scene from "The Wizard of the Kremlin."

VENICE, Italy — British actor Jude Law on Sunday said he became an “obsessive” watcher of Vladimir Putin as he prepared for his role as the Russian leader in his new film “The Wizard of the Kremlin” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Law, 52, bears an uncanny resemblance to Putin, aping his scowl and distinctive walking style in the film by French director Olivier Assayas, which charts the rise of the former intelligence officer.

“There’s a lot of footage one could watch and, personally when I start going down that rabbit hole, it becomes sort of obsessive,” he told journalists. “You’re looking for ever more, newer material.”

Portraying Putin was a challenge because of his famously deadpan expression, he said.

“The tricky side to me was that the public face that we see (of Putin), we see very, very little,” Law added. “There’s this mask.”

Law credited his likeness to the real Putin to “an amazing makeup and hair team”, adding that he had no fear of repercussions.

Based on a bestseller

The movie, which runs for two and a half hours, is an exhaustive look at Putin’s career muzzling political opponents, cowing oligarchs, and enriching his entourage.

It is told through the eyes of a fictional political advisor, Vadim Baranov, played by Paul Dano. It is based on a top-selling book of the same name by Italian author Giuliano da Empoli.

Assayas said it was first and foremost a story about authoritarianism, with Russia’s transition from a chaotic democracy in the late 1990s to Putin’s modern autocracy a warning for the West.

“We made a movie about what politics has become and the very scary and dangerous situation we all feel we are in,” he explained.

Early reviews were mixed. While the Hollywood Reporter praised Law and Dano for their performances, it said the film “gets bogged down in too many characters and events”.

Screen International was more positive, praising “a screenplay dense with incident” and “fast-moving, sleek direction”.

Jarmusch return

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” is one of 21 films competing for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, a key platform for international launches, which runs until Saturday.

Other highlights on Sunday include the premiere of “Father Mother Sister Brother”, the latest film from independent American director Jim Jarmusch, with a stellar cast that include Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and regular collaborator, US singer Tom Waits.

The “Broken Flowers” director has called it “a kind of anti-action film”, featuring three separate dysfunctional families in conversation in the rural upstate New York, Dublin and Paris.

Jarmusch told reporters he was “disappointed” that the main distributor for the film, arthouse streaming platform Mubi, had accepted investment from a venture capital fund with links to the Israeli military.

“My relationship with Mubi was started much before that and they were fantastic to work with on this film,” Jarmusch told reporters. “I was, of course, disappointed and quite disconcerted by this relationship.”

Israel’s siege of Gaza has been one of the main talking-points in Venice, with an open letter denouncing the Israeli government and calling on the festival to speak out more forcefully gathering thousands of signatures.

Several thousand anti-war protesters shouting “Stop the genocide!” marched to the entrance of the festival on Saturday for a demonstration called by left-wing political groups in northeast Italy.

Wednesday will see the premiere of “The Voice of Hind Rajab” about the real-life killing of a six-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza by Israeli forces last year.

Directed by Franco-Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania, the production has attracted heavyweight Hollywood support from Brad Pitt, Jonathan Glazer and Joaquin Phoenix, who have joined as executive producers.

Gaza

Other in-competition films that have made a mark so far in Venice include Yorgos Lanthimos’s darkly satirical “Bugonia” starring Oscar-winner Emma Stone, about two conspiracy-obsessed misfits who kidnap a pharmaceutical company CEO.

Opening night feature “La Grazia” by Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino about an Italian president grappling with indecision about euthanasia drew plaudits, as has compatriot Gianfranco Rosi’s sumptuous black-and-white documentary about Naples.

Saturday saw Mexican director Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) deliver a new and big-budget adaptation of “Frankenstein” starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his creation.

By Adam Plowright and Alexandria Sage