Jude Law has spoken out about taking on the role of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the new film The Wizard of the Kremlin.
Directed by Olivier Assayas, the film is a fictionalized account of Putin’s rise to power in the 1990s, adapted from the novel of the same name by Italian author Giuliano da Empoli. Law stars as Putin alongside Paul Dano as fictional adviser Vadim Baranov, Alicia Vikander as Baranov’s lover Ksenia, and Jeffrey Wright as the journalist who is relayed the story of Putin by Baranov.
When asked by a reporter ahead of the movie’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival if there were any positives he could draw from Putin’s persona, Law paused before answering.
“Well, I learned judo, so I took my own positive from that,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Speaking more on what the goal of his portrayal was, Law said: “Olivier and I discussed that this wasn’t to be an impersonation of Putin and he didn’t want me to hide behind a mask of prosthetics.”
Law speaks in his natural voice, not a Russian accent, throughout the film. However, his appearance is altered with the help of hair and makeup.
“We worked with an amazing makeup and hair team and had references of that period in Putin’s life. We tried to find a familiarity on me,” he explained. before adding: “It’s amazing what a great wig can do.”
He further joked that he hoped he wasn’t naive when saying he “didn’t fear repercussions” for taking on the role of the Russian president.
Meanwhile, Assayas addressed the timeliness of the film.
“The film is very much about how modern politics, 21st Century politics, were invented — and part of that evil arose from the rise to power of Vladimir Putin in Russia,” Assayas said.
“We made a movie about what politics has become and the very scary and dangerous situation we all feel we are in. We took a case — which was the specific story of Vladimir Putin — but I think it applies to a lot of authoritarian leaders. … What’s going on right now is not only terrifying, but especially because we haven’t really seen a relevant reaction or answer to it emerging.”
In a three-star review for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab wrote that the film “has some anarchic energy to it, but it lacks nuance and insight overall.”
“At its best, The Wizard of the Kremlin has some of the same anarchic energy found in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street,” Macnab wrote.
“But it’s ultimately very short on emotional heft – its characters are sketchily drawn, and Vadim is a strangely aloof figure, his motivations impossible to fathom. Two other films premiering in Venice this week, Alexander Sokurov’s monumental, archive-based Director’s Diary, and Alexander Rodnyansky’s autobiographical Notes of a Criminal, deal with the consequences of the break-up of the Soviet Union with much greater insight and nuance than is found here.”
