Jude Law on Star Wars, why Ewan McGregor weirded him out and what he misses about Australia
Star Wars has been part of Jude Law’s life since he was a kid, but the Skeleton Crew star has revealed when things off-camera started to become weird.
Star Wars has been a big part of Jude Law’s life for just about as long as he can remember.
The twice Oscar-nominated star of The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain, Captain Marvel and the Fantastic Beasts franchise was just five years old when the original sci-fi-adventure classic was released in 1977, but it’s stayed with him ever since.
“I was exactly the right age,” he recalls over Zoom from Los Angeles, promoting his new TV series, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. “I have been thinking about this a lot recently and the only films I would have seen prior to Star Wars would probably have been Disney animation films and certainly nothing had the impact the Star Wars had.
“As we all remember, it sort of changed cinema really and consumed my imagination, my play, and so it really held a very special place for me and always has done.”
As a father of seven children, ranging in ages from 28 to one, he’s also had the opportunity to relive the wonder over and over again as the original three films were re-released and then franchise exploded with a prequel trilogy, then a sequel trilogy and countless TV, video game, comic and book spin-offs.
“When it was sort of rebooted, my kids were coming to an age where they were able to enjoy it themselves,” he says. “There were the re-releases that I took my son to see of the first three – that was probably in the ‘90s and just before the prequels came out. So it’s been a big part of my life and, like everyone, I love where it takes your imagination and the potential.”
But George Lucas’s galaxy far, far away got closer and closer to Law when his good friend and former roommate Ewan McGregor was cast as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1999’s The Phantom Menace. At the time, both were starting to break through in Hollywood – Law’s The Talented Mr Ripley was released the same year and earned him his first Oscar nomination and helped set him on the path to being one of the hottest actors of his generation.
As a Star Wars fan and a mate, Law says he was thrilled to see McGregor become such an integral part of a global pop culture phenomenon that has now spanned nearly half a century, even if it did come with a bit of weirdness.
“I don’t think any of us could quite believe it,” he says with a laugh. “First of all, we were excited that they were launching into that world again, and then that one of our dear friends was involved.
“I just remember the excitement he had and then the stories we heard when he got back having done it. I knew things were never going to be the same again when my son had a mask of Ewan that he used to wear. It all got very odd.”
Law says that with him staying in London and Scot McGregor relocating to America for long stretches and both busy with their growing families, the pair have “kind of drifted apart”. They have managed to catch up since Law has joined the Star Wars world in Skeleton Crew, but there were more important matters to discuss than lightsabres and the Force.
“It’s just one of those things that happens,” Law says. “I think I did see him during the making of it and we had too much of other stuff to catch up on so I don’t know that we touched on Star Wars.”
If McGregor’s Jedi Master Obi-Wan was eventually defined by a certain wisdom and serenity, Law’s character is more in the tradition of the classic Star Wars scoundrel. In Skeleton Crew, the first TV show or movie to view the ever-expanding world through the eyes of children, Law plays Jod Na Nawood, who takes four lost youngsters under his wing when he meets them on a hostile planet, far from their home, that is frequented by pirates, thieves and rogues. It’s clear he has a colourful past – and his use of the Force impresses the children – but whether his intentions are entirely altruistic is very much up in the air.
“There was just so much to play with,” says Law of his shady character. “He’s someone who keeps you guessing – there are all sorts of sides to him. He survives on his wits and I loved the parallels to people like Lando Calrissian and Han Solo in that he’s someone who’s doing things for a price and is looking for opportunity.
“Is he Force sensitive? If he is, then that’s kind of an interesting fold into that kind of a guy and all of that comes to play and more.”
Skeleton Crew creators Jon Watts and Chris Ford, who first met at film school in New York and wrote Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy together, say they still can’t quite believe they landed Law for the role and praise his ability to make the fantastical world of aliens, spaceships and epic battles feel normal and the “layers of complexity” he brought the character.
“When you write someone who is mysterious and dangerously charming, it’s easy to write that,” says Watts, “and then Jude comes in and just gives it a real deep textured believability.
“We keep saying that it seems like he’s always existed in the Star Wars universe. We just brought him back for this show. And he’s such a Star Wars fan. It was amazing.
“I think he was the only person I’ve ever heard actually improvise a Star Wars line that just fit right in. That’s a very difficult thing to do, to make it sound believable and actually have it hold up and he was really good at it.”
The four lead child actors in Skeleton Crew, Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Robert Timothy Smith and Kyriana Kratter, say that Law was not just a mentor to them, but also “an on-set dad” and sometime babysitter.
Watts agrees, saying that Law’s dad energy and professionalism helped him get the most out of his young cast, and made his job easier as a producer and director.
“I think when he came out on set and they saw what he does, they were like ‘oh, this is how it’s done’, and they learned so much from him,” says Watts. “He was so sweet with them and engaged them so well in the scenes and just on the set. He was like a partner in producing the show.”
Though Law has worked with a roll call of the finest Aussie actors including Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts and Toni Collette – and played Australian characters on at least two occasions – it took Law until last year to come Down Under to film. This time last year he was on the Gold Coast shooting Ron Howard’s survival thriller Eden alongside Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney and his experience here left him wondering why he’d left it so long and eager to see more.
“Christmas in Australia was just so special,” he says. “We took a place in Byron Bay for the few weeks we had off and it was such a beautiful, beautiful time for me and the family and I really hope to get back there and see more of it.
“Of course, you know, dumb Brit, I kind of went there thinking we were going to be able to see the whole thing. Then you look on the map and you realise you’ve seen about this much, and there’s all this left, so I do hope to get back and again soon, and hopefully work there again. We had a great experience with the crew. The crew were the best.
“And I miss the ocean. My daughter just the other day said ‘when are we going to go back to the beach?’, and I was like ‘well, not in London we’re not’.”
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew streams on Disney+ from December 3.
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