When Jude Law turned 40, he knew things needed to change. He’d had an impressive, varied life onscreen, from his Oscar-nominated breakout in The Talented Mr. Ripley to his acclaimed roles in Steven Spielberg’s AI Artificial Intelligence and Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator to his $1 billion-grossing Sherlock Holmes franchise. But for the art house heartthrob who’d spent much of his career pushing against being labeled a “pretty boy,” a new set of challenges awaited. “I certainly wasn’t the young guy on the block,” he tells me. “When there’s a whole herd of interesting, beautiful young men coming up, you’re trying to readjust and assimilate who you are.”

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Now the 51-year-old has found what he calls his new “sweet spot”: chameleonic performances befitting a character actor who’s been steeped in 25 years’ worth of stardom. In projects like HBO’s The Young Pope and the indie darling The Nest, we see the suave Law we’ve always known, only for him to subvert that image scene by scene. These transformations mark new territory, though they aren’t typically physical. That changes in Firebrand, the historical drama (in theaters June 14) helmed by Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz, which finds Law unrecognizable as Henry VIII. The actor captures the monarch’s venomous desperation at the end of his reign, as well as his turbulent marriage with his sixth wife, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander).

The role feels, in many ways, like a destination point for Law. So over our wide-ranging conversation, the actor arrived ready to talk through it all: His first big movie as Oscar Wilde’s snaky lover, the real reason he initially turned down The Talented Mr. Ripley, the first time he felt his career adrift, and how he’d sum up this latest chapter. “It feels to me like the end of a long journey,” he says of Firebrand. He’s ready to begin a new one.

Vanity Fair: By the time you filmed Wilde, you were already a Tony nominee in your early 20s. Did that give you a certain degree of early confidence?

Jude Law: I’d reached a really exciting point as an actor on stage. I’d worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company at the National Theatre, having had a career in off West End shows in London. I’d been brought to Broadway, got a Tony nomination. So yes, I was in a wonderful, delusional, euphoric state any 23-year-old could be in, thinking, “This is it. This is my career.” But equally, I hadn’t really done movies. Film for me was always this other—sort of a dream world.

This was a serious film about a serious subject, and it was really important. I felt like it was the first time I was on a cerebral, adult movie set with a director who was demanding in the most beautiful and generous way—Brian Gilbert is the most gentle man, but demanding of me and pushing me. It was also in and out of my comfort zone. There were sex scenes in it, pretty explicit, that I wasn’t fearful of or scared of, but it was a demand.

Stephen Fry, who played Wilde, has talked about how he felt nervous in the sex scenes, and said that actors such as you helped him feel more comfortable.

Well, without telling too many tales out of school, yeah. [Laughs] I do remember us spending a long night in the bar the night before. Neither of us wanted to touch on the subject of what was happening the next day, but we talked around it a lot and kept ordering more wine. The next day I think we arrived giddy and giggly and knowing and loving each other a little bit more. He was more mature and was playing this iconic role, and was probably more aware given his experience as an actor and as a performer—just as a human being—of the stakes. This is another thing about getting to a certain age where you look back and you think, my God, I just dived in with youthful vigor: “Okay, what are we going to do?” Which I may not do nowadays—or I would, but I understand more why [Stephen] was considering it.

After getting cast in that movie, you were still concerned, at the beginning of your career, about being labeled “the pretty boy.” How do you reflect on that anxiety?

In my 20s, I protested too much in that I felt I had to prove myself as an actor. I was being touted often as this looker, this idol of sorts, this pretty boy. And I was aware that the long game required a lot more work than that, and I wanted to prove that as such…. If I look back now, I can understand the young man trying to prove his mettle as an actor, but equally—as I think most folk who turn the corner of 50 look back—I kind of go, “Dude, just enjoy it because it doesn’t last forever.” If you have any kind of time in the ring in Hollywood, you go through ebbs and flows.

You’ve talked about Dickie in The Talented Mr. Ripley being the one early role you resisted, fearing it’d put you in that box. Obviously, the film was major, and you got your first of two Oscar nominations—but did those fears about typecasting come to pass at all?

I’ll add some color to that. It’s not something I’ve necessarily ever shed light on before, but it’s certainly something that I’ve become aware of the older I’ve gotten. The reason I had that reaction [to Ripley] had a great deal to do with one of the agents I was with at the time. He was a guy who had said to me, “It shouldn’t be this easy. Resist this kind of a role because it’s going to box you in.” I realize now how precious and impressionable you are in your early 20s. I’ve got three children who are all in their 20s, and they’ll hate me saying this—most 20 year olds will hate me saying this—but you’re still a kid when you’re in your 20s. You should be allowed to be a kid. The world sees you as an adult, and it should test you as an adult, but ultimately you’re a child.

I was being told by this guy, “Don’t take this,” and I believed him. I listened. I was ridiculous enough to turn around to Anthony Minghella and go, “I don’t know if I want to play that part. I don’t want to be boxed in.” Obviously I was wrong.

Or, he was wrong.

Well, he was wrong. He was feeding a kind of insecurity, I suppose. Maybe I learned a wisp of something from that advice, but ultimately what he didn’t see was the big picture, which was: This is a great filmmaker, this is a great part in a wonderful company. Can you imagine, if I took that single film away from my experience? My life would be very different. He couldn’t have been more wrong. I’m so glad that it proved him wrong, because there’s also a great tale there about Hollywood, which is: Catch the ball and run.

Within two, three years, you’re then in movies directed by Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes, Minghella again, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese. That’s got to shape you as an actor to some degree, right?

Oh, truly. You’re living it, you’re doing it, and you’re not turning around going, “Oh I must remember this”—it passes through you, or you pass through it. But on reflection, you’re absolutely right. That was a sweet spot. That was a period of incredible influence and good fortune. I’ve always prided myself on being someone who is: “Shut up, listen, learn, work hard, be nice, get on with it, raise your game.” I couldn’t have had better people around me. When you have that caliber of director, the actors working with them are wonderful too. The designers are wonderful. The directors of photography are wonderful. The prop masters are wonderful. You’re learning about the craft that you love at the absolute highest degree in every capacity, and it sets you up. It’s like going to the greatest school of life.

Did you at least sense at the time that this red-hot collection of filmmakers was suddenly in your orbit, in such a condensed period of time?

You don’t see it until it’s gone, and then you look back. I’m just so bloody glad. Some people see all that go up in a puff of smoke of getting drunk and high and, I don’t know, losing that kind of opportunity. I look back—and I had a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong—but I’m so glad I can look back and I go, “Wow.”

I also just think about that time in Hollywood. Closer is an intricate movie about adult relationships that made over $100 million globally. I don’t know if that happens today.

I know, isn’t it funny? So I’m developing a project with Justin Kuritzkes, who just wrote Challengers.

That’s exciting.

The thing that bonded us was Mike Nichols. I said, “I think this is a Mike Nichols film.” He was like, “Well, you would know.” [Laughs] He felt the same when he went into Challengers. If you’re true, if you get the tone right, there is something about that kind of intelligence and honest and sexual-social intercourse that is just irresistible in filmmaking and in storytelling. Mike is kind of the cherry on the cake of it—you don’t get them that often. But to emulate, to try and be inspired by that kind of filmmaking, we shouldn’t lose that just because it’s not happening regularly nowadays.

Look at Challengers right now. It stands out against Furiosa, stands out against a lot of the big summer hopes like The Fall Guy. Everyone’s still talking about it. You’ve got to go, well, that wasn’t trying—that was being true to itself. Which is a big Mike message: Don’t force it, be it.

You appeared in I Heart Huckabees around then, which was known to be a chaotic production. There’s a famous video of David O. Russell arguing with Lily Tomlin on set. How did you experience that movie and him as a director?

I have an ongoing relationship with David, one that is happily playing out even today. He is arguably one of the most exciting filmmakers alive. His brilliance makes him at times unmanageable and unpredictable and wonderfully mercurial and exciting, and those were all the things I experienced. I watched Three Kings, I watched Spanking the Monkey, and I wanted to meet him. Meeting him was an even bigger thrill.

The experience of making that film was bizarre. We were all there doing it for nothing, just loving being in each other’s company and playing. I remember fantasizing, “Well, this is what it must have been like on a Cassavetes movie. This is what it must have been like on a Bergman film.” You were just there on the island listening to the master and adhering. And at the same time, sometimes being the bad child going, “Oh, I don’t want to play today. Fuck you. I’m not going to get up and do that.” Other days: “Whatever you say, let’s do it.” He kind of encouraged that.

That was a really exciting moment for me. I felt very confident that I was in a good position in my career. I was able to make choices at a time that I’d never really made before, really looking at filmmakers that I loved and knowing that they had an interest in working with me and that I probably offered some kind of leverage. We were trying to fuck with people. We were trying to be provocative and interesting and other. At the time, it just felt, “Yeah, of course, this is what success affords you—this is what you should be doing, rather than, okay, what’s the next predictable choice?”

You mentioned going through ebbs and flows. This was an exciting moment in your career. Was there a point in the 2000s when that started to shift?

I’ve been very lucky. There haven’t been any prolonged periods, but there have been little spikes, definitely. I’d say on the back of Alfie [which also came out that year]. It was probably overpriced, it didn’t perform, and I suddenly hit my first brick wall where you realize, “Oh, it’s not plain sailing.” That was the first time on the back of a really great run where something really flopped and cost some money—or I got paid probably too much for it. [Laughs] Then you go, “Oh, okay, there’s a business behind this.”

There have been other periods where suddenly you’re not the bright young thing anymore, and you are trying to find your feet against people who have had hit after hit—or their next nomination.

Jumping ahead, I’d love to talk about Spy in that context. You’re incredibly funny in that movie. Had you ever done a studio comedy?

No! Spy was an odd one. It came at a time when I felt like I was in a bit of a suit—I had just turned 40—and I had been turned onto Melissa McCarthy and her utter brilliance by my son Rudy. I’d kind of fallen madly for her. It was this callback to people like Keaton and Fields, this primal level of physical comedy that was so modern.

I liked the fact that they approached me and wanted me to send myself up. There was just a part of me that was just, “You’re probably not going to play Bond, you’re a bit old. So why don’t you play Bond and take the piss out of it?” That made me laugh. She made me laugh endlessly. And Paul [Feig] is amazing, and his team around him: “Have you thought of this? Say this. What about this?” It gets your brain going. Opens the mind up to the opportunity of, Why don’t we just do it differently every time with a funny line? Does that work? Can you keep a straight face?

Did you hope to play Bond one day?

No. No. [Laughs] I always wanted to play the bad guy that killed him.

That tracks. Though you then play a very good guy in the Fantastic Beasts movies, in Dumbledore, right?

I’m really glad that that’s part of our conversation actually, because the journey there is convoluted in that I had a relationship with the character and that world through my children. There’s a sense of it through their wide eyes, and your own reattachment to innocence and what they see. There’s nothing like watching good films made for children as an adult with your own children. It’s a really exciting experience.

There was always a period when the next Harry Potter was coming up and I thought, “I wonder whether I could play [Dumbledore].” I was usually too young at the time. But when this came about, I really found a maturity and a complexity on an emotional level with the Fantastic Beast films.

I know they weren’t as successful, but David Yates was given more opportunity to get into these quite dark and mature themes, still somehow managing to lean into the world of Potter and obviously the wizarding world. I took it really seriously playing Dumbledore. I really felt it was a great honor. I was scared, too, because I was also aware I was stepping into a franchise where people had big opinions—and oh God, are they going to hate me for being here? Am I the right choice, the wrong choice? There’s a certain disappointment that they weren’t as successful as we’d hoped. But equally, I look back and I hope that somewhere I’m Dumbledore in someone’s eyes, and that means a lot to me.

They were wonderful films to make. I’ve never felt closer to the sense of what it might have been like on the lot in 1920, making a film where they built everything.

You’ve done Sherlock Holmes and some other big movies, but what does the equation look like for you, in terms of saying yes to a big tentpole?

Well, Fantastic Beasts led in many ways to Star Wars—the show that I’ve just done. What you underestimate is the technical demands as an actor. You spend a good part of your day acting with puppets and with puppeteers and with dancers, and with characters wearing masks that are animatronic. It’s a whole different style of acting. I mean, it’s demanding and also wonderfully freeing because you’re truly in a fantasy world.

Two of my favorite recent roles of yours are The Young Pope and The Nest. They feel linked to me: really strong filmmaker visions that are a bit less commercial.

You’ve just highlighted something to me that I’ve never noticed before: There was a definite page- or chapter-turn when Paolo [Sorrentino] came to me about playing Lenny Belardo [in The Young Pope], which led on to me working with Sean Durkin in The Nest. My sense is that there was a time when I realized, Oh, I’m leaning here on the looks that I saw as a curse, maybe—but these are really serious filmmakers, and the parts aren’t hiding that reference, but they are so much more. There’s a complexity to them and a maturity, and a demand in nuance that sits on top of the very thing that maybe I’ve been running from. Both certainly sit in my memory as experiences that were very pleasurable, but hugely demanding. It wasn’t like they came easy, but neither [character] required me to make some sort of physical manifestation. They really both looked like me as I look on a daily basis, and yet neither were like me. I called on familiarity, traits that I think I probably have, but little whispers—to really feel like I can change within and not necessarily hide without.

Can you say more about that turning point, which I imagine extends to Firebrand?

To get to this age and being offered just the last few roles I’ve been offered, it feels like I’ve really gotten to a place—maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s the career I’m sitting on top of, or maybe it’s me being recognized as an actor, I don’t know. But it’s a reward, in a way. A reward for me to have been offered this role and have the opportunity to play it.

So how do you think of Firebrand in the context of your career? Physically, I’ve never seen you do anything like this, and I’d imagine it felt that way when you signed on.

The journey to playing a monstrous psychopath. [Laughs] I like to think that certainly each part as it follows is different from the last, and that’s just me following a line of curiosity and the desire to change and challenge. With this in particular, there were obvious temptations: he figure as he stands in history, the new perception from Karim’s take on the drama and on the period. And then for me, yeah, leaning into my own age, my own sense of retrospection on who I once was and was what was considered of me, or what I thought my life was going to be and where—to me, that’s at the heart of who Henry is. On top of that was a potential, if I got it right and authentic, to transform into someone who was certainly physically further away from me than I’ve ever played before.

This interview has been edited and condensed.