Jude Law Rewatches The Holiday, Grand Budapest Hotel, Closer & More

The fact that they both were sort of oddballs,

that they probably should have been married at that point.

And why weren't they?

And why were they living in this scuzzy little flat,

you know, with a landlady?

Oh my god, this is fun actually.

I mean, I haven't seen these in so many years.

Hello, I'm Jude Law, and today I'll be watching some scenes

from throughout my career,

most of which I haven't seen in many, many years,

so this will be quite intriguing for me,

and hopefully for you, here we go.

[laid back music]

[VCR clunking and whirring]

I love it here, I'm gonna move here! Beautiful.

So this is my final scene.

I wanted to tell you my plan.

Gah. [Jude laughing]

I haven't seen this in so many years.

I'm being like flooded with memories.

First of all, what a location.

I mean, that was the experience throughout this whole film,

couldn't quite believe how beautiful everywhere was.

I thought I'd come back in the new year

under my own steam. Really?

My god, we're really young. [Jude laughing]

So this is 26 years ago, I think.

I'm shocked at how young we are.

I remember rehearsing this scene,

Anthony insisted on having that boat,

or a similar sized boat brought into Cinecitta,

the film studio in Rome.

And we rehearsed it in quite full detail,

obviously without the movement.

So once we were out there, it was suddenly quite shocking

how much chop there was in the water.

And so standing up and things like that

were really suddenly quite hairy.

I got a place in Rome and then when we're there,

we could be there, and then when we're here,

we could be here. I don't think so.

Obviously we spent days out, just drifting,

and being followed by another small boat

with the whole team on it.

They'd stick the boat on the end of another boat

so they could film in one direction and control it,

and then flip the boat round,

and do the same with our boat sort of sticking out the end,

if you see what I mean.

So you got movement,

'cause also you're still fighting horizon.

We didn't want any modern liners.

You didn't want, you know, ocean liners,

you didn't want any land, and so on and so forth.

See, particularly with the Marge problem,

you just blame me.

Marge and I are getting married.

I think what's coming back is this sense of nuance

and detail that stems to the discussions

that we all had with Anthony and how prepared we were.

How? How?

Yesterday you were ogling girls on the terrace,

and today you're getting married, that's absurd.

I love Marge.

It's just reminding me of all these weird little shifts

that I remember, you know,

Anthony wanting to draw out of the piece,

misunderstandings of intimacy,

the misunderstandings of emotions.

You love me, you're not marrying me.

I just remember going into that

with such a fine-toothed comb in rehearsal.

And so seeing it kind of pop out

is really rewarding actually.

I'm really, I'm quite surprised

how much we're getting in to one small moment.

Tom, I don't love you.

No, I don't mean that as a threat.

To be honest, I'm a little relieved you're going.

Dickie's never gonna go there.

The type of young man he is in that period of time,

there's no way he's gonna ever open a door

to any kind of recognition of homo eroticism

or that kind of a relationship.

I remember Anthony also giving me a phenomenal note,

something to do with like, you know,

having someone come to stay, but you never like them more

than when you're driving them to the airport.

That kind of like, you know, it was great having you.

I really can't wait to see you again.

I know there's something.

That evening when we played chess, for instance,

it was obvious. What evening?

Oh sure, no, no, it's too dangerous for you to take on.

Oh no, no, well, we're brothers, hey.

And had a really interesting idea

that he wanted the choice for Tom to kill Dickie,

to be self-defense and a moment of explosive

rather than premeditated violence.

And he also wanted Dickie to be ruined in someway.

And he thought the best way to do that was

to take his, like his face.

He said, Wouldn't it be great if he could hit you,

and you kind of look at him for a moment,

and then your face just falls in half?

You shut up. Can't move without,

Dickie, Dickie, Dickie, like a little girl all the time.

[boat engine rumbling] [Dickie grunting]

Here we go, so he looks up, nothing and then.

And then his head just goes [Jude imitates oozing]

They did it with an actual effect,

so I was wearing a prosthetic

that they pressed a little button

and the whole thing just goes [Jude imitates opening]

He wanted that as the sort of instigation

of Dickie's fury at Tom, here we go,

and then Tom's response to Dickie's fury.

And also interestingly, I suppose his idea was

that would ultimately have been the end of his kinda life

as beautiful Dickie anyway,

'cause half his face would've been,

which was an interesting choice.

He sort of thought, oh, this sort

of beautiful life was over.

[Dickie screaming] Get out!

Whenever you shoot a fight, there's always a kind of,

first of all, emotionally, you are winding yourself up

so that you can play it emotionally as well as physically.

And there's always a sort of an extra 10%, 15%

that comes out of you when you call, Action,

which, it gives you a margin of error and the unknown.

[Dickie and Tom yelling]

And we were throwing each other around in this,

and there was no padding, it was a kind of wooden boat.

So Matt may have got injured,

but he certainly injured me, he broke my rib.

You know, it's just one of those things that happens.

[VCR clunking and whirring]

[ethereal music]

Is it real?

I don't know, David.

I haven't seen, I mean I haven't seen this

Is it coming? in like 15 years.

I can't tell yet.

We filmed this in the, is it called the Spruce Goose Dome?

There's a huge hangar outside of Los Angeles

where they kept the Spruce Goose,

which was the biggest airplane, I think, ever built.

And they built this forest in there,

and they built the flesh fair in there.

You know, most directors want more time, you know,

give me more schedule to shoot this stuff.

And only Steven Spielberg said,

Hmm, I can shoot all that in half the time.

And they cut the whole thing down

because he was so prepared.

I mean, it was remarkable.

I'd never ever experienced the sort of pace

and vision that he had.

I mean, he was editing in his head as he was shooting.

So if you came to a moment in a scene

which he knew he was gonna cut from, he'd just cut and move.

And I mean, it's like a kind of cinematic genius, you know.

Is Blue Fairy mecha, orga, man, or woman?

Woman.

Woman. [insects chirping]

I know women.

Steven is incredibly good at encouraging you

to go away and be creative, and he's very open to ideas.

So I was in London prepping for quite, a month,

if I remember rightly,

with a choreographer called Fran James.

I don't know that I went in specifically to learn

to sort of move like a robot or anything.

They sometimes ask for me by name.

I think the discussion had already been had

that maybe he had music coming out of him to seduce people

or to create an ambience.

And I remember the discussion between Steven and I,

that maybe he just had the CD player or something in him.

So the whole click came in.

No two are ever alike.

And after they've met me, no two are ever the same.

And I know where most of them can be found.

The prosthetics started out as being the great venial.

They took a mold of my face, built a prosthetic,

and then stuck it back on my face.

But it was too restrictive,

and it kind of looked too plasticated.

So they kind of reduced it down to brow and nose and chin.

And we ended up actually just using a piece on the chin

and a tiny piece on my nose.

With a little lady shave, we took all the hair off my face,

like all the fluff, and sprayed in this hairline.

And most of that is just this very, very thick makeup

that gives me that kind of plasticky look,

which they would then polish.

I mean it, I remember constantly coming in, buffing my face.

It was a nightmare for my hands though

'cause they shaved all, everything off my hands as well.

And it all grew back like twice as thick.

[Gigolo Joe] My customers, and they ask for me by name.

♪ Gigolo Joe what do you know ♪

Somewhere in there this idea

of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire,

and so I worked with Fran on dance,

and weirdly with the sort of combination of dancing

and robotic movements and mannerisms,

for example, the way he walked would always be the same.

And so we kind of created something that was fluid.

My eldest son was three when I was making this,

and my daughter was born.

So I really remember, I really loved working with Haley,

first 'cause he was a kid and I was in that sort of,

in a very familial place with my babies.

And he was so astonishingly good.

Kids are either being kids,

and you kind of capture them being themselves,

or they're really performing.

And he was able to just take notes

like a really mature actor.

And it was this sort of really odd mix

between kind of goofing around talking about, I don't know,

the Simpsons or some funny thing he had done on the weekend,

and then also really being able

to play these characters opposite each other,

and he really engaged.

And he had a lot to deal with, 'cause you know, the teddy,

Stan Winston had built

this incredible remote-controlled teddy bear,

but also it needed puppeteers, and that takes a lot of time.

Fun, obviously for a kid, but also time consuming.

And he was just so present and so brilliant.

[VCR clunking and whirring]

You all done? Mm.

How's the photographer? Good. Professional.

Gosh, look how little Natalie looks, she's a baby.

One of your lot.

What, female? Americano.

Reflecting on this film, it is one of the few where,

quite honestly, the script was so incredibly good

and considered there was such a simplicity to its device,

which is, you know, moments in these people's lives

when they meet and moments when they split up,

and when they meet and when they split up,

these really specific key moments in their lives,

in their love lives,

that had such a sort of raw and familiar tone and taste

and covered territory that anyone

who's been in a relationship has sort of been through,

that really one had to just give oneself

to the drama, to the text.

Anna, Alice. [footsteps falling]

This is where Patrick Marber is so brilliant.

He's playing the awkwardness.

What Mike did so brilliantly was create an environment

of trust and vulnerability and openness

by being so open about his own past

and his own loves and personal dramas,

that it meant that we were all connected and safe

and able to do the same through the drama.

It wasn't a piece which I remember having to do work

where I thought, okay, plan this character's emotional arc,

plan this character's emotional response,

because that was already in the map of the script.

It was more a case of turn up and be honest to the moment

that the script is directing you in.

And when you're working opposite brilliant actors

who are doing the same, and they're all there,

and they're all willing to be brave and open,

it's the best kind of play you can experience as an actor.

Will you take my photo?

I've never been photographed by a professional before.

I'd really appreciate it. I can pay you.

No, I'd like to. Only if you don't mind.

Why should I? [lighter clicks]

I think, I'm quoting someone else when I say

that it's like a sport.

Like you play at your best

when you're playing someone really, really good, right?

They raise your game.

Well, the same applies in acting.

And what I've also found is that the best actors

are also usually very collaborative and open

because the key to acting is listening.

It's not, you know,

I think people assume it's what am I gonna do with my role,

rather than listening to what the other person's doing,

which engages you immediately.

She is beautiful, I've got to see you.

No. What's this, patriotism?

I don't want trouble. I'm not trouble.

I never quite understood the final footnote

of Patrick's story,

which is that she's never told him the truth,

that actually Alice isn't Alice at all.

She dies in the play, and we reconvene and we talk about it,

and sort of confess our,

the repercussions of having learned about that death.

But the lie is a really interesting one, which the,

if I remember rightly, the lies remains in the film.

I see the name Alice Ayres on a plaque,

which immediately makes you think, do you ever know anyone.

Is the person in front of you that you're in love with

really the person that they're telling you they are,

or promoting that they are?

[VCR clunking and whirring]

♪ Oh you and me ♪

So first of all, my memory is that this was one

of the first things we shot.

It was literally the only time we were all together

at the same time because there's no other parts of the film.

So it was one of the, I'm gonna say,

I mean, I remember hanging out with the others.

I mean, Kate and I certainly did

because we had kids about the same age.

And Jack I remember hanging out with.

But I remember it being, it was an odd occasion,

it was kind of exciting.

Apart from anything,

it was meant to be New Year's Eve, right?

So we'd shot all the exteriors in the UK.

They built the interiors in LA, we moved to LA,

and I wasn't in the first four weeks filming,

and then we went behind.

So I was just in LA for two months and got tan.

I get very tan if I even look at the sun.

There are slight different sessions between my skin tone

between the interior and exterior.

There were obviously moments

where the kids were there with us,

but then I remember there being big sections of this scene,

the children weren't around, so we were having to respond

as if the kids were doing stuff.

So I think that was one of them.

Us watching Kate and Jack kind of kiss and cuddle,

Nancy would say,

Oh, the kids might be kind of making fun of that.

So us responding, like going, [Jude shushing]

all of that was sort of,

we're pretending the kids are in the room.

Oh yes. ♪ Do now ♪

I just remember this being so much fun.

This is just fooling around, you know, to music,

and pretending you're having a great time.

Well, you are having a great time.

I remember having conversations with Nancy early on

and her referencing really classic romantic comedies,

that Tracy and Hepburn, and Carrie Grant,

and going back and looking at those,

and that was absolutely,

we were trying to emulate that with a modern twist.

And I think those types of films really do affect people.

There's this sort of honesty and good cheer to them

that make people feel good.

And obviously it has a Christmas theme,

which means it comes 'round annually,

and people therefore kind of like

to recreate things ritualistically.

But I'm thrilled that I'm in something

that people go back to time and time again.

The number of films I've made,

not a lot of them have had that response.

[VCR clunking and whirring]

That's one odor I can't quite put my finger on.

[Sherlock sniffing]

Is it candy floss? Molasses, maple syrup, ah, barley sugar.

Toffee, apple. [Jude laughing]

In a very polished way,

we were making it all up as we went along,

which was just the dynamic

that was the kind of alchemy of this film.

To say that it was the three of us,

meaning Guy, Robert, and I, is not true,

because of course there were all these other inputs,

but it felt very much like the three of us would go in

and look at what we had to do for the day,

and we'd play for a couple of hours and try stuff.

And you know, Robert is exceptional

at coming up with ideas and moments.

And Guy, obviously, is a writer as well as a director.

And so we would sort of play and then reduce, reduce,

and that would be what we would shoot.

But we'd always have alternatives and ideas,

and things just in the moment.

So things like coming up with a candy apple

because the guy's got one,

and he's just been talking about a scent somewhere else

was just a funny, silly idea.

That's why I started laughing.

[folk music]

[hands slapping]

We always wanted to differentiate the styles of fighting

between Watson and Holmes, that Holmes was more controlled,

but equally usually in deeper trouble.

[glassware breaking] [body thudding]

Watson was a bit more of a brawler,

a bit of a pugilist, but a soldier,

so kind of tough guy, but not necessarily as refined.

And we wanted it to look plausible, like, you know,

not sort of big special effects fights,

but using sauce pans and hats and headbutting people,

and just like rough and ready.

And then also intertwining the humor,

Robert and Guy were absolutely brilliant at this.

[gunshot fires] [bullet ricochets]

[victim groaning] [body thudding]

The elements that I really wanted to bring out of Watson was

that he was writing the books, so it was his observations,

it was his translation of what was happening.

What was it like to really live with this guy,

rather than the genius which you might add in the book,

or rather than the great cases and the way he would,

you know, did his socks smell?

Did he wash up?

Did he use my clothes?

All the funny stuff of kind of the odd couple,

which I thought was just humorous and real.

The fact that they both were sort of oddballs,

that they probably should have been married

at that point or why weren't they?

And why were they living in this scuzzy little flat,

you know, with a landlady?

All of those truths.

You know, the idea that through Watson's eyes,

he was sort of looking at it as an author,

thinking, oh this is a very good story,

maybe I can pen that, you know.

[VCR clunking and whirring]

Who's this is interesting old fellow?

[Author Voiceover] I inquired of Monsieur Jean.

To my surprise, he was distinctly taken aback.

Don't you know? He asked.

Don't you recognize him?

Lots of things come back here.

Jason and I had worked together on I Heart Huckabees,

and had gotten on very, very well.

He's just a delightful and beautiful man.

And so I was really excited that it was he and I.

[Author Voiceover] Monsieur Jean signaled to me

and I leaned closer. I'll tell you a secret.

He takes only a single bed sleeping room

without a bath in the rear corner of the top floor.

And it's smaller than the service elevator.

I believe, other than Tom Wilkinson,

the late Tom Wilkinson, sadly, I think we were the first up.

You know, we would have dinner every night,

so there was already this real sort of intimacy.

I was a really big fan of Wes's films and really just,

and sort of understood the world

and just really wanted to be in it.

And I actually wrote to him saying,

I really wanna be in that world,

and he asked me to come along.

So stepping into the style

and the tone of his films felt pretty straightforward

because it was something that I had admired

and wanted to be a part of.

This is a really interesting moment.

So I remember shooting this,

and it was my first lesson in how specific he was

because Jason's to my right.

Now normally you just sort of look like that,

you know, if you're talking to someone.

And he wanted me to look like that

because he wanted my profile,

'cause that's how sort of specific he is.

Like, Cut, no,

you've gotta really look round like this, and then,

so all the angles are very, very considered,

which again is why they're so,

they're so famous for their design and for their style.

For example, that set was just a flat

with a projection on the back, built solely for that shot.

So this really was an older bathhouse.

[Zero] I admire your work.

I beg your pardon.

I said, I know and admire your wonderful work.

Me and Murray spent two days in bath, basically,

together, well not together.

I mean, what to say about working with Murray Abraham.

He was just a delight.

He was mischievous and curious,

but also just very like, like all of us,

very happy to be there, and happy to be a part of it,

and so engaged and meticulous.

May I invite you to dine with me tonight?

And it will be my pleasure,

and indeed my privilege to tell you my story.

And when you work with someone who's had the career

or the experience that he has, you know,

you're learning just by being in their presence,

watching how they handle a camera, or a scene, or a line.

I mean, he's obviously famous also for his beautiful voice.

And so what he can do to a line,

it's like listening to a great saxophonist play a note.

I love it all just the same, this enchanting old ruin.

Ah, they can bend it like that, or hit that high.

So you're just learning.

[VCR clunking and whirring]

He would never do anything without asking you first.

Oh Kit, this is only to you.

She was a radical.

So this was my first day on set.

[King] She deserted her husband, her children.

I was fortunate with this part in that I had months

to prepare because we,

me and Karim discussed it in like October.

I had Christmas and then it kept, got pushed,

so I had a few months at the beginning of the year

to really get ready.

So I remember being obsessed with this idea

that I really wanted him to always carry a sense

of who he had been.

That he had been this beautiful man,

he had been this great athlete,

he had been this prince full of promise,

and was suddenly well aware that he was on the way out,

and was furious with himself, furious with life,

furious with God, furious with the world

that everything had become such a mess.

So the fury was always present.

Plus he's in agony all the time,

blistering agony with these legs.

I pictured him like a wounded gorilla.

I really wanted him to still be powerful up here,

the idea of being able to grab people

and grab things and own them.

[birds squawking] James! James!

I completely underestimated having this falcon.

And not only is it a falcon, it's a really rare falcon.

It's like a snow falcon from Siberia or something.

I'd had a bit of a practice, but I'd forgotten that,

of course, it's gonna respond if I start getting angry here.

[bird squawking] James!

And James was the name of the chap.

So that all just became a part of it.

That's me getting angry 'cause I'm trying to do the scene

and then the falcon's going nuts.

So it's just like, Take it off me!

[bird squawking] James!

Because I didn't want to get clawed.

And that's just one of those lovely lucky moments

where you're kind of playing two things, and the bird,

of course, exploding added to the flurry of the scene.

I'm sorry. What?

I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me.

I worked with a very good intimacy coordinator on this.

You know, I had to make sure everyone who came on set knew

that I may touch them because he's a king and he owns you.

Friend from childhood,

confused me. [King shushing]

It's very physical, I touch a lot of people's mouths,

and that relates to an appalling way be abuses his wife

where he kind of puts his fingers in her mouth.

It's his sense of you are just, you're nothing,

you're an animal, and he does the same with a dog.

That kind of physical grabbing, ownership, disregard

was really important to this sense of status

that I wanted him to have.

I was completely unaware of where the cameras were.

And that's the way Karim works,

that he would sort of shoot it,

and sometimes film when you weren't,

he wouldn't say, Action.

So I remember finishing the day's work,

and being really like, Have we got it?

Did we get the scene?

I didn't feel like we actually shot it,

and it was me getting used to Karim's style,

which was very fluid and secret, not secretive,

that makes it sound like it was illicit,

but it was very, very subtle.

[bird squawking] [King shushing]

Forgive me, forgive me. Don't question us.

I learned during the prep

that Henry was the first monarch, in England anyway,

to refer to themselves as the royal we, us,

being me, Henry, the Crown, and God.

So I changed all of his language to us, we.

And it makes him psychopathic.

He sounds so weird.

Don't question us, and he's talking about himself.

It's so odd.

[VCR clunking and whirring]

Thank you so much for watching.

[laid back music]