Movies: One Cool Jude

Jude Law keeps all the shirts he has been killed in. And he has been killed rather a lot, often quite horribly. There was a bashing with an oar, a climactic shootout and immolation in a garbage-disposal unit, to name a few. The fake-bloodied shirts seem like an apt, if slightly macabre set of trophies for his career to date, since Law has built a career around playing mesmerizing bullies. But the garments may be ironic talismans because, really, what most of Law's fans want to see is the man with his shirt off.

The ardor that Law elicits has not been dampened at all by the frequency with which he plays bad guys--from the careless, egocentric Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley (dispatched by the oar) to the creepily murderous Maguire in Road to Perdition (the shootout). There's a troubled, sometimes even unwholesome streak that runs through all Law's characters--even Jerome, the athlete whose identity Ethan Hawke's character assumes in Gattaca (the garbage disposal). It's as if Law, who has the green eyes, long lashes and aqueduct eyebrows of a very pretty girl, has been on the run from his gentle side.

Or, perhaps, from his gentle fans. "I wanted to avoid [romantic] roles in my 20s," says Law, "because I didn't see much longevity in my career were I to take that path. I've not seen many films like that when guys come across as anything but shallow. It's all [in a dopey voice] 'I'm in loooove.'"

But now that he's hit 30, Law has finally taken on the type of role he seems genetically engineered to play--man in loooove. In Cold Mountain, Anthony Minghella's captivating Civil War epic from the Charles Frazier book, Law embodies the cinematic romantic hero down to the chest hair. He plays Inman, a curt country carpenter who falls for the new preacher's sophisticated daughter (Nicole Kidman). They share perhaps six awkward conversations (his declaration of love: "It's like when you wake up and your ribs are bruised thinking so hard on somebody") and one kiss before he marches off. To get back to her, he has to battle not only Yankees and Confederate Home Guards but also the suspicion that his soul is now too polluted to be capable of love.

But even with a story that romantic, Law prefers to focus on the Homeric aspects of his character over the Titanic ones. "Inman was the first person I've played that I wanted to learn from and emulate," says Law. "I don't see me in him at all. A lot less than all those bastards and murderers I've played. There's a simplicity to him and a morality to him that I love."