Jude Law became ‘obsessive’ Putin watcher for role as Russian leader
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VENICE: British actor Jude Law on Sunday said he became an “obsessive” watcher of Vladimir Putin as he prepared for his role as the Russian leader in his new film The Wizard of the Kremlin which premieres later at the Venice Film Festival.
Law, 52, bears an uncanny resemblance to Putin, aping his scowl and distinctive walking style in the film by French director Olivier Assayas, which charts the rise of the former intelligence officer.
“There’s a lot of footage one could watch and, personally when I start going down that rabbit hole, it becomes sort of obsessive,” he told a press conference. “You’re looking for ever more, newer material.”
He said portraying Putin had been a challenge because of his famously deadpan expression.
“The tricky side to me was that the public face that we see (of Putin), we see very, very little,” Law added.
“There’s this mask.” Law credited his likeness to the real Putin to “an amazing makeup and hair team”, adding that he had no fear of repercussions.
Assayas insisted he wanted Law “to appropriate the character” and become “a vessel for what he represents”.
The movie, which runs for two and a half hours, is an exhaustive look at Putin’s career muzzling political opponents, cowing oligarchs, and enriching his entourage.
It is told through the eyes of a fictional political advisor, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), and is based on a top-selling book of the same name by Italian author Giuliano da Empoli.
Assayas said it was first and foremost a story about authoritarianism, with Russia’s transition from a chaotic democracy in the late 1990s to Putin’s modern autocracy a warning for the West.
“We made a movie about what politics has become and the very scary and dangerous situation we all feel we are in,” he explained.
Jarmusch return
The Wizard of the Kremlin is one of 21 films competing for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, a key platform for international launches, which runs until Saturday.
Other highlights on Sunday include the premiere of Father Mother Sister Brother, the latest film from independent American director Jim Jarmusch, with a stellar cast that include Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and American singer Tom Waits.
The Broken Flowers director has called it “a kind of anti-action film”, featuring three separate dysfunctional families in conversation in the rural upstate New York, Dublin and Paris.
Jarmusch told reporters he was “disappointed” that the main distributor for the film, arthouse streaming platform Mubi, had accepted investment from a venture capital fund with links to the Israeli military.
Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2025
