USA Today

Los Angeles

You may not know his name. Or be able to exactly place his face. But audiences have seen London-born Jude Law, 31, in ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, ‘Artificial Intelligence: AI’ and 2002’s ‘Road to Perdition’. In 2003, celebrity watchers know he has been through the wringer.

He has just flown from New York, where he’s shooting ‘Alfie’, a remake of the Michael Caine movie about a rogue bachelor, to talk about his new movie, ‘Cold Mountain’. He’s “a bit jet-lagged,” rubbing his eyes and scruffy short hair, but ready to sit quietly at the Hotel Bel-Air and chat about the meaning of life.

Nicole Kidman calls him “a thinker.”

‘Cold Mountain’ is Law’s first leading-man role (Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were rumoured to be up for the part), and throughout the filming and now the promoting of the movie, he has done some serious “soul-searching”.

In December 2002, he and his British actress wife of six years, Sadie Frost, had their third child. Rocky times followed, and tabloids wrote that Law and Kidman were having an affair on ‘Cold Mountain’ sets, based on photos (sold by a Romanian on the set) of the two at a cast party. Kidman sued two British publications that ran the story and won both lawsuits, claiming all accusations were untrue.

Then, early 2003, Frost and Law separated and divorced. He’s now seeing Sienna Miller, 21, the saucy British actress from Fox’s recent short-lived ‘Keen Eddie’ TV show and ‘Alfie’ co-star. It has been an “emotional year,” he says.

His split with Frost “was one of those unfortunately common things that happen in relationships. It ran itself to a point where it was more logical to approach it another way, and that ultimately led to us not living together and separating.”

He continues: “The year’s been incredibly painful, but also hugely strengthening and rewarding and yet heartbreaking. Anyone who ever goes through that situation could say the same — you feel that you find a new strength in yourself, but you also feel you’ve lost your right hand.”

‘Cold Mountain’ was “a spiritual journey”, says Law. “Sometimes there’s an alignment — the right piece, the right people, the right time in their lives.”

He and director Anthony Minghella spent a lot of time discussing the “soul” of the piece, says Law. While Law worked on the physicality and accent of Confederate soldier Inman, he was unsure about who Inman really was.

“In the end, Anthony said it’s got to be you. I suppose it was like what (Francis Ford) Coppola said to (Martin) Sheen when making ‘Apocalypse Now’. In the end, if you are going to open yourself up to the journey, similar to Sheen, you have to let the emotions of the piece penetrate your skin as much as it’s penetrating the character’s. You have to ask yourself questions you maybe never asked.”

About? “About life, about existence, and about the purpose of life.”

And so the film, and its theme of walking, changed him. Inman walks away from war, he walks to Ada. Hundreds of miles. Walking, walking, walking home. “I think work often changes you, if it has the weight this sort of piece has,” says Law.

His theory of marriage changed, he says. “When you get involved in a legal knot of divorce, you realise that so much of marriage, unfortunately, is a document and not a sort of spiritual recognition that it should be. And I think that’s a shame.”

But his marriage ending isn’t a shame. “One mustn’t always view it as tragic. I think sometimes you’ve got to see it as a positive — if it makes two people happier, if it makes the family unit happier.”

He will not talk about Miller. But he admits he hasn’t entirely given up on romance. “I’m a fluctuating romantic. I can be incredibly romantic and I can be incredibly cynical.”

There’s no cynicism in the love scene his Inman shares with Kidman’s Ada. The script for that scene, which took about a day and a half to film, said only that “They make love.” After a discussion with Minghella and Kidman, a decision was made that the scene must bring “joy” to the film, says Law.

“The film up to that point hadn’t had a real moment of joy. If we could find that — an honesty and openness and a real passion with a crown of joy above it — then we’d have something. It would continue the journey toward the end of the film.”

In the end, says Law, Inman became someone Law “aspired to be. There was a sort of clarity and a morality to him that I respected.”

And maybe being Inman helped clarify Law’s own philosophy of love: “You have to allow yourself to be yourself in order to let other people in,” he says. “You can’t pretend to be something you’re not.”