Jude Law Interview

Law of the land

We last saw him swanning around Italian beauty spots looking impossibly handsome and suave in the Oscar-winning The Talented Mr Ripley.

But actor Jude Law's latest movie role couldn't be more of a contrast. He spends most of his time in the new war epic Enemy At The Gates, unwashed,unshaven and crawling around in mud and slime.

To top it all, the 29-year old star really did suffer for his art after accidentally being hit by shrapnel during filming.

The South London-born actor shrugs off the 'war wound' as "just a scratch" but admits he was genuinely scared on more than one occasion.

"The battle scenes were terrifying," he recalls. "There were dynamite explosions going on all the time. In one scene a lump of shrapnel flew into my head, but it was nothing, just a scratch. A little blood is part and parcel of the experience."

In the movie Law plays Vassili Zaitsev, a young Russian sniper who became a national celebrity and hero for his actions at the Battle of Stalingrad.

Based on a true story, the movie, which opened the Berlin Film Festival, also stars British actors Joseph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz and recounts one of the most bloody and vicious battles of the Second World War.

All three stars were put through their paces to re-enact the brutal scenes in temperatures of -25c near the Polish border, but Law, in particular, didn't hesitate to take on the gruelling schedule.

"This was such a good story and a type of film I'd never been in before," he says. "It was so far removed from my character in Ripley and the beaches of southern Italy."

Law threw himself into the part, not just with a touch of sharp shooting, but also by conducting his own research into the life of the enigmatic young soldier who captured the imaginations of both Russians and Germans.

"Vassili was a simple young man from the Urals who became a soldier and was singled out by the commissars and created into a hero of the people," he explains.

"We certainly know a great deal of his achievements were true and have been documented. What we've done is to look at him as an individual, as a man in the midst of chaos and carnage. The film is really about men being used as pawns. So many men died in so many nasty situations in this siege and it points out not only the scale of the war but the loss of human life at the most personal level."