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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
Jude Law has given his opinion on the Netflix series Ripley.
The eight-part show, based on the 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, starring Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning, has been nominated for several awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, at the 2024 Emmys.
Law, 51, was the first actor to play Flynn’s character Dickie Greenleaf in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 The Talented Mr. Ripley film, which landed five Oscar nominations at the 2000 Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actor nod for The Holiday star.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly at the Toronto International Film Festival, where two of his forthcoming films – The Order and Eden – premiered, Law heaped praise on Ripley director Steven Zaillian’s interpretation of the source text.
“Isn’t it interesting to see a really good bit of material viewed, creatively, from such different perspectives?” he said.
“I loved the series. I thought there was so much in it, but a completely different mood,” the actor added, commending the series’ “iciness” and “psychopathy”.
“You saw it almost through Tom’s eyes really, the world, and then [film director] Anthony [Minghella]’s world, which is romance and love and escapism and colour. Interesting,” he said.
Law has previously praised Ripley, saying in an interview upon the series’ release in April that Zaillian’s adaptation was “interesting” as it’s “very different stylistically” to the 1999 film he starred in alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon.
“Both versions reflect the director in many ways,” the Sherlock Holmes star said.
“One is visual, colourful, and romantic. The other is quite forensic and more sinister. Film, to me, often reflects the person at the helm of the camera.”
Zaillian’s choice to film Ripley in black and white left Netflix users divided, with some complaining that they “didn’t last the first episode” because “the cinematography is so annoying”.
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Law admitted that although he hasn’t watched his version “in many, many years”, screening the new one brought “so many memories in my mind”.
“I kept thinking, ‘Oh God, I remember this.’ Down to the name of Dickie’s maid, Ermelinda. I always remember saying, ‘Ermelinda, Ermelinda.’ There was an emotional level, too, to revisiting those characters,” he explained.
In a recent interview with The Times, Law revealed he almost turned down the role of Dickie in The Talented Mr. Ripley over fears of being typecast.
“It was delusion and madness,” he said. “There was a panic in my head that I was going to be typecast as this good-looking guy.
“That’s where my 23-year-old brain was, yes,” the actor continued. “What I missed, idiotically, were the complexities of that role, but honestly? I just wanted to be taken seriously. ‘I do theatre!’ It was as simple as that.
“Now I’d say to myself, ‘Don’t give yourself a hard time.’"
