Jude Law piles on pounds and channels his inner gangster for explosive comeback

Jude Law spoke today of taking on the most challenging film role of his life — as a foul-mouthed, overweight gangster — giving what some critics say is an Oscar-worthy performance.

Variety magazine described Law’s title role in London-based revenge comedy Dom Hemingway as a major comeback for the actor, after recent years of commercial flops, bad reviews and publicity over his private life.

The film, also starring Richard E Grant and Emilia Clarke, premiered at Toronto Film Festival and will be released in the UK in November. But critics are calling for its US release to be brought forward to the end of this year so it can be eligible for the Oscar nominations.

Law’s character is a psychopathic gangster with a penchant for Shakespearean-style monologues and violent outbursts. The 40-year-old told the Standard: “He’s foul-mouthed and abusive to himself and everyone else. But, for some reason, he’s incredibly charming. I really fell for him.

“My aim was, can I pull it off and will audiences find him attractive and charming too? It seemed like a direction I’ve never gone in before to let everything out.”

He admitted the intricate monologues were difficult to master when it came to the expletives: “I often got muddled up with whether it was a f***, f***ing or f***er, but other than that it was easy to learn because it was well-written.”

The actor put on 30lbs for the role and lived on a diet of ice cream, burgers, whisky and 10 cans of coke a day.

The film’s American director Richard Shepherd said: “You’ve never seen Jude play anything like this before.

“Jude has been through the ringer with the press in Britain and his attitude is now I’m going to live my life and f*** all of you guys. He tapped into places in his own psyche to find that. Jude has to make everything seem real to him, so somewhere in him is Dom, but it’s not his everyday character.”

Shepherd also revealed that he barely knew the capital when he wrote the movie: “I’d only spent four days of my whole life in London when I wrote this script but I was helped by the cast and crew.”