Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy: Jude Law Announces Himself and His Dick in 'The Talented Mr. Ripley'

<< Blog | Editorial Features Thursday, September 24, 4:00 PMThu, 24 Sep 2020 @ 4:00 PM by Jake Jizzenhall

Throughout cinema history, there have been some iconic nude scenes that have transcended the bounds of the films in which they appeared. Our weekly column Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy will take an in-depth look at these scenes, their history, their deeper meanings, and their legacy. This week, Jude Law moves into the realm of Hollywood superstar by going full frontal in The Talented Mr. Ripley!

Believe it or not, there was a time when Jude Law wasn't the most ubiquitous guy in Hollywood. In fact, it seemed for a minute there like he was destined to be another UK actor to flop in his bid for American stardom, something he was consciously trying to avoid when he turned down his star-making role as rich boy Dickie Greenleaf in Anthony Minghella's adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Just three years earlier, Minghella himself went from relative unknown to Oscar-winning director thanks to his adaptation of The English Patient, and his newfound clout allowed him to bring Patricia Highsmith's novel to the screen for the first time since 1960's Purple Noon.

When Minghella was casting the film, his wife Caroline Choa was working as a producer on a film titled The Wisdom of Crocodiles starring Jude Law. Upon seeing dailies of the film, Minghella was immediately taken by Law's presence and offered him the role of Dickie Greenleaf. In a recent career retrospective for Vanity Fair, Law recalls turning the role down...

"In my insane arrogance as a twenty-something year old, hostile to the idea that I'd be cast as sort of the pretty boy, I turned it down (laughs). I was thinking at the time that what I should really be doing is just playing, like, character roles and hunchbacks, just trying to find kind of weird, twisted characters. I luckily came to my senses and realized he was putting together this really extraordinary group of young actors and that he himself—having just won sort of 50 Oscars or whatever that was for The English Patient—was probably going to be good, safe hands to put myself in."

Having divested himself of that ego, Law realized that his persona at that point in time was a perfect way in to exploring the dark side of a really charming trust fund guy. His only other major Hollywood film prior had been a small but pivotal role in Clint Eastwood's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and a slightly larger role in Gattaca, a well-received but not terribly successful sci-fi film—though it is now quite beloved thanks to home video and cable. As Law alluded to earlier, that "insane arrogance" of his at the time was probably the most substantial roadblock to any potential success for him in Hollywood.

Of course, the other edge of that sword is that, since the vast majority of moviegoers had no idea who he was in 1999, he became almost immediately and forevermore associated with the character of Dickie. Law is obviously an impossibly good looking man whose preparation for the role consisted of moving to the Italian island where the film was being shot to get a tan and learn to play the saxophone. It seems that whenever an actor is so preternaturally disposed to playing this certain type of character, they carry the burden of that the rest of their careers—however insignificant that burden seems to an outsider.

For some context, Dickie Greenleaf is a trust fund kid in the 1950s, living abroad with no interest in returning to the States. His father mistakes Matt Damon's Tom Ripley for a classmate of Dickie's at Princeton and tasks him with traveling to Italy and convincing Dickie to return to America. However, Tom isn't exactly who he appears to be and soon worms his way into Dickie's life before eventually murdering him and assuming his identity. One of the most interesting aspects of both Highsmith's novel and Minghella's adaptation is that while Tom is quite adept at seducing both men and women, he is gay and assumes that Dickie reciprocates those feelings.

This comes to a head near the end of the film's first act as Tom hangs out in the bathroom while Dickie's in the tub, giving us a nice look at Law's dick as he gets out of the tub...

Law was, of course, rewarded with an Oscar nomination for his performance and seemingly overnight, became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He took a good number of roles in the immediate aftermath of the film that were more in line with the things he hoped to be doing as an actor, like Gigolo Joe in AI or the hygienically disgusting photographer Maguire in Road to Perdition. However, by 2004 he seemed to have embraced the fact that Hollywood saw him as a leading man and he began leaving those character roles behind.

Law and Minghella also began a working relationship on Ripley that would continue through Minghella's next two—and sadly final—films, Cold Mountain and Breaking Entering. It is interesting to think about how that relationship almost never came about and how close Law came to just flunking out of Hollywood altogether. It's also nice that Law has now made his way back around the character roles, proving that he's always been a much more interesting actor when he's not playing a poised and perfect leading man—Dickie, of course, being the exception that proves the rule.

Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy...

—Oliver Reed Alan Bates in Women in Love

—Ewan McGregor in Velvet Goldmine

—A Pair of Stars are Born in Y Tu Mamá También

—Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant

—Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

—Michael Fassbender in Shame

—Kevin Bacon in Wild Things

—Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall

—Jack Reynor in Midsommar

—Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game

—David Bowie Rip Torn in The Man Who Fell to Earth