The huge role Jude Law immediately knew he didn’t want: “Didn’t float my boat”
Jude Law is a novelty in Hollywood because he has never quite fallen out of fame and has had a remarkably consistent career, but he once turned down a role that could have taken him even higher.
Although it was his smouldering role as Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley that turned him into a movie star and sex symbol, Law was able to find great work, even after his days as a leading man had been eclipsed.
He’s transformed into an exciting character actor, and whether it’s playing a fictionalised American pope on HBO, being the villainous Vortigern for Guy Ritchie, transforming into Vladimir Putin, or playing a Jedi on Disney+, Law never brings anything less than his A-game.
With two Academy Award nominations under his belt, he was perhaps at his peak in the mid-2000s, having proven himself as a romantic lead, an action star, and someone that prestige filmmakers were interested in working with. At this point, he was offered what seemed like the role of a lifetime when Bryan Singer approached him to play Superman in the upcoming sequel, Superman Returns.
Warner Bros had been trying to find a way to relaunch the Superman franchise for over a decade, as directors like JJ Abrams, Wolfgang Peterson, and Tim Burton had all submitted pitches, but Singer’s film was designed to be a direct sequel to Superman II, the last film that had starred Christopher Reeve, and would ignore the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace entirely.
Given that Reeve’s performance is one of the most iconic in history, and one that has become synonymous with the character of Clark Kent, finding a new actor to take on the role of the ‘Man of Steel’ was incredibly daunting, and while Law was famous, good-looking, and athletic enough to be a serious contender, but he made it clear that he was not interested.
“It didn’t float my boat, you know, like, I just really didn’t want to go there,” Law said, “First of all, I’m an Englishman and I felt like, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem to fit, and I was always worried about the outfit and I just didn’t fancy it, and this director was very keen to meet and impress it upon me.”
While Law made a joke about the discomfort of donning the Kryptonian suit, the ‘Superman curse’ has been a real thing that has dismayed actors from taking the role, wherein George Reeves, who played the character in the ‘50s, famously died by suicide under mysterious circumstances, and it was shortly after filming his last film as Superman that Reeve was in an accident that left him paralysed for the rest of his life.
While nothing this dramatic happened to Brandon Routh, who was eventually cast for the titular role in Superman Returns, but while no one seemed to take much issue with his performance when the film underperformed, the actor basically destroyed his career by picking up the mantle. Hence, Law was wise to avoid a role that would have been faced with unimaginable expectations, and he’s managed fine without it, but that’s not to say that he’s completely disinterested in comic book films altogether, as he later joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe to play the villain in Captain Marvel.
