Striding along a beach in a pair of bright white Speedos, Jude Law was worried – not because he was stripping off at 46, or that his character was the Pope , but how his kids would take it.
But he shouldn’t have worried – they just laughed.
Jude, who has five children, revealed the idea behind the eye-catching trailer, filmed in Venice last April, for The New Pope – the sequel to 2016 TV series The Young Pope.
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He said: “The director Paolo Sorrentino and I thought it was a goofy, sort of camp, funny idea – so we did it.
“Then there was this response, which I still find a bit surprising and shocking. I immediately felt a little bit embarrassed for my kids because I thought they are going to be like, ‘What were you doing?’ But they didn’t, they all laughed.
“They thought it was funny. And, of course, that’s the thing they are now using in the trailer. It was a bit of fun really.”
The HBO series – shown on Sky Atlantic in the UK – started this month and sees Jude’s Pope Pius XIII in a coma, with an Englishman, Sir John Brannox (played by John Malkovich), taking over as John Paul III.
His portrayal of a young, cool Pope has struck a chord.
While Jude became part of the 90s Brit pack with Ewan McGregor , he broke out in films Shopping and The Talented Mr Ripley before Hollywood beckoned in a string of movies including Road to Perdition, Cold Mountain, Sherlock Holmes and as the young Albus Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald.
Playing the Pope is a highlight and when he married Phillipa Coan, 32, last May, the religious leader was even mentioned at the wedding. He said: “There were a couple of jokes about the Pope being present.”
Jude added: “We waited four years. We didn’t do it in a church but it was a wonderful ceremony and very much a marriage of two families coming together, not just two individuals. That was important to both of us, that we wanted our families to co-join.”
(Image: Daily Record)
The actor has five children by three different mothers. He was in the London cool set in the 90s with first wife Sadie Frost, who he met on Shopping. They had three children – Rafferty, 23, Iris, 19, and Rudy, 17 – and were married from 1997 to 2003.
Jude then dated Layer Cake star Sienna Miller and publicly apologised for having an affair with his children’s nanny.
He became a dad for a fourth time, having a daughter, Sophia, now 10, with American model Samantha Burke, and had a fifth child, Ada, four, with singer Catherine Harding, although he wasn’t dating her at the time.
Jude, who is now 47, claims he is all about truthfulness in his life. He said: “I made a decision a few years ago to avoid drama at all costs. It’s exhausting. Life is so much easier when you’re just sort of, you know, straight.”
As he ages, Jude is doing his best to keep in shape. He said: “I’m a bit obsessed by it. I run and box, and I do lots of yoga. But I love a bottle of wine and a couple of fags every evening as well.
“I also do partial fasting where I don’t eat before midday then the hard part is stopping eating at like 8pm in the evening. So that’s been a new kind of addition to my life for the last year.”
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The first series of The Young Pope saw Jude’s cardinal Lenny Belardo – a young, handsome American – challenge the established traditions and practices of the Vatican. Then he turns out to be anti-gay, anti-divorce and anti-abortion. Whether it’s the “godless” Angels & Demons or spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, there have been many films banned by the Catholic Church.
However, Jude insisted Catholics reacted well to the first series.
He said: “They seemed very positive. I think they recognised that the aim wasn’t to shame, humiliate or judge.
“Paolo did a good job of investigating the faith, holding a mirror up to it and they appreciated that. They seem to really enjoy it and I think even the Vatican gave us a good review.”
His Pope costumes even caught on.
Jude added: “The man who made my hats suddenly got all these orders from cardinals and bishops around the world. And he made a fortune.
“He got endless orders from like a bishop in the Congo or a cardinal in South America.
“They called up saying, ‘I want one big one in purple and the small one in black.’”
Playing a Pope appealed to Jude’s sense of spirituality and he reckons being an actor isn’t a huge stretch from a man of faith.
He said: “I’ve always been, well certainly since I was a teenager, quite curious about faith, spirituality and finding one’s own spiritual place and sense of self.
“What I learned from my first go of playing this part was just how theatrical the Catholic church is so there were quite a few parallels that felt very familiar to me. The performance of a mass or the costumes and the lighting.
“In a way they are the oldest theatrical establishment on the planet. And they put on really good shows.”
Even if the church wasn’t happy with his Pope, Jude would hear about it second-hand. He isn’t part of the social media bubble many celebrities are.
The actor, who is back for a third Fantastic Beasts film next year and a third Sherlock Holmes movie as Dr Watson, said: “I made a choice several years ago not to get involved in social media.
“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I don’t use Twitter , I don’t have an Instagram account, I’m not on Facebook and I barely use email.
“I recently went away without my phone, my iPad or a laptop for nearly two weeks and I highly recommend everyone does that at least once or twice a year.
“It was blissful. I slept well, it was extraordinary. I forgot I had no music as it was on my phone so I got there with a little speaker. Driving was hard as usually I put the navigation on but I was reading maps, which was archaic but wonderful.”
