Jude Law’s rather, um, extreme measures to get into character on the set of his new film, Firebrand, didn’t sit well with his co-star, Alicia Vikander.
Firebrand, which hit cinemas last week, is a historical thriller that probes the relationship between England’s King Henry VIII (played by Law) and his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr (Vikander).
In order to portray Henry VIII in his final days, Law said he worked with a perfume specialist to come up with a “repulsive” fragrance that would reflect his character’s mental and physical state.
“You’ve got to step into these characters every day. And so sometimes if you can do something that just is, not really a shortcut, but it’s about really finding a place,” he told Business Insider in an interview published this week. “It’s a ritual, and it can just put you in a certain frame of mind or mood. It can help or it certainly helps me.”
But when Law suggested that Vikander “got used” to the stench, his co-star quickly interjected.
“I didn’t really, it was that bad!” she told Business Insider.
Jude Law and Alicia Vikander at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where "Firebrand" had its world premiere. The subject of Law’s aroma has come up numerous times during the rollout for Firebrand, which premiered at France’s Cannes Film Festival last year and was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York earlier this month.
“I read that Henry, because of these agonising ulcers he had on his legs, really smelled like he was actually rotting,” Law told Yahoo! Entertainment last week. “So we came up with this disgusting odour that created a pungency and sickening scent around him.”
As to what such an odour would actually entail, the Sherlock Homes actor told Variety last year that the perfume specialist had concocted an “extraordinary variety of blood, fecael matter and sweat.”
Whether such levels of preparation on the “Firebrand” set ultimately paid off is questionable, however, as early reviews have so far been mixed.
Though The Hollywood Reporter praised the movie for “[rescuing] an inspiring woman from history’s footnotes,” Slant called it “often shapeless and rudderless.”
