Jude Law at Venice Film Festival: With Wizard of the Kremlin We Were Not Seeking “Controversy for the Sake of Controversy”
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Jude Law, who plays Vladimir Putin in The Wizard of the Kremlin directed by Olivier Assayas, said at the film’s press conference in Venice that he is not afraid of audience reactions and that the film was not made simply to stir up “controversy.”
The story is set in early 1990s Russia and depicts the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. In a new world that promises freedom while descending into chaos, a young artist named Vadim Baranov—who has turned to television producing—unexpectedly becomes an advisor to Vladimir Putin, a former member of the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Zach Galifianakis, and Tom Sturridge also star. The Wizard of the Kremlin is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Giuliano da Empoli.
Law said: “I naively hope [we don’t face backlash], but I’m not afraid of negative consequences. I felt reassured under supervision, and we had a screenplay meant to tell this story intelligently, with nuance and precision. We were not looking for controversy for the sake of controversy. It is one character in a broader story. We didn’t want to define anything about anyone.”
Law endured heavy makeup to portray Putin, but after consulting with Assayas, decided not to adopt a Russian accent: “Olivier and I discussed that this was not going to be an interpretation of Putin, and he didn’t want me to hide behind makeup. We worked with a fantastic team of makeup artists and referenced certain stages of Putin’s life. We tried to find a likeness. It’s astonishing what a good wig can do.”
Dano said he was more interested in examining the outward aspects of his character: “If you just label someone like Baranov as bad, it’s a gross oversimplification, and the harm outweighs the benefit. The question is: why is he bad?”
Asked whether Russia rules the world, Assayas responded: “The answer is simple. No.” He added that The Wizard of the Kremlin is about “the shift in politics during our lifetime. It is about how modern politics were invented. Part of the evil that arose came from Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in Russia. We made a film about what politics has become, and about the frightening and dangerous state we all feel we are living in. It applies to many authoritarian leaders.”
At another point in the press conference, Wright commented on the film’s relation to reality and the Ukraine crisis: “This film is about a specific place, but it has global consequences for all of us. It can be compared to certain periods in Russian and American history. Yes, we have had movements toward fascism, autocracy, and all manner of misconduct. But that has been there from the start, even in the notion of original sin and its strangeness, this idea that we can be better. The idea that we can move toward some kind of utopia. If that idea disappears, as it has today, then we become exactly what you see in the film.”
