you’re witnessing the moment that signifies that an actor is over. Not that he’s never going to work again, or that he won’t continue to give strong performances — just that, from here on out, we’re probably always going to think about him in a different, less-favorable light. You almost feel bad for the guy — does he know? Should we tell him?
For Jude Law, that moment was February 27, 2005, which just so happened to be the biggest annual event in his profession, the Academy Awards. He wasn’t there, but Chris Rock was, and in his opening monologue as host, he talked about the fact that there’s only really about four movie stars — “the rest are just popular people.” Rock’s examples of real movie stars? Guys like Clint Eastwood and Tom Cruise. Law was watching the broadcast with a few friends, with no clue that he was about to be the target of Rock’s bit:
“You want Tom Cruise, and all you can get is Jude Law? Wait. It’s not the same thing, okay? Who is Jude Law? Why is he in every movie I have seen the last four years? He’s in everything. Even the movies he’s not acting in — if you look at the credits, he made cupcakes or something. He’s in everything. He’s gay, he’s straight, he’s American, he’s British. Next year he’s playing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a movie! If you can’t get a star, wait, okay?”
You could feel the uncomfortable laughter in the room. Oscar hosts tend not to rip actors too severely — and, even then, it’s very much fun-loving and just-playing-around. But by the show’s tame standards, Rock obliterated Jude Law. Want to know how severe the mocking was? When the Academy put Rock’s monologue up on YouTube, they left out the Jude Law joke — although they did include Sean Penn’s introductory remarks when he came out later to present Best Actress, awkwardly defending his All the King’s Men costar. “Jude Law is one of our most talented actors,” Penn stridently declared, which wasn’t the point. Rock wasn’t talking about talent — he was speaking about something much more precious, star power.
Best as I can tell, Law has only twice discussed Rock’s joke. In the fall of 2006, he told The New York Times how much it annoyed him:
“At first I laughed, because I didn’t think he knew who I was. Then I got angry as his remarks, I felt, became more personal. My friends were livid. I was moved when Sean came to my defense. As a celebrity I know I’m fair game for a lot of things that I don’t like, but Rock crossed the line when he made his point and got his laugh then seemingly wouldn’t stop. It’s very unfortunate that I had five or six films come out at the same time. However I had no control over that.”
He didn’t talk about the incident again until early this year, for Vulture, and it sounded like, more than a decade later, he was still a bit scarred from the experience:
“I’m going to be really candid. Chris Rock slagging me off at the Oscars was upsetting. It felt like, ‘Fuck, am I that guy that you point fun at?’ Obviously, I’ve realized since that a gag is a gag is a fucking gag. Whatever, it could’ve been anyone.” He pauses, maybe worried that he has said too much. “It was probably a bubble that needed bursting around myself. Like, ‘Oh, this could be brutal. This isn’t all plain sailing.’”
Just like you, I can recite plenty of hit films and/or solid performances to Law’s credit since the 2005 Oscars — The Holiday, Sherlock Holmes, Contagion, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Vox Lux, Captain Marvel, The Young Pope/The New Pope and especially Spy — but after Rock’s monologue, it was over. He no longer seemed beautiful and invincible. That bulletproof confidence was gone.