Smash hit

The allure of moral complexity also drew him to All the King’s Men. Law plays a stony-hearted journalist turned political dirt-digger, neither all good nor all bad. Reviewers have found little to love in Steven Zaillian’s adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s 1946 novel about a corrupt Louisiana governor (played in the film by Sean Penn), but that’s hardly the fault of Law, who stands back and lets Penn chew the furniture. “I had always really wanted to watch and learn from Sean. And Steve is a very intelligent man. It just struck me as an incredibly important piece to be making.” We’ll have to wait and see if he says the same in two years. He only now admits that Alfie wasn’t quite up to snuff. “I don’t think it was completely thought through. We were doing a lot of it on the set, and you can’t leave it that long. But you can’t regret anything in life. You’ve got to look at why you did it, and you learn and move on. A number of people have come up and said, ‘I love that film.’ And that refers to many films I look back on and think, ‘That didn’t work.’”

More precautions are being taken for the next time he steps into Michael Caine’s shoes. A remake of Sleuth, the 1972 two-hander in which an older man invites his wife’s young lover to his country house, is going into production in January, with Kenneth Branagh directing, Law in the old Caine role and Caine in the old Olivier role. Anthony Shaffer’s script has been adapted by none other than Harold Pinter. “We’ve been working on it hard for three years.

It suddenly turned into something very interesting, because you’re in the world of Harold Pinter. The original is about a working-class lad coming cap in hand to a very upper-class, aristocratic elderly gentleman. This time, we thought the dynamics would be almost more interesting if it’s a middle-class chap coming cap in hand to a boy done good.”

Before that, Law’s female audience will finally get the film it has been waiting for. After 10 years of furrowed brows and thwarted love, of sci-fi, warfare and death, he has finally consented to make a romantic comedy. The Holiday, directed by Nancy Meyers, stars Law and Winslet as siblings. They have only one scene together. For the rest of the film, Winslet is in California, and falling for Jack Black, while Law is back in England, tangling with Cameron Diaz.

What the hell took him so long? “I must admit it’s not a genre I’ve ever really enjoyed in modern film. If I go to the cinema, I don’t go and see Pretty Woman. I’m a huge fan of 1940s and 1950s romantic comedies. There was a lost skill in making them. Rather than romantic, they are schlocky. Rather than funny, they are camp. And now I’ve made one — it was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done. Nancy kept laughing at me, because I’d say ‘I really love you’, and she’d say, ‘Stop frowning and say it like you mean it!’ I was constantly massaging my forehead.” In short, his self- denying edict is losing its rigidity. He is no longer a law unto himself. “The past few years, I’ve been thinking, what the f*** am I doing? Go and do something you want to watch with popcorn and laugh. Go and do it, and have fun.”

Breaking and Entering opens on Friday, The Holiday on December 8

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