Jude Law acknowledges Ripley series as "different beast" than his film

It’s been 25 years since The Talented Mr. Ripley premiered in theaters, and Jude Law says it’s still the role of his that fans most often want to talk about when they see him out and about. After the film premiered in December 1999, Law knew it was a turning point in his life and for his level of fame. “I remember having a conversation with my mother, who said something that I look back on now. She said something like she had to ‘share me’ now,” he tells Variety in a new cover story. “And I think what she meant by that was there was suddenly a sense of people knowing who I was and reaching out to her. She felt like there was a loss of privacy, of intimacy, that needed protecting.”

The profile goes into the different ways that this loss of privacy manifested—paparazzi stalking, the infamous News Of The World phone hacking scandal—long after The Talented Mr. Ripley faded into Law’s rearview. But that project came up again earlier this year when Netflix ran its own adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel, Ripley, starring Andrew Scott in the role Matt Damon played 24 years prior. “I was sort of amazed and delighted at how completely different it was,” Law says now, diplomatically. “It had a completely different quality—some of which I thought worked really well, some of which I didn’t think worked as well. But it was a completely different beast to ours.” 

Aside from some of the obvious aesthetic differences—barring a brief moment, Ripley is in black-and-white while The Talented Mr. Ripley is bright and colorful—Scott was nearly 20 years older than Damon when they played the same character, a fact noted by critics across publications. Even if the performance is solid overall, his age is, for this author, a little distracting, but not some insurmountable barrier. Ultimately, Scott received an Emmy nomination for his performance.