Press Association – 28th October, 2013

ABOVE: Richard E Grant and Jude Law at the screening of new
film Dom Hemingway at the Curzon Mayfair cinema, London

Jude Law and his pal Richard E Grant braved a wet and windy London tonight to attend the premiere of their new film, Dom Hemingway.

The pair star as criminal mates who are reunited when Jude’s hard-drinking safe cracker character Dom is released from prison after 12 years and travels to the south of France to collect his reward from his crime boss.

He makes the journey with Grant’s Dickie, a man from the opposite end of the social spectrum but a close friend.

Jude, 40, explained there were aspects of his trouble magnet character that he felt were like him.

“I suppose there’s a sort of wayward side to him that, had I not necessarily gone down the path I did, I may have been more indulgent in.

“We set it in south east London where I grew up, and Dom reminded me a lot of people who I went to school with who were these wonderful, bright, colourful characters who you kind of knew were possibly going to go down the wrong path, and there were certain traits of him that were like me.”

Richard, 56, said of working with Jude: “It’s a bit like what I imagine internet dating must be like because you know what the person’s going to look like and you know what you’re supposed to be doing with the person, so you sort of get to know them very, very quickly.”

Sherlock Holmes actor Jude had to put on weight for the part, as well as having his suits taken in to make him appear bigger.

He said of his decadent weight-gaining diet: “For a while it was fun, it suited the lifestyle of the character to go to seed.

“I was looking forward to turning my back on it but then, of course, once I had, it was terribly hard to get yourself up and try to be healthy again.”

He also appears naked in the countryside in one scene and said of the weight gain: “That’s why we did it, because there’s no hiding, otherwise I would have probably just worn padding. That scene was demonstrative of Dom, being balls to the wind in every way.”

Also on the red carpet at the premier at Curzon Mayfair were the film’s director and writer Richard Shepard, producer Jeremy Thomas, and guests Annie Lennox and Peter Capaldi.

Dom Hemingway is due to be released in cinemas on November 15.

Asked how he coped with the St Jude’s storm earlier in the day, Jude joked: “It’s every day for me.”

ABOVE: Tom Washington, Joan Washington, Richard E. Grant & Olivia Grant