Jude defies the Hollywood Law

Jude Law gives the impression that he doesn't much care about image.

He arrives at our meeting, in a classy New York hotel suite, in a long black coat, a faded blue pullover and dark jeans with frayed edges. Laid-back? Careless? Relaxed? Don't believe it for a moment.

At 28, Law is poised in Hollywood's waiting room for one reason only - he wants to be there. He's not yet a star, but he holds all the key cards - he's still the right side of 30, talented and good-looking. He talks - in a beguiling South London accent - about loving life in Britain, but this is no man of the people.

Law controls his career with uncanny skill, shrewdly stepping on the highest stones across the gushing river of fame. He is not about to drown in it by giving photographers, fashion editors, women's magazines and mass-circulation tabloids what they want, when they want.

Although a resident of Primrose Hill, for example, no more than four or five miles as the crow flies from the Evening Standard offices, he has hired an American publicist, more than 6,000 miles away in Los Angeles, to do his bidding. 'I don't want to be too available or for everyone to get a piece of my life,' he explains, cautiously. 'Fame can be dangerous. I don't particularly want to be recognised everywhere. And I don't want to keep reading about myself in magazines. It makes me uncomfortable.'

Law does not look in the least bit uncomfortable when we meet. He has a confidence and an assurance - buffed and polished by his scene-stealing playing the rich, spoilt American Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley - that were not evident a couple of years ago.

He now gives a very different, but still excellent, performance as an ill-educated Russian soldier in the forthcoming Second World War sniper thriller Enemy At The Gates, set during the siege of Stalingrad by the Nazis in the winter of 1942. He plays Vassili Zaitsev, a poor shepherd from the Urals who turns his wolf-hunting ability into an expertise with the sniper's rifle amid the ruins of the city.

He kills more than 140 mostly high-ranking German officers, and is hailed as a hero when political officer Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) reports his exploits in the army newspaper. The Germans, enraged and embarrassed by his success, finally send in their crack marksman Major K?nig (Ed Harris) from the Berlin Sniper's School to hunt him down. Their shadowy cat-and-mouse dual among the ruins for makes an absorbing story.

There has been much debate about the truth of it all. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Name Of The Rose and Seven Years In Tibet) took the facts from a 1973 book by the American journalist William Craig. Historian Antony Beevor, author of the more recent best-seller Stalingrad, insists that the story owes more to Russian propaganda than reality.

With the debate raging - and further questions over whether hero Zaitsev did really fall in love with Russian soldier Tania (Rachel Weisz), another Craig story - Law remains aloof from the political fall-out. He delivers thoughtful reasoning for taking on this movie and, indeed, any other.

'I am always curious about who is directing a film and why,' he says flatly. 'Then, I ask myself, is there a soul to the script and why does someone want to tell the story? There has to be something new for me, as an actor. I liked this one because it has a simplicity. Vassili is a good man and a salt-of-the-earth character. He has a physical, animal approach to his rifle and knowing his prey. I didn't sit down and think, "This is a story that has to be told." But it has epic proportions and still manages to be intimate and very human. I met Jean-Jacques, who is so full of energy, then discovered that Joe and Rachel were in it. Then it became even more exciting.'

It seems typical that, following his entry to the big-time with Dickie Greenleaf - American accent, clothes with careless style, loving life, women and song - Law should get down and dirty to play an earthy soldier in freezing locations in the old East Germany. The cast spent four months working amid thick mud, attempting to recreate an authentic Stalingrad.