Jude Law became 'obsessive' Putin watcher for role as Russian leader

British actor Jude Law said Sunday he became an “obsessive” watcher of Vladimir Putin as he prepared for his role as the Russian leader in his new film “The Wizard of the Kremlin” which premieres later at the Venice Film Festival.

Law, 52, bears an uncanny resemblance to Putin, aping his scowl and distinctive walking style in the film by French director Olivier Assayas which charts the rise of the former intelligence officer.

“There’s a lot of footage one could watch and, personally when I start going down that rabbit hole, it becomes sort of obsessive,” Jude Law told a press conference. “You’re looking for ever more, newer material.”

He said portraying Putin had been a challenge because of his famously deadpan expression.

“The tricky side to me was that the public face that we see (of Putin), we see very, very little,” Law added. “There’s this mask.”

Law insisted he had not aimed for an “impersonation” of Putin and credited the likeness to “an amazing makeup and hair team.”

Read more: Jude Law’s first look as Putin from ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ stuns fans

Assayas insisted he wanted Jude Law “to appropriate the character” and become “a vessel for what he represents.”

The “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” which runs for two and a half hours, is an exhaustive look at Putin’s career muzzling political opponents, cowing oligarchs, and enriching his entourage, told through the eyes of a fictional political advisor, Vadim Baranov, played by Paul Dano.

It is based a top-selling book of the same name by Italian author Giuliano da Empoli.

Assayas said “The Wizard of the Kremlin” was first and foremost a story about authoritarianism, with Russia’s transition from a chaotic democracy in the late 1990s to Putin’s modern autocracy a warning for the West.

“We made a movie about what politics has become and the very scary and dangerous situation we all feel we are in,” he explained.