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steffieweffie

Ewan admits showing his feminine side to get sex

Ewan McGregor says men score best when they are in touch with their feminine side - even if they are only pretending.

McGregor revealed to German Instyle magazine that when he was single he ruthlessly played on women's feelings to get bedroom action: "That was my trick. I was especially good at showing emotions.

"Playing with women's emotions was the fastest way to get them into bed."

McGregor says his acting talent was also useful for seducing women: "It's very difficult to tell whether emotions are real or fake, especially with someone like me.

"Showing emotions is my job and that's why I focus on that, rather than cooking for a girl to spice up the passion. I just can't imagine that a woman would say: "Great omelette, Ewan, let's do it!""

The Scottish actor also thinks being macho is out: "Nobody likes machos. What makes a man attractive is his feminine side."

Proudly displaying a delicate necklace and amulet, the 32-year-old told Instyle: "I wear this to emphasize my softer, more sensitive feminine side. That goes down well with the ladies."

The husband and father of two admitted, however, that he had never been obsessed with sex or "shag nasty, as the Scots say".

McGregor said: "I'm prepared to make a very embarrassing confession: I've never done it with three or four women at the same time."

Story filed: 14:04 Tuesday 16th December 2003

steffieweffie

HOOK, LINE & SINKER

by Rob Blackwelder, Spliced Wire

Edited at the request of Rob Blackwelder, as he considers this to be a copyright violation, and he requested that we put a link to this article instead.

Jerry D.

[ 04-10-2004: Message edited Jerry D ]

steffieweffie

http://www.eonline.com/Stuff/DailyFix/first.html

Broadcast Crits Wade in "River"

by Lia Haberman
Dec 16, 2003, 9:30 AM PT

Mystic River is making a big splash in the nominations for the 2003 Broadcast Film Critics Association's Critics' Choice Awards.

Clint Eastwood's adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel--about a tightly knit Boston community separated by tragedy--is up for Best Picture, but that's not where the accolades stop. Sean Penn, as the ex-con whose daughter is missing, also got a nod for Best Actor.

Meanwhile, the dramatic thriller also garnered Best Supporting Actor and Actress nods for Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden. In all, Warner Bros.' Mystic received eight nominations, including Best Acting Ensemble and Best Screenplay; Eastwood himself nabbed two of those nods, for Best Director and Best Composer.

In terms of generating early Oscar buzz, this puts Mystic ahead of the game. The movie has already been named Best Film of 2003 by the National Board of Review (which also honored Penn), while the American Film Institute placed the movie on its Top 10 of 2003 list.

However, the weighty film could be given a run for its money by fellow Critics' Choice nominee The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which garnered four nods: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Acting Ensemble and Best Composer.

The final chapter of the Tolkien trilogy, hitting theaters Tuesday at midnight, also made AFI's best-of list and was named Best Picture of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle on Monday.

Others joining the Critics' Choice Best Picture race: Tim Burton's family drama Big Fish; the epic Civil War love story Cold Mountain, starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law; Disney's animated hit Finding Nemo; horse-race saga Seabiscuit; Jim Sheridan's Irish-American family drama In America; Tom Cruise's Japanese period epic The Last Samurai; Sofia Coppola's highly acclaimed Lost in Translation; and Russell Crowe's high-seas adventure Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

The semi-autobiographical In America was runner-up in total nominations, with six nods--for everything from Best Actress for Samantha Morton and Best Director for Sheridan to dueling noms for real-life sisters and Best Young Actress contenders Sarah Bolger and Emma Bolger. Next was the jet-lagged Lost in Translation, with five nods, including Best Actor for Bill Murray, Best Supporting Actress for Scarlett Johansson and potential bookend trophies for Coppola, who's up for Best Director and Best Writer. Coppola and Murray were already named Best Director and Best Actor, respectively, by the New York Film Critics Circle.

While Johnny Depp's commercial smash Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl didn't make the Best Picture list, the swashbuckling star was nominated for Best Actor, and the movie is under consideration for Best Family Film.

Joining Depp, Penn and Murray in the Best Actor race are Master and Commander's Crowe and House of Sand & Fog's Ben Kingsley. Representing for Best Actress alongside Morton are Jennifer Connelly, for House of Sand & Fog; Diane Keaton, for Something's Gotta Give; Nicole Kidman, for Cold Mountain; Charlize Theron, for Monster; and Naomi Watts, for 21 Grams.

Getting their props for supporting roles alongside Robbins are Master and Commander's Paul Bettany, The Cooler's Alec Baldwin, 21 Grams' Benicio Del Toro and The Last Samurai's Ken Watanabe. Joining Johansson and Hayden on the Best Supporting Actress list are Patricia Clarkson, for Pieces of April; Holly Hunter, for Thirteen; and Renée Zellweger, for Cold Mountain.

Meanwhile, Best Picture contender Nemo will also compete in the Best Animated Feature category, against fellow Disney entry Brother Bear and the acclaimed French 'toon The Triplets of Belleville. In the Best Foreign-Language Film category, Brazil's City of God goes up against Canada's The Barbarian Invasions and France's Swimming Pool.

The star-studded shindig, complete with red-carpet coverage and all, will be broadcast live from the Beverly Hills Hotel, January 10 on E! Entertainment Television. Will & Grace's Eric McCormach will host.

Here's the complete list of nominees for the Ninth Annual Critics' Choice Awards:

Best Picture:

Big Fish
Cold Mountain
Finding Nemo
In America
The Last Samurai
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lost in Translation
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Mystic River
Seabiscuit

Best Actor:

Russell Crowe, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Ben Kingsley, House of Sand & Fog
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Sean Penn, Mystic River

Best Actress:

Jennifer Connelly, House of Sand & Fog
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Nicole Kidman, Cold Mountain
Samantha Morton, In America
Charlize Theron, Monster
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams

Best Supporting Actor:

Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Paul Bettany, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai

Best Supporting Actress:

Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River
Holly Hunter, Thirteen
Scarlett Johansson, Lost in Translation
Renée Zellweger, Cold Mountain

Best Acting Ensemble:

A Mighty Wind
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Love Actually
Mystic River

Best Director:

Tim Burton, Big Fish Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Jim Sheridan, In America

Best Writer:

Jim Sheridan, Kirsten Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan, In America
John August, Big Fish
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Brian Helgeland, Mystic River
Gary Ross, Seabiscuit

Best Young Actor/Actress

Sarah Bolger, In America
Emma Bolger, In America
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider
Evan Rachel Wood, Thirteen

Best Animated Feature:

Brother Bear
Finding Nemo
The Triplets of Belleville

Best Family Film (live action):

Freaky Friday
Holes
Peter Pan
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Whale Rider

Best Picture Made for Television:

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
Angels in America
The Reagans

Best Documentary:

Capturing the Friedmans
The Fog of War
Ghosts of the Abyss

Best Foreign-Language Film:

The Barbarian Invasions
City of God
Swimming Pool

Best Song:

"A Mighty Wind," by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Eugene Levy (A Mighty Wind)
"Man of the Hour," by Eddie Vedder; performed by Pearl Jam (Big Fish) "School of Rock," by Sammy James Jr., Mike White; performed by Jack Black (The School of Rock)
"The Heart of Every Girl," by Elton John, Bernie Taupin; performed by Elton John (Mona Lisa Smile)
"Time Enough for Tears," by Bono, Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer; performed by Andrea Corr (In America)

Best Composer:

Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
Danny Elfman, Big Fish
Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Gabriel Yared, Cold Mountain
Hans Zimmer, The Last Samurai

LilMouse

here's the Golden Globe nods for anyone who hasn't seen them

BEST MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA:
Cold Mountain
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Mystic River
Seabiscuit

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA:
Cate Blanchett (Veronica Guerin)
Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain)
Scarlett Johansson (Girl with a Pearl Earring)
Charlize Theron (Monster)
Uma Thurman (Kill Bill — Vol. 1)
Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA:
Russell Crowe (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World)
Tom Cruise (The Last Samurai)
Ben Kingsley (House of Sand and Fog)
Jude Law (Cold Mountain)
Sean Penn (Mystic River)

BEST MOTION PICTURE - MUSICAL OR COMEDY:
Bend It Like Beckham
Big Fish
Finding Nemo
Lost in Translation
Love Actually

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE - MUSICAL OR COMEDY:
Jamie Lee Curtis (Freaky Friday)
Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation)
Diane Keaton (Something's Gotta Give)
Diane Lane (Under the Tuscan Sun)
Helen Mirren (Calendar Girls)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE - MUSICAL OR COMEDY:
Jack Black (School of Rock)
Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)
Bill Murray (Lost in Translation)
Jack Nicholson (Something's Gotta Give)
Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
The Barbarian Invasions (French Canada)
Good Bye, Lenin (Germany)
Monsieur Ibrahim (France)
Osama (Afghanistan)
The Return (Russia)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE:
Maria Bello (The Cooler)
Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April)
Hope Davis (American Splendor)
Holly Hunter (Thirteen)
Renée Zellweger (Cold Mountain)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE:
Alec Baldwin (The Cooler)
Albert Finney (Big Fish)
William H. Macy (Seabiscuit)
Tim Robbins (Mystic River)
Peter Sarsgaard (Shattered Glass)
Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai)

BEST DIRECTOR - MOTION PICTURE:
Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)
Clint Eastwood (Mystic River)
Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain)
Peter Weir (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World)

BEST SCREENPLAY - MOTION PICTURE:
Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation)
Richard Curtis (Love Actually)
Brian Helgeland (Mystic River)
Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain)
Jim Sheridan & Naomi Sheridan & Kirsten Sheridan (In America)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - MOTION PICTURE:
Alexandre Desplat (Girl with a Pearl Earring)
Danny Elfman (Big Fish)
Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
Gabriel Yared (Cold Mountain)
Hans Zimmer (The Last Samurai)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG - MOTION PICTURE:
"The Heart of Every Girl" (Mona Lisa Smile)
"Into the West" (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
"Man of the Hour" (Big Fish)
"Time Enough for Tears" (In America)
"You Will Be My Ain True Love" (Cold Mountain)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA:
24 (FOX)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS)
Nip/Tuck (F/X)
Six Feet Under (HBO)
The West Wing (NBC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA:
Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under)
Jennifer Garner (Alias)
Allison Janney (The West Wing)
Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck)
Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA:
Michael Chiklis (The Shield)
Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace)
William Petersen (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
Martin Sheen (The West Wing)
Kiefer Sutherland (24)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY
Arrested Development (FOX)
Monk (USA)
The Office (BBC AMERICA)
Sex and the City (HBO)
Will & Grace (NBC)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY:
Bonnie Hunt (Life with Bonnie)
Reba McEntire (Reba)
Debra Messing (Will & Grace)
Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex & the City)
Bitty Schram (Monk)
Alicia Silverstone (Miss Match)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES - MUSICAL OR COMEDY:
Ricky Gervais (The Office)
Matt LeBlanc (Friends)
Bernie Mac (The Bernie Mac Show)
Eric McCormack (Will & Grace)
Tony Shalhoub (Monk)

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION:
Angels in America (HBO)
My House in Umbria (HBO)
Normal (HBO)
Solider's Girl (SHOWTIME)
Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (SHOWTIME)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION:
Judy Davis (The Reagans)
Jessica Lange (Normal)
Helen Mirren (Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)
Maggie Smith (My House in Umbria)
Meryl Streep (Angels in America)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION:
Antonio Banderas (And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself)
James Brolin (The Reagans)
Troy Garity (Solider's Girl)
Al Pacino (Angels in America)
Tom Wilkinson (Normal)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A SUPPORTING ACTRESS, SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION:
Kim Cattrall (Sex & the City)
Kristin Davis (Sex & the City)
Megan Mullally (Will & Grace)
Cynthia Nixon (Sex & the City)
Mary-Louise Parker (Angels in America)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A SUPPORTING ACTOR, SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION:
Sean Hayes (Will & Grace)
Lee Pace (Solider's Girl)
Ben Shenkman (Angels in America)
Patrick Wilson (Angels in America)
Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America)


I am so upset that Ewan, Tim, and John August for screenplay didn't get in. I was preparing myself for Ewan not getting a nod but I think he is better than Jack Black, Jack Nicholson, and Billy Bob. Nicholson didn't need to act in Something's Gotta Give b/c the role is exactly like his real life. I'm happy Albert and the movie and score/song got a nod but still...

steffieweffie

I'm upset for Ewan, Tim, and John August as well [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

I hope that doesn't make it bad for the Oscars.

steffieweffie

Review from EW (May Contain Spoilers)
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Big Fish
Like anyone who's a certified, if not certifiable, Tim Burton fan, I'm always desperate to see him play out his fantasies on a scale of oddball grandeur. It's just not enough, somehow, for him to make a conventional thriller with outré Burton ''touches,'' like ''Sleepy Hollow.'' I want him to get lyrically punch-drunk, moonstruck, cracked: in touch with his inner demon child. I want to see his imagination splattered all over the screen.

There are long stretches of Burton's Big Fish in which you can feel the loopiness of his spirit busting free. Based on a novel by Daniel Wallace, the movie is a gently overstuffed cinematic piñata, crammed with tall tales -- with giants and circuses and fairy-tale woods, plus a huge squirmy catfish, all served up with a literal matter-of-fact fancy that is very pleasing. ''Big Fish,'' however, is also a father-son reconciliation movie that wants to give you a big cry. I'm generally a sucker for that sort of thing, but the movie ends up milking the audience when it should soar.

For much of ''Big Fish,'' we're inside a crackpot magical-realist version of the American South, watching the storybook memories and fantastical whoppers -- or are they true? -- of a man named Edward Bloom. We see him, at first, as an old, dying patriarch, played by Albert Finney with bullfrog jowls and a drawl he chews on like the sweet crushed leaves of a mint julep. Finney, evoking the operatic splendor of Charles Laughton, makes Bloom a blustery, arrogant crank, at loggerheads with his glumly rational son, Will (Billy Crudup), who resents his father because he has never known anything about him except for the outlandish yarns he tells. But then the movie swan-dives right into those stories, and suddenly Bloom is no longer a smug, cantankerous big daddy. He's a lean and happy young man, played by the spectacularly ingratiating Ewan McGregor, agleam with valor and optimism. ''Big Fish'' turns into a wide-eyed Southern gothic picaresque in which each lunatic twist of a development is more enchanting than the last. It's like ''Forrest Gump'' without the bogus theme-park politics.

As a boy, Edward looked into a witch's eye and foresaw his death, and it's that macabre knowledge that grants him freedom in life: He doesn't have to worry about how he's going to go. In the idyllic '50s small town of Ashton, Ala., he's the hero of the science fair, but it's only when he saves the town from the carnivorous threat of a local giant that it's clear he and the film are destined for grander things. The giant is one of Burton's purest creations: a doleful, 10-foot-tall outcast who looks like a fun-house Vincent Gallo and walks with a shuffle as crooked as his oddly angled physique.

It's a sign of Edward's generosity that he befriends this tender misfit, and he soon lands in the town of Spectre, a woodland heaven on earth that's far too happy and square for its own good. Burton decorates this vaguely cultish hoedown paradise with spooky details, like the banjo kid from ''Deliverance'' all grown up and Steve Buscemi flashing his gums. Edward, on the other hand, is too ambitious to stick around, and so he joins the circus, led by Danny DeVito as a master of ceremonies who's beastlier than he looks. Our hero then spends a year trying to locate Sandra (Alison Lohman), the pristine beauty he glimpsed in the stands for a moment that literally stopped time.

McGregor may be the only young actor today who can summon the idealized ardor of a vintage Hollywood leading man. His ebullient, gap-toothed gaze is just off-center enough to make his handsomeness look like it belongs to reality. Here, as in ''Moulin Rouge,'' you fall in love with Ewan McGregor falling in love. Once he's finally tracked down Sandra, she looks out the window of her sorority to see him standing, miraculously, in a field of daffodils, and it's an image of devotion perfect enough to make you laugh.

It also makes you wonder: How did Edward the fearless, soft-shoe romantic ever turn into Finney's crusty narcissist? That's a question the film raises but never answers -- even if the tales are Edward's fantasies, and even if Sandra herself ends up aging into the radiant Jessica Lange. Transporting as much of it is, ''Big Fish'' is so eager to bamboozle you, over and over again, with its message about the glories of storytelling that it never fully connects those stories to the conventional, generic reconciliation at its core. The movie is a box of chocolates that turns into a box of Kleenex: By the end, you know all too precisely what you're going to get.

LilMouse

do you think Ewan will still go to the ceremony since BF is nominated??

steffieweffie

THE BEST AWARDS MONEY CAN BUY
By ADAM BUCKMAN

December 9, 2003 -- HOLLYWOOD'S "open secret" is a secret no more.

It's the not-so-hidden truth about the Golden Globes, the movie awards extravaganza airing every January on NBC that attracts the industry's stars, directors and producers.

They are all delighted to win, even while they snicker privately at the tiny, yet hugely influential group of eccentric Hollywood parasites who select the winners.

That would be the self-styled Hollywood Foreign Press Association, whose dubious membership is put under a microscope in a new documentary premiering Sunday on Trio (9 p.m.).

The documentary - titled "The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret" - is so incendiary that the approximately 90-member HFPA has run for cover, refusing to cooperate with the filmmakers and ignoring phone calls from yours truly (and presumably others) seeking reaction.

In a nutshell, the film points out what many in Hollywood already know: that the vast majority of HFPA members are star-struck hangers-on whose votes can be bought with free buffets and bottles of champagne.

Most of them have never written a single word of film criticism and have never seen the movies up for awards.

"Somehow or another the world thinks this is a huge august body of real film critics," says filmmaker Vikram Jayanti, director of "Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret."

In the film, Jayanti meets some of the HFPA members, nearly all of whom refuse to help him on orders from the association. One member, however, agrees to be interviewed and the interview consists of her showing off the many expensive gifts she has received from various studios over the years.

Despite the HFPA membership's utter lack of credentials, the Golden Globes have evolved into one of the year's biggest awards programs. They're widely heralded as a precursor to the Academy Awards and can have a disproportionate influence on the Oscars themselves.

And yet, the studios welcome all the publicity the awards get in newspapers, magazines and TV shows.

"The reason why the Golden Globes is a good story is because it's a great comedy . . . about big organizations looking at small people and thinking, 'We can put them to good use'," says John Powers, movie critic at L.A. Weekly who appears in the documentary (he's not an HFPA member).

Years ago, CBS aired the Golden Globes until, according to the documentary, the network dropped the event following the 1982 awards when Pia Zadora won for Best Newcomer for the little known film, "The Butterfly." Her selection was deemed scandalous at the time since she beat out more-qualified nominees Kathleen Turner, then appearing in "Body Heat," and Howard Rollins and Maureen McGovern in "Ragtime."

The awards were off the air until 1996, when NBC picked them up. It eventually secured them for 10 years under an agreement with the HFPA that expires in 2011.

The 61st annual Golden Globe Awards airs on NBC on Jan. 25, but if you see this documentary, you'll never look at the Golden Globes in the same way again.
NY Post

VerbalKint

Wooohoo, that's a film I'll be looking forward to. GG = suckage. The Oscars are a little better, the problem is that they are still pretty biased. But certinaly not as much as the GGs.

Rach

LilMouse

No wonder why Ewan didn't get a nomination. He didn't buy one. And now I know why Cold Mountian which has been getting mixed reviews got the most nominations. Miramax is so awards hungry they bought their way in.

steffieweffie

Ewan will be on Regis and Kelly, Monday, December 22, 2003 [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Monday, December 22, 2003

Stay tuned to LIVE all this week as we reveal the five (5) daily clues needed to complete your entry form for LIVE's California Adventure. Regis and Kelly head to Disneyland in January and five lucky viewers could win a trip to join in on the fun! Watch each day this week for your daily clues and get your entries in! Also, actress KIRSTEN DUNST drops by from the new film, "Mona Lisa Smile", we'll have actor EWAN MCGREGOR from "Big Fish" and SARAH MCLACHLAN performs.

VerbalKint

Aw, sweet! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I love Regis and Kelly, and of course I love Ewan [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Rach

LilMouse

I saw Stuck On You today and in the movie is a quote that mentions Trainspotting. In the movie Cher is on a really bad TV show and she's complaining that it's bad so she says "This show makes Touched By An Angel look like Trainspotting". That made me laugh and I looked at my sis and mom who looked at me.

steffieweffie

Jude Law: An actor with more than just charm and celebrity
By Ryan Gilbey
20 December 2003

A few years ago, a magazine editor confided grimly that nothing was selling unless it had Ewan McGregor on the cover. That actor was an unusual example of British talent finding purchase in America without discernible compromise. Even when McGregor sold his soul to Satan - who at that time was going under the name George Lucas - he made the transaction seem blasé: he made it appear that the Star Wars series needed him more than he needed it.

This is a difficult trick to pull off - to disguise business decisions and calculated career moves, to dress up professionalism as a bit of a lark. Jude Law, the latest British actor to walk the same tightrope across the Atlantic, and a performer who is in an even more hallowed position than McGregor, was probably watching and learning.

The pair are former flatmates, and partners in the production company Natural Nylon. They have achieved success with great stealth. Neither had what could be called a single breakthrough role, at least internationally, preferring instead to permeate rather than penetrate the cultural consciousness through a steady drip of eye-catching performances. And it will be some time, if ever, before either actor can "open" a film - that is, guarantee a hit on the strength of their name alone, as Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts can.

But the position in which Law now finds himself is arguably as privileged, if not nearly as well paid, as the one occupied by those more bankable names. In his latest role, as the Confederate deserter Inman in Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain, Law even followed in Cruise's footsteps, landing the part after the star had turned it down. It is difficult now to imagine anyone but Law in the lead - to think of another actor of his status who would accept a role that presented so few opportunities for vanity and grandstanding.

As Inman trudges back to his beloved Ada (Nicole Kidman), he does nothing more inspirational than cling to life by his dirty fingernails; this is a tale of patience and perseverance rather than heroism. He gets to rescue a young woman from rapists, but it is she who exacts revenge on her attackers, while Inman looks on blankly.

Cruise would never have relinquished his macho duties so readily. But Law, despite the surname that is redolent of a hard-bitten new sheriff in town, hangs back in Cold Mountain, letting the camera come to him if it chooses. Not since Montgomery Clift has stardom looked so tentative, or so conflicted.

His track record until now has been in idiosyncratic secondary parts. "I felt he had somehow defined himself as a supporting actor," observed Minghella. "I sensed a reluctance to take on the weight of carrying a film. So my dialogue with Jude was not: 'Can you play this role?' Of course I knew he could. It was whether he had the will to endure what anyone playing Inman would have to endure."

Partly this endurance involves surrendering the screen to more demonstrative performers. There was no certainty that this was among his talents. In the past, Law had always been cast in odd supporting parts. He brought spark to the thankless part of the robotic stud Gigolo Joe in Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence. And the piety of Tom Hanks was no match for Law's craggy, creepy smile in Road to Perdition, in which he played an improbable photographer-cum-assassin. Minghella had already given Law his richest part to date in The Talented Mr Ripley as the suntanned playboy Dickie Greenleaf, for which the actor was Oscar-nominated. Law was almost too fine; once he departed halfway through the film, the audience went into a slump.

Who was to say that he could forego the temptation of these brief incandescent moments, during which, while the viewer could not tire of him, the burden of the movie could not anchor him? Well, he did. The gamble paid off. On Thursday, Law received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor - one of eight prizes for which Cold Mountain is in the running. A nod from the Academy is surely inevitable. And Law's world domination is only in its infancy.

He was born David Jude Law a few days before New Year's Eve 1972, in south-east London, to parents who were both teachers. At 12, he joined the National Youth Music Theatre, and no one who has wasted an evening watching trashy British TV will have missed the archive footage of him goofing around on stage as the Artful Dodger or some other scallywag; it's become a staple of the kind of compilation shows that routinely plug the schedules.

What's compelling is the lack of distance between that game hoofer and the dandy he would grow into, with his unusual talent for being alternately petulant and endearing.

Law edged into the mainstream at the age of 17 in the soap opera Families, and made scarcely more impact as a joyrider in the scrappy 1993 British thriller Shopping. It was on that movie that he met the actress Sadie Frost, whom he would marry in 1997.

For a long time the two weren't famous or controversial enough to attract much more from the gossip columns than a kind of bland idolatry that always seemed poised to warp into malice at the first trace of a fissure; naturally that happened when the pair divorced this year, amid unsubstantiated rumours of adultery.

Until then, they were just Jude and Sadie: a brace of hip his 'n' her dolls with matching cheekbones, an armful of infants (three by 2002, plus Frost's child from an earlier marriage) and an unfashionably flawless marriage.

They were in danger of being part of the furniture of British celebrity culture, rather than its defining architecture, until - after a stint on Broadway - Law started winning the film roles he deserved. Anyone could see that he could have played Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, Oscar Wilde's tormentor, in his sleep. The clever thing was that Law didn't fall back on the flamboyant sadism that came so easily to him. He always kept Bosie's neediness in plain sight, and never forgot that the character was fighting his own private battles.

It was lazy casting that led Clint Eastwood to hire Law as Kevin Spacey's ill-fated lover in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but you can't blame him. He was looking for someone who could play gay and spoilt, and Law has not strayed far from either characteristic in anything until Cold Mountain. It's part of what has nourished his enigma.

His suggestion of gayness is bound up in an archaic sense of British elegance that has nothing to do with actual sexuality; even playing womanisers in The Wisdom of Crocodiles or The Talented Mr Ripley, he can still introduce unexpected notes of sexual ambiguity. Little wonder that he is frequently wheeled out as a specimen of whatever the newspaper style sections are re-christening "new man" this week, be it Metrosexual or JGE (Just Gay Enough).

The only time Law's mystique has unravelled is when he has forsaken the façade. It was regrettable that he appeared alongside celebrity friends in the mockney comedy-dramas Final Cut and Love, Honour & Obey, neither of which aspired to be more than ludicrous home movies. But seeing Law as "himself", stepping out from behind the persona and projecting only normality, made you appreciate the transformative power of fiction. This is not an actor who excels at being plain on screen, no matter how sane-headed he may be, or how many times he returns to his theatrical roots (as he last did in 2002, playing Doctor Faustus at the Young Vic).

In The Talented Mr Ripley, someone says of Law's character: "The thing with Dickie is that it's like the sun shines on you, and it's glorious. And then he forgets you, and it's very, very cold. When you have his attention, you feel like you're the only person in the world. That's why everybody loves him so much." I think the same is true of Law: his best performances, with their emphasis on the privileges of class and beauty, make us feel simultaneously seduced and excluded.

Burgeoning celebrity can only increase this sense that he is untouchable, though his proclamations on the nature of fame indicate strongly that he will feel imprisoned rather than liberated by it. He has already railed against press speculation about his relationship with Nicole Kidman. (The actress successfully sued two British tabloids for claiming that she and Law had an affair.) And he has said that intrusions into his privacy - in particular the reports on his divorce - have been severe enough to make him contemplate quitting Britain for good. Perhaps then the tabloids will have the justification they need to tear into Law; a permanent move to the US might in their eyes make him too big for his boots.

In any case, his imminent ubiquity will no doubt arouse their animosity. He will shortly star as Errol Flynn, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Then there is the futuristic thriller The World of Tomorrow opposite Gwyneth Paltrow; the new comedy from David O Russell (director of Three Kings) called I Heart Huckabee's; and - clever casting, this - the role of the gloomy Gothic narrator in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is best described as Harry Potter for deranged and adventurous young minds.

These pictures are in the can, and Law is just weeks away from beginning the film version of Patrick Marber's abrasive play Closer for Mike Nichols, after which John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) will direct him in Tulip Fever. If Law is lucky, and if he plans his days with the utmost care, he may also find time to sleep.

Before any of these films, we will see him in the US remake of Alfie, in which any hint of the equivocation he shows in Cold Mountain would be disastrous. There is no doubt that he has comprehensively charmed audiences. However, this is the moment when Law will prove beyond doubt whether or not he is, as Alfie might say, all mouth and no trousers.

LIFE STORY

Born: David Jude Law on 29 December 1972 in Lewisham, London

Family: Son of Peter and Maggie Law, both teachers. Has an older sister, Natasha. Married Sadie Frost in 1997 (now divorced). Has two sons with Frost, (Rafferty, b. 1996 and Rudy, b. 2002) and a daughter, (Iris, b. 2000)

Height: 5ft 11ins

Career highlights: As Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas in Wilde (1997); Gattaca (1997); eXistenZ (1998); Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999); Enemy at the Gates (2000); named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2000; A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001); Road to Perdition (2002); named one of Vanity Fair's 13 "Kings of Hollywood" in March 2003

Tattoos: Gothic rendition of his initials "JL" on his right arm; "She came along to turn on everyone sexy Sadie" (lyrics to Beatles song "Sexy Sadie") on his left arm

He says: "I've always thought Prince Charming in Cinderella was the most boring role; I'd rather be the Wicked Witch."

"I honestly have no interest in celebrity whatsoever. If anything, I always cringe at it, because it takes away from what I am, which is an actor who wants to be better and do better things."

They say: "Charisma on legs, somebody you could imagine men and women being attracted to." - Anthony Minghella, film director