Jude Law Discusses Family, Acting, and “Fantastic Beasts” on Dan Fogler’s Newest Podcast Episode

Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski) has had some of his Fantastic Beasts castmates on his 4D Xperience podcast before, including Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander) and Zoë Kravitz (Leta Lestrange). His latest guest is “the man himself,” a.k.a. Albus Dumbledore, more commonly known by his Muggle name Jude Law. The actor discussed his family, his career, Fantastic Beasts, and what it’s like to be a “quadruple threat” talent, as Fogler calls him.

Jude Law joined Fogler on the podcast during a few blissful days of time off around Halloween. He has just welcomed his sixth child into the world, and he is making the most of this time to spend with his family:

I am spending most of my time with a newborn and my wife, but my other kids, who are all grown up, are drawn back to the family because of the new baby. And so we are spending lots of time as a group too, which is really lovely. I guess also because of the restrictions nowadays, people are limited to who they can spend time with, and families, I think, are being forced, both happily and unhappily, to spend more time together. I personally really love it.

Fogler and Law moved on to discuss their experiences working together on the Fantastic Beasts movies, the third of which is officially in the making. “Being able to act with you is just a pleasure; it’s a master class,” Fogler told Law, who was very touched and “squirming a little bit” because of the praise. In director David Yates’s words, Law is “a bloke,” meaning he is certainly not one to withdraw into his trailer and miss out on the interactive and collaborative experience of acting, which is something he very much enjoys.

Aside from the joy of acting, they both praised the outstanding attention to detail by the creative departments, which has carried on from the eight Harry Potter movies to the new franchise. Fogler recalled one of his first memories on set:

I remember, on the first movie, the details. When I realized ‘Oh, my God, this is immersive’ was when I was sitting in the scene with the two sisters, with Tina and Queenie. They make us dinner, and it is a scene after when we are sitting there; they put us in their beds and gave us cocoa. And I reach up and I go ‘Can I use this book as a prop?’ and they [the crew] are like, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ And I start flipping through it, and I realize they could have just put the same page on every page. No, there was a real story in there that was a fan fiction or something that they really came up with. And then I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ and then I picked the other books off the shelf and I realized each one of them had their own individual story. It’s their art, and it’s how they immerse themselves in it. It’s amazing.

While they tiptoed around spoilers, we learned that Dumbledore gets to have more fun in the upcoming installment of the series in contrast to the heavy drama of his scenes thus far.

The actors went on to discuss the meaning behind Law’s name and his family tree, being the son of two adoptees. Speaking of family drama, Law’s newest movie, The Nest, is available on VOD. If you want to avoid even the vaguest spoilers, skip the part of the podcast between 47:20 and 55:30 and start with the trailer instead.

As Fogler pointed out, Jude Law’s career is just so wide-ranging and remarkable that there was no way they could touch on all his great performances in The Aviator, Sherlock Holmes, Saturday Night Live, and more. Luckily, he enjoyed being a guest on the podcast and said goodbye to his wizarding world castmate with the promise of returning for a catch-up episode in the future.