Law of the land

I feel like I'm cursed,' says Jude Law, surveying the view of Victoria Harbour afforded by his suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. 'Many other actors have films stacked up - unless they do one a year, which is rare, because many people can't afford to do [just] one a year. I don't know whether it's the jobs I choose or the profiles of the jobs I choose or the fact that I just have not much luck with the studios, who always release them in a lump.' He sighs, sips at his glass of carbonated water and smiles. 'But I guess I look at it in a positive way: the three films that have come out this year have been three very different genres, very different parts with very different directors. I hope someone out there will at least like one of them, if not the other two.'

Law is attempting to deny his career is as sporadic as his filmography suggests. His screen appearances have always come in a deluge rather than a steady stream; he's either all over town for a short period of time (as he was in 2004, when he starred in five films and voiced a character in a sixth) or missing from public view altogether (22 months came between the American release of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, in which he plays Errol Flynn to Leonardo DiCaprio's Howard Hughes, and Steven Zaillian's All the King's Men, in which he battles for screen time with Sean Penn).

Law is back in a period of frenzy. Apart from All the King's Men, there has been the British release of Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering (which reunites him with the Penn family, in this case Robin Wright Penn, his on-screen wife) and preparation for the upcoming international premieres of Nancy Meyers' The Holiday, a transatlantic romantic comedy also starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jack Black.

Law was in the middle of an especially busy few weeks when he landed in Hong Kong recently. He was absorbed in rehearsals in London for Sleuth, a film he is co-producing and starring in alongside Michael Caine, when he flew over to attend a commemorative event hosted by Dunhill, for which Law models. Later, he was to fly to New York for the American premiere of The Holiday (which will open in the US and Britain on Friday). Law will be back in New York in March to work on Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights.

'I really love this city - it's got a very unique atmosphere,' says Law, still buzzing from a helicopter trip over Hong Kong. 'It was a very unique view of the local landscape; it was interesting to fly over the city and be able to locate these spots I've been to. It's a good way to see a city you know a little; it's as if you have it in your grasp.'

This is not Law's first trip to Hong Kong - he was here incognito four years ago as a tourist - and