Jude Law

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival

Looking back to his claim to fame following 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, Jude Law is “proud” of how he handled all the extra attention and scrutiny.

The Oscar-nominated actor had already landed several movie and theater roles early in his career, but it was the Anthony Minghella-directed movie, where he starred alongside Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, that truly changed his life.

“It was just a wonderful period of my life,” Law recently told People magazine. “It felt like everything I’d hoped acting and that career could provide was happening.”

He added of the film, “The success, or the response it got, was life-changing. Really.”

While Law initially relished in his newfound Hollywood fame at the time, he quickly realized some of the negative sides of the spotlight — the extra eyes on his private life.

“I think there was an expectation suddenly and attention to choices I was making, like who was I working with?” the Firebrand actor recalled. “And then ultimately what was going on in my private life was scrutinized too. And all of that was quite a lot. I was so young.”

Law married his Shopping co-star Sadie Frost in 1997, and the couple’s famous friend group — which included Kate Moss, Frost and Gallagher brothers Noel and Liam — also found itself at the center of the spotlight at the time, being known around London as the “Primrose Hill Set.”

Law and Frost, who welcomed three children together, ultimately divorced in 2003. The actor later dated his Alfie co-star Sienna Miller for five years. And while his love life has made several headlines over the years, Law said he learned to focus on her career rather than the noise.

“I look back now — my eldest son is 27, and I wasn’t much older,” he said of his rise to fame. “And honestly, I look back and I’m really proud. I think I handled it pretty well.”