Jude Law was told to tan and brag for The Talented Mr. Ripley

Jude Law talks about his breakthrough role as dreamy millionaire playboy Dickie Greenleaf The talented Mr. Ripley.

The star sat on SiriusXM The Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham for the 1999 thriller, for which he received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Cunningham noted that the actor was oozing sex appeal in the role, mentioning the scene in which Matt Damon’s titular con man first encounters Dickie, who is lounging on an Italian beach next to his fiancée Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow).

“I imagine when I was on the beach and the notes said, ‘Matt Damon, look paler.’ Jude, look hotter and tan,” Cunningham joked.

“Those were exactly the instructions we were given,” Law, 51, replied.

“I had been instructed weeks before to go to this island, get a tan, learn to sail and drink good wine,” he added.

As Law noted, before his breakout appearance in 2007, he had mostly played small roles and lesser-known films Ripley. One of the challenges he said he faced on set was conveying Dickie’s confident demeanor to his acclaimed co-stars.

“You know, I already knew Matt’s work. I knew Gwyneth and Cate (Blanchett) and Philip (Seymour Hoffman),” he explained. “And I showed up. I had actually only done a few films and honestly the biggest challenge for me was to somehow embody the confidence and swagger of Dickie. And you know, I was pretty overwhelmed to be in this movie from the start, so a lot of the preparation was getting a tan and finding your own swagger.”

“A lot of it has to do with not caring what people think,” he continued. “What I mean by that is, you know, these kinds of people, these kinds of characters whose antennas don’t have something like, ‘Oh, are you comfortable?’ say. It’s like, “I own this place and you’re just walking through my world.”

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Law, of course, was more than up to the situation, and Ripley catapulted him onto Hollywood’s A-list.

“It was just a wonderful time of my life,” Law told PEOPLE earlier this year about the aftermath of the film’s release. “It felt like everything I wanted from acting and this career was happening.”

“I worked with a wonderful director and a really exciting young cast,” he added of his work Ripley with Anthony Minghella. “I played a guy who just played jazz, rode around in a boat, swam in the sea, and ate delicious food in wonderful places.”

The response the film received was “life-changing,” he said. Really.”