Jude Law is so squeaky clean, he won’t even pop an Aspirin. The 40-year-old British actor, who plays a psychiatrist who prescribes a disturbing new psychotropic drug in the current Steven Soderbergh thriller Side Effects, reveals that he’s never taken a drug before, including over-the-counter medicines. “I grew up in a family where I didn’t even get headache tablets. My mother wasn’t a health freak, but she had strong principles,” he says. ”In the ’70s, that was just becoming popular: We shouldn’t eat this and that, or not watch TV that much. And a dislike of painkillers and pills was a part of it.” Despite his strict upbringing, Law says he was surrounded by love and he’s grateful he never felt tempted to try drugs, as a result of his childhood. ”My family mainly had this martyr-like north English attitude: Don’t complain, it will be fine. If you are cold, put a pullover on. And if you hurt yourself, just get up again,” he says. “In England, we call that ‘tough love’. I just have no relation to medicine and until now, I have been lucky not to need them for emotional or psychological reasons—fingers crossed!”
