JUDE LAW - LAW PAYS TRIBUTE TO MINGHELLA

Actor JUDE LAW has paid tribute to Oscar-winning film director ANTHONY MINGHELLA who died on Tuesday (18Mar08). The filmmaker - who won a Best Director Academy Award for 1996 film The English Patient - died aged 54 from a brain haemorrhage at London's Charing Cross Hospital, where he had undergone a routine operation on his neck. Law - who starred in Minghella's Oscar nominated movies The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain, and the 2006 movie Breaking And Entering - said he would miss the director "hugely". He says, "(I'd) come to value him more as a friend than as a colleague. "He was a brilliantly talented writer and director who wrote dialogue that was a joy to speak and then put it onto the screen in a way that always looked effortless. "He made work feel like fun. He was a sweet, warm, bright and funny man who was interested in everything from football to opera, films, music, literature, people and most of all his family."