How Jude Law's 'Young Pope' predicted first American Pope

New York Post

15-05-2025

Holy smokes.
The world got a shock on May 8 when the white smoke blew at the 2025 papal conclave, bearing the news that the first ever American Pope had been elected.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old from Chicago, took on the name Pope Leo XIV and became the first ever American to hold that position.
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But, there's one forgotten TV show that predicted this history-making event: the 2016 HBO series 'The Young Pope' starring Jude Law had a similar plot line nearly a decade ago.
11 Jude Law in 'The Young Pope.'
11 Pope Leo XIV during an audience of Holy Father Pope Leo XIV to representatives of the media at Aula Paolo VI on May 12, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican.
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'I was like, oh wait, hey, that sounds really familiar,' actor Jack McQuaid, 20, exclusively told The Post, referring to how he felt when the news broke.
'I knew it was bound to happen at some point, but this soon – if you're thinking in context, 10 years is not that far off. So, that's pretty cool.'
McQuaid was only 10 years old when he appeared in 'The Young Pope,' playing a young version of Cardinal Dussolier in a flashback (Scott Shepherd played the adult Cardinal Dussolier).
Sebastian Roché, who played Cardinal Michel Marivaux in 'The Young Pope,' posted a throwback photo of himself on the set, with the caption, 'conclave was exhausting!'
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'I had a little fun posting some of my 'Young Pope' pictures,' Roché exclusively told The Post.
11 Sebastian Roche in his Instagram selfie, from the set of 'The Young Pope.'
sebastianroche/Instagram
11 Sebastian Roch on the set of 'The Young Pope,' as he posted on Instagram after the real American Pope was announced.
sebastianroche/Instagram
The Emmy-nominated series (which was a co-production between HBO, Sky Atlantic, and Canal+) was created by Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino. The plot followed Lenny Belardo (Law), a newly elected American Pope. Unlike the real Pope, who hails from Chicago, Lenny was from New York. Law's character took on the name Pope Pius XIII.
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Diane Keaton co-starred as his confidante, Sister Mary.
'Working with Paolo Sorrentino was kind of a spiritual experience,' Roché told The Post. 'I was really so moved by his approach to filmmaking, which is very dreamlike and surrealistic.'
11 Jude Law and Silvio Orlando in 'The Young Pope.'
11 Pope Leo XIV leads a special audience with thousands of journalists and media workers on May 12, 2025 at Paul VI Hall in Vatican City, Vatican.
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The 'Supernatural' actor added, 'You're on an Italian TV set, which usually is quite loud. But his set is very quiet. Everyone speaks in hush tones…..So the experience in itself for me was very deep, in that respect, because we would shoot these big wide shots with wind machines, but you feel the weight of what he's trying to say.'
The show wasn't buttoned-up material that you could discuss in church – it had nudity, a score filled with songs like 'Sexy and I Know It' and surreal scenes such as Lenny emerging from a pile of naked babies.
The show has also spawned countless memes of Law in his papal white outfit and hat, smoking a cigarette and lounging around in sunglasses.
'Is 'Young Pope' the first time a SNL sketch has become TV series?' comedian Jim Gaffigan tweeted at the time.
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11 Sebastian Roche and Jude Law in 'The Young Pope.'
HBO
While Roché was filming 'The Young Pope,' he went to try on his Cardinal costume at a store near St. Peter's Basilica. He took a walk outside, 'and people stopped and started kissing my hand. They thought I was a real Cardinal,' he recalled.
'Even though I had a three days beard [at the time] and didn't really look like a total Cardinal. It struck me — the power of the costume. And I thought that was really interesting, as well as comical.'
It was also amusing to see actors dressed in Cardinal regalia doing mundane things on set, such as 'looking at their phones' and 'checking their social media.'
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11 Sebastian Roche in his Instagram photo on the set of 'The Young Pope.'
sebastianroche/Instagram
'You always imagine these people as being sort of super human,' he said of Cardinals. 'Because we always see them really within the confines of the Church. So that was always amusing to see [actors] wandering about, going to craft service having their little cookies in their cardinal outfits.'
Law, for his part, opened up about his role during a May 2017 interview with Variety.
'I always felt like I was playing a man playing a character. I was playing Lenny playing the Pope. It's no chance in the first episode you see him naked in front of the white outfit. It's like he takes his skin off and steps into the role of Pope Pius. And it has a great effect, you know, when you walk around in those outfits.'
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'The Talented Mr. Ripley' star added that the ritualistic robes that he wore were 'extraordinary pieces.'
11 Jack McQuaid, who appeared in 'The Young Pope.'
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'Each piece has to go on in a certain order and each piece is put on in a certain way representing something and a lot of those are very, very heavy and very uncomfortable,' he explained. 'But they really add to a performance.'
Law scored a Golden Globe nomination for the role.
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'[Law] is probably one of the nicest actors I've ever worked with,' Roché told The Post. 'One of the most talented, and he really is one of these people who is incredibly generous, hard-working, very respectful of the crew — which I think is the case with all great actors.'
11 Jude Law from the HBO series, 'The Young Pope.'
AP
Roche, who was most recently in the Taylor Sheridan drama '1923,' added, 'I've just finished working with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. I've worked with Anthony Hopkins. And across the board, these people who are the great masters of our art are incredibly committed, respectful, kind. They love to share their passion. And Jude is one of these princes in our business.'
In 2016, per Variety, Sorrentino told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the Pope in his show was different from then-Pope Francis, but 'this does not mean that a Pontiff like this cannot happen in the near future.'
During his 2017 interview with Variety, Law was asked to weigh in on how the show correlated to the current political climate.
11 Jude Law in 'The Young Pope.'
At the time, he wasn't referring to the first American Pope, but his words still apply, as Law noted, 'We were fortunate in that…the political climate internationally seemed to suddenly demonstrate what Paolo had speculated on through the drama. And you could argue it played to our favor. But I think clever writing and good writers have a finger on the pulse, or have their antennae to the world's peculiar sort of pendulum swings in social movements anyway.'
'The Holiday' star added, 'It was a 'what if' and suddenly it became an, 'Oh, this is it.''
McQuaid told The Post that Sorrentino was 'one of the most artistic people' he's ever met.
'It was my first big gig, so it taught me a lot of professionalism,' the actor said. 'The production of the show was so smooth, it was obvious that Paolo had been there, done that. Not to mention he accidentally predicted the future, too – that was pretty cool!'