Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow - Cast

Cast

• Jude Law stars as Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan, a.k.a. Sky Captain: He commands a private air force known as the Flying Legion. His personal aircraft is a modified Curtiss P-40. In 2002, producer Jon Avnet showed Law the teaser trailer and the actor was very impressed by what he saw. He remembers, "All I got at that early stage was that he'd used pretty advanced and unused technology to create a very retrospective look." Avnet gave him the script to read and some preliminary artwork to look at. Law: "What was clear was also that at the center was a really great cinematic relationship, which you could put into any genre and it would work. You know, the kind of bickering . I always like to call it The African Queen meets Buck Rogers." Avnet wanted to work with Law because he knew that the actor had "worked both period, who worked both having theatrical experience, who worked on blue screen, who hadn't hit yet as a major action star." The actor had just finished filming Cold Mountain (2003) and was intrigued at going from filming on real locations to working on a movie done completely on a soundstage. Sky Captain would be one of three Jude Law films released by Paramount Pictures in 2004, along with the remake of Alfie (2004) and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). It also was one of six overall Jude Law films released that year.
• Gwyneth Paltrow as Polly Perkins, reporter for the New York Chronicle. Law believed so much in Conran's movie that he became one of the producers and used his clout to get Paltrow involved. Once her name came up, Law did not remember "any other name coming up. It just seems that she was perfect. She was as enthusiastic about the script and about the visual references that were sort of put to her, and jumped on board." Paltrow said in an interview, "I thought that this is the time to do a movie like this where it's kind of breaking into new territory and it's not your basic formulaic action-adventure movie."
• Angelina Jolie as Commander Francesca "Franky" Cook: She commands a Royal Navy flying aircraft carrier. Jolie had just arrived from the set of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003) and agreed to work on the movie for three days. Despite her small role, she reportedly had conducted hours of interviews with fighter pilots in order to absorb their jargon and get a feel for the role.
• Giovanni Ribisi as Dexter “Dex” Dearborn, ace mechanic of the Flying Legion. Ribisi met with Avnet and, initially, was not sure that he wanted to do the movie but after seeing the teaser trailer, he signed on without hesitation.
• Michael Gambon as Morris Paley, editor of the New York Chronicle
• Omid Djalili as Kaji, former comrade-in-arm from the Flying Legion
• Bai Ling as The Mysterious Woman, Totenkopf's henchwomen
• Julian Curry as Dr. Jorge Vargas, a missing scientist
• Trevor Baxter as Dr. Walter Jennings, a missing scientist
• Peter Law as Dr. Aler Kessler, a missing scientist
• Laurence Olivier as Dr. Totenkopf, the mysterious mad scientist and supervillain; Olivier had been deceased for nearly 13 years at the time of filming, and was depicted in the film via computer manipulation of video and audio from when he was a young actor.
• Khan Bonfils as Creepy

Peter Law, who plays Dr. Aler Kessler, is the father of Jude Law. The full names for Dex and Editor Paley were revealed in the novelization written by Kevin J. Anderson.