Law to play transvestite in murder film

Jude Law has landed the role of a cross-dressing supermodel in a new movie.

The actor will star as a transvestite in Rage, a murder mystery set in New York's fashion world.

Director Sally Potter claimed that the film will be a good opportunity for Law to break free from his 'pretty boy' image.

"Jude, whose beauty has sometimes been held against him as an actor, made the courageous decision to accept the role and took on a kind of hyper-beauty for this persona, a 'female' beauty which gradually unravels as the story unfolds," she wrote on her blog.

"Strangely, the more he became a 'she', coiffed and made-up, the more naked was his performance. There was great strength in his willingness to make himself vulnerable."

The movie, which also stars Judi Dench and Lily Cole, is set over seven days and focuses on the mysterious death of a young model on the catwalk.