Jude Law amazed the real-life terror plot that inspired 'The Order' was 'a piece of history that hadn't been told'

Jude Law knows his new film The Order might make some people uncomfortable.

In the thriller, directed by Justin Kurzel, Law plays FBI agent Terry Husk, who is sent to the Pacific Northwest to investigate a string of violent robberies. What he uncovers is a domestic terrorist plot by a group of white supremacists who want to overthrow the federal government.

"It's rare you read [a script] that is quite so impactful. Here is this true story that none of us knew about; it amazed me that this piece of history hadn't been told," Law said to Yahoo Entertainment.

The film is inspired by a real-life terror plot led by Robert Jay "Bob" Mathews (played by Nicholas Hoult), a member of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations. The film is set in the 1980s, but it's hard not to draw parallels between then and now, when hateful rhetoric is able to spread so easily in the digital age.

"There are obviously uncomfortable similarities to the political climate at the moment and the divisive nature of society globally at the moment," Law said. "It just added fuel to the need to get this thing made."

Although Kurzel said The Order can be viewed as "a cautionary tale," both the director and Law believe the film at its heart is a "cat-and-mouse thriller."

"You can be thrilled and stimulated but [are] also leaving with a question in your head, with a conversation to have. I think that's a real sweet spot in filmmaking," Law said. "And then alongside that was this great character, and it felt like a character I hadn't played."

Law and screenwriter Zach Baylin thought it was important Husk not be based on any actual FBI agents.

"It would've been distasteful to sort of add or embellish any of their lives in the way that we needed to, to make the character effective within this drama," Law said. "It was important to me that [Terry] feel sort of broken."

To get into character, Law has his two young children to thank.

"[Terry] is a weary guy who's carrying the 30 years in the service quite heavily physically, emotionally. We talked a lot about the relationship that he's left behind, that there's obviously a damaged home life ... honestly I had a difficulty at times making the leap. It took quite a leap of faith, and then I was in the rehearsal process and I actually caught a cold," Law recalled. "My two children, at the time, were both under 3 and I was exhausted, tired, and I came in to rehearse and Justin was like, 'Oh, this is it. That's Terry, you gotta keep that up.' So the kind of sniffling, the kind of glassy-eyed sniffling, just fatigued rundown, that was kind of born out of a lucky accident."

Law has two young kids, whose names haven't been publicly revealed, with wife Phillipa Coan. He's father to seven children. Although Law's character cannot separate life from work, the actor said he doesn't have that problem.

"It's always easy to switch back [to being a father and husband] in my mind because their demands should be, and are, completely separate from mine on a film set," he said. "But we shot [The Order] very quickly. The shoot was very intense, and because I was a producer as well, my involvement was sort of 24/7. It's a passion piece. We really believed in it and believed in the message and in the subject, so there wasn't a huge amount of downtime, and fortunately my family were very forgiving and understanding of that."

The Order is in theaters Dec. 6.