Jude Law has opened up about the problems he faced after a hacking scandal turned his life into a "public soap opera." (Zak Hussein/WENN.com)

Hollywood actor Jude Law has blamed Britain's hacking scandal for turning his life into a "public soap opera", insisting he began to distrust his close friends and family when personal details started appearing in the press.

The Alfie star won $208,000 in damages from Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid amid allegations his cell phone voicemail messages had been repeatedly listened to between 2003 and 2006.

Law has now opened up about the problems he faced and reveals he began feeling "paranoid" when personal stories about his private life began hitting headlines.

"What I have learned is that I was basically under surveillance for three years, which meant I was being hacked through my phone and through my computer and I was being followed," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show. "It leads to a place of really, really uncomfortable paranoia... You are aware that there is information getting out and there are just enough specifics for you to feel they have some sort of inroad and so you can't help but look at those around you who know that information and you suddenly you are living your life in some sort of public soap opera.

"Fortunately no relationship that I can remember was necessarily severed and no fingers were pointed but it puts you into a place of paranoia."

Law insists he fully supports the freedom of the press, but he hopes the public's fascination with gossip will come to an end.

"I want it to get better, I recognize the importance of the freedom of the press, it is something we should uphold and something we should support and it's an important part of a democratic society, but at the same time surely let's come to an end with this obsession with gossip... it seems to me that it's time that we all lifted our heads out of the gutter."