Source: Entertainment Weekly
December 11, 2000
Jungle Love | Making "Proof of Life" created chaos, romance, and tragedy for the actors and crew
By Liane Bonin
The plot of "Proof of Life" has enough sensational ingredients -- kidnapping, government corruption, forbidden love, and drug dealing terrorists -- to fuel several romantic thrillers. But the story on screen is rivaled by the real life turmoil that occurred while making it. Hopscotching from Poland to Ecuador to London, the shoot was plagued by disastrous weather, an inexperienced cast, and a deadly accident. And -- for those who've been on another planet -- there was the hot and heavy romance that blossomed between the movie's stars, the married Meg Ryan and "Gladiator"'s Russell Crowe.
Though the actors' budding relationship escaped the notice of "Proof"'s director, Taylor Hackford ("I'm not stupid. Meg and Russell were incredibly discreet and professional," Hackford says), he, like the rest of the world, was quickly brought up speed by the tabloid frenzy that broke last June when Ryan and Dennis Quaid, married for nine years, announced their split -- and when the affair between Crowe and Ryan became public. Even so, Crowe insists that the media interest didn't interfere with the production. "We were just focusing on getting the film made and doing the best we could, and all this other stuff started up around us," says Crowe. "It didn't have anything to do with us, but with somebody else's need for a story."
But Hackford fears that his stars' headline grabbing affair may inadvertently cripple "Proof" at the box office. "The problem I'm struggling with right now is I've got this relationship that evolved in the making of this film, and now all the tabloids are out there going, 'We know what happens in this film; it's obvious,'" says Hackford. "I'm concerned that people will read this and say, 'I don't need to see that movie.' And that would be a crime."
But Hackford and company had more pressing matters to worry about while filming: Shooting in the Andes mountains, cast and crew suffered debilitating bouts of altitude sickness. As many as 25 oxygen starved cast and crew members a week "were literally being carried off the mountain on stretchers," says costar David Morse ("The Green Mile"). "We were working at 14,000 feet above sea level for 14 hours a day. You'd see the director of photography shooting his handheld stuff while wearing an oxygen mask, so that's kind of a challenging environment."
Morse, whose character suffers a months long ordeal at a remote terrorist hideout, had another challenge: to drop enough weight to look like a convincingly malnourished hostage, then gain it back again in order to film "Proof"'s opening scenes just weeks later. To do it, he consulted the same weight loss M.D. as his "Green Mile" costar (and "Cast Away" lead) Tom Hanks. Surviving on a severely restricted diet and performing action scenes at high altitudes helped Morse shed the weight quickly -- too quickly. "I wanted to lose 40 pounds, but I lost the weight so fast both my doctor and the producer told me to stop," says Morse. "Enough people were saying, 'You look bad; let's cut it out here."'
When the cast and crew moved to lower altitudes during rainy season, new dangers arose. "The location changed a lot, meaning that some days the hillside would be there, and sometimes it wouldn't be," says costar David Caruso, who shares some high action scenes with Crowe. "And every day, the landscape would become more and more unstable." Then, on April 9, a truck carrying six crew members rolled off a 150 foot cliff. Five of the occupants survived, but Will Gaffney, an American teacher who was working as a stand in for Morse, died at the scene. "It was a crushing blow of reality," says Caruso. "To see grown men crying, it's scary." (Morse, who had returned to the U.S. when the accident occurred, says, "I don't feel it is appropriate to comment on [the tragedy].")
Not surprisingly, Hackford eventually melted down under the pressure. "There were days when he just lost it," Morse remembers. "And then one day he lost it really badly." The director, desperate to complete filming before a thick fog rolled in, needed a novice Ecuadorian actress to slap another actor in a key scene. "The weather had lifted for the first time in six days, and this girl wouldn't slap him," recalls Hackford. "I told her to hit me, because it's an acting moment, but she didn't understand that. So I slap her on the face. It was a screen slap. Does it sting for a second? Yes. But does it hurt anybody? No." Hackford ultimately apologized, but he defends his actions. "Sometimes you screw up. Sometimes you go too far," he says. "But you do whatever you have to to get the scene, and I cop to that."
Well, at least one A list lover found the grueling shoot in Ecuador partly a relief. Crowe says he was sad to leave the location behind, since constant attention from the tabloids awaited him when the shoot moved to London. "When we were in Ecuador for four months, we didn't have to worry about paparazzi," Crowe says. "So basically I was under a complete... I was going to say under a blanket, but you'd all f---in' use that the wrong way. Come on, you can laugh if you want."
Source: The Sunday Times
December 11, 2001
Addition by subtraction Crowe
by Cindy Pearlman
LOS ANGELES--He might be in a movie called A Beautiful Mind, but Russell Crowe's bodyguards need more brawn than beauty when it comes to their physical makeup. Specifically, strong legs.
On the penthouse floor of the Four Seasons hotel here, Crowe has a proclamation of sorts. "I don't want to be with people. Let's take the stairs," Crowe commands.
One 300-pound guard appears shocked. A studio publicist gazes at her high heels and seems horrified. "We're 15 flights up," she tells Crowe and then trails after the actor, who will do anything to find peace and quiet these days, even if it means a dark stairwell.
You can't blame Crowe for feeling a bit boxed in. He's been running for cover ever since winning the Oscar for Gladiator this year.
For a man who is so private, it must have been hell on the campus of Princeton University, where he shot A Beautiful Mind. It's based on the real-life story of John Forbes Nash Jr.--math genius, Nobel Prize winner and paranoid schizophrenic.
Director Ron Howard admits that Crowe went a bit bonkers from the attention. "We'd be filming a serious scene about a man questioning his own sanity and some girl would lean out a window and scream, 'I love you, Maximus,' " Howard recalls.
It got so bad that Crowe even flipped the bird--and the gesture of course was caught in a photo that made international headlines.
Crowe believes that his brusque manner has contributed to some of his bad press. "I don't think I'm misunderstood," he says. "I think I'm misconstrued. It's very easy to offend people with the truth for some reason."
Like Nash, has he ever lost his grip on reality? "I think like everybody in life, I've had my moments," the 37-old-actor says. "In a true sense of insanity, no, I haven't gone there."
But who could blame him if he went a bit crazy from time to time. He led a whirlwind existence on the way to the best actor Oscar. Crowe says the award was "a highlight of my life."
"On a deeper psychological level, there is a part of me that's kind of relaxed now. Not that I was ever seeking the Oscar, but once you receive that kind of recognition from your peers, it does validate you. Regardless of my public persona and public reputation, people like my work. I'm sure it has made me a little calmer about what I do for a living."
And many critics predict that Crowe will receive another Oscar nod for A Beautiful Mind, which opens Dec. 21. Crowe plays Nash, a Princeton University math professor who suffers from schizophrenia, but copes with the disease with the help of his wife, Alicia (Jennifer Connolly).
It was tough to get into Nash's mind. "There is no way anyone could understand it," Crowe says. "It's ridiculous to try to understand another man's 35 years of pain and torment.
"The film hits the three big points in his life. Genius. Madness. Nobel Prize. You had to hook the other complications of his life around that stuff."
Meeting the real Nash just complicated the situation even more for Crowe. "I wondered if he was going to be a true or a false witness to his own life."
Nash, who is now 70, popped up unannounced one day on the set. "Everyone thought, 'Oh, how will Russell react?' My response was, 'Where is he? I want to see him.'
"Suddenly I was there, asking him a simple question, 'Do you want coffee or tea?' About 15 minutes later, I got somewhere near an answer, because of the level of examination he puts everything under. He responded, 'If I have a coffee, should I have it with milk? Should I have it with sugar? But if I have it with milk or sugar, would it still be coffee or sugary milk? Will coffee give me more or less pleasure than tea?'
"He went on and on," Crowe says. "I ended up using every second in the film."
Crowe's own life was worlds away from Nash's; born in New Zealand, where his parents worked as movie set caterers, Crowe made his TV debut at age 6. After a short detour into music, he broke into Australian films, including Romper Stomper(1992) and The Sum of Us"(1994).
"Remember, I didn't do a feature film until I was 25. So it was a 19-year apprenticeship," he says. "When a director finally offered me a lead in a feature, I didn't quite believe it. Once I was on a set and I was performing for the camera, I realized how comfortable I felt. It was a revelation. I knew this medium was expandable as long as I remained committed to it on a deeper level and made decisions that respected the medium."
He stops as if the conversation is getting too serious. "Why are we talking about when I was younger? Do I look like shit now or something?" he says, laughing.
Despite Oscar and all, Crowe insists that his dream these days is just "to commune with my cows" on his 600-acre Australian ranch.
"I think last year I slept 21 nights on my farm, which is not good for my health," he says. Then again, he wouldn't mind a layover in Hollywood next March, if he is nominated for another Academy Award.
"I'm not greedy. I did win last year and that will do for my entire life. So I'm not expecting anything. If not, I'll just present the best actress award this year and then go home to my cows," he says.
Spoken like a true bloke.
source: Big Picture News Inc.
December 11, 2001
by Cindy Pearlman
Russell Crowe is an actor known for lashing out, but it's his mother who really lost it in that department on Oscar night earlier this year.
"I remember my mother cried so much when I won that she lost her false eyelashes in the aisle where she was sitting. I came from backstage to see her, and there was something funny with her makeup. I was like, 'What happened, Mum?'
"She sobbed, 'I don't know. They are somewhere on the floor,' " Crowe recalled last weekend during press interviews here for his upcoming A Beautiful Mind.
Speaking of Oscar night, the chain-smoking Crowe said scandal sheets that paint him as a party animal have it wrong. "I read that I partied all night after winning the Oscar. Not true," he said. "I took my mum to meet Elton John [at his annual Oscar-night fund-raiser], and then I went back to my hotel and went to sleep."
The highlight of the night? "I've got a photo where Elton is looking great, and she's like a deer in headlights," her son reports. "She has stolen it and has tried to hide it."
Source: Sunshine Coast Daily
December 11, 2005
A drink, a ciggie and he's the king
By Renae Dyer
Russell Crowe fans flocked to the Buderim Tavern on Friday night for one reason only to see the film star for his, erm, music.
But the homegrown Hollywood celebrity surprised everyone when he delivered a riveting performance.
With a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, he made light of the infamous hotel telephone-throwing incident.
"I wrote this song just before I had a run-in with the law," he declared. "If he didnt fucking move, I never would have hit him."
Crowe was on the Coast with his six-piece band, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, to plug his new album My Hand, My Heart.
He poured emotion, humour and personal anecdotes into his songs which prompted calls for an encore.
Among some of the rootsy arrangements was a song, Weight of Man, which he dedicated to his wife Danielle.
Fans dared not photograph him. Anyone with camera phones was ejected. Jenny Valentine of Noosa said the gig was much more than she anticipated. "I didnt even know he had a band but I thought he was great. I reckon he was very deep," she said. "I heard stories that he was a fighter and I've only ever liked him for his looks. But I thought it was fantastic. I find him even sexier."
Her friend Jane Senell, also from Noosa, loved his use of comedy and theatrics. She was impressed when Russell pulled off some Elvis-style dance moves. "I loved him, especially his wiggle," she said.
"It was different music but I loved it."
But Benjamin Powney of Buderim wasnt moved. "I just wasn't inspired. He's not a rock star... but I admire him for giving it go."
Sally Isles, from Brisbane, said: "He wasnt fantastic but I could bop around to it. It was all right."
Musician Peter Cross, of Buderim, was stoked to see Russell perform on our turf. "He's an Academy Award winner but he's here playing a pub, it's amazing."
He also played the tavern last night.
Source: The Queensland Sunday Mail via Murph's
December 11, 2005
Crowe's flying visit
Russell Crowe might command top dollar in Hollywood but, when it comes to the music industry, he's not afraid to start at the bottom. To that end, Crowe will be playing at the Southport RSL tonight with his new band, The Ordinary Fear of God. It's part of a whirlwind east coast tour to draw attention to the internet-only release of his album, My Hand, My Heart.
In an exclusive interview Crowe spoke passionately about his support for the Canadian musical content laws that ensure local music is played on Canadian radio. Crowe, who linked up with Canadian indie musician Alan Doyle to write the tunes for his album, says Australia's lawmakers could learn a lot from their Canadian counterparts. "The thing is that we in Australia took that Canadian music content model for our country, but we've allowed the spirit of it to be eroded whereas the Canadians haven't. "They don't consider playing someone like Bryan Adams over and over as fulfilling the spirit of Canadian content, so it always allows for new bands. It also keeps the live venues happening, because people have some knowledge of who's playing in their towns and have some knowledge of the music."
Crowe said Australia had a "massive rock'n' roll industry in the '70s and '80s". "But somewhere along the line - between the cynicism of radio stations wanting to make a lot of money and cutbacks at record companies, or whatever - we seem to have shrunk that," he said.
"It was a great breeding ground for Oz rock. Three decades of wonderfully-creative music that became part of a larger cultural meaning - that when there's a platform, an artist will more readily want to express themselves in that form."
The new Crowe band includes four members of the previous aggregation, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts.
