January 17

Source: Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer

January 17, 2001

Russell Crowe may have a reputation as a wild man in Hollywood, but he says he's not the bad boy that tabloids make him out to be.

"If I was my parent, I would be a little concerned," he tells ABCNews' Diane Sawyer. But, the 37-year-old adds, "I'm actually much more conservative than you give me credit for."

While the maverick actor does have "a sense of personal freedom," he says he's not the type of man who'd love and leave a woman.

"I'm not a misogynist. I don't have disrespect for females," he says. "I love women, you know? And I find some of the greatest wisdom that's passed on to me is from my female friends."

Among the women he considers his friend is actress Meg Ryan. "We were always friends, you know?" he says. "We started off being mates, and we're still mates."

The two dated for several months, a romance that made headlines because Ryan was still married to Dennis Quaid when she met Crowe on the set of Proof of Life.

"I didn't plan to fall in love with her. You know? It just happened," says Crowe. "I chose to walk toward love instead of walk away from it. And I am, you know, sorry if that offends somebody."

Asked if Ryan was the love of his life, he says: "She's a very important person to me ... I think she's very special but I don't necessarily think we're there, a hundred percent ready for what being with each other would mean, you know?"

Crowe said he felt hounded by the press, which affected his relationship with Ryan. "It's very easily intellectually to stand back and say, 'Well it doesn't matter what such and such says.' ... But unless you've been in the environment, then you really don't know what the hell you're talking about," Crowe says. "If you feel you're under siege ... that takes away from your ability to see each other simply and clearly, you know? Because every moment has so much baggage attached to it, and that's when it becomes destructive."

Ryan, he adds, is "a wonderful girl" who "has to be respected for the strength of character that she's shown."

Crowe got his first TV role when he was 6. For years he worked as an actor, trying a little bit of everything, including playing a dancing, singing transvestite - in stiletto heels and fishnet stockings - in an Australian stage production of The Rocky Horror Show.

"I kept getting squirted," he said, recalling one performance when he was menaced on stage with a water gun. "At one point I turned around and I said, 'Um, if you squirt me one more time with your water pistol, I shall come off this stage and I shall jam my stiletto in the crack of your ass.' So it stopped."

Crowe's star has been rising quickly since his impressive 1997 turn as quick-tempered cop Bud White in L.A. Confidential.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for 1999's The Insider and took home the Oscar for last year's Gladiator. Most recently, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for A Beautiful Mind, in which he plays a math genius who struggles with paranoid delusions.

Crowe just returned from a tour with his band of 12 years, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, and he recently began a new movie with Jodie Foster, whom he calls "brilliant."

"I covet Jodie Foster's mind," he says. "I always feel I've got to be on my best intellectual behavior with her because I hate that look that she gives me every now and then if I say something stupid."

The variety of roles he's taken on, he says, shows that he's more than a mere emblem of masculinity.

"I don't think anybody that is simply masculine is actually going to do the types of roles that I do or want to do or am drawn to or compelled to do."

In fact, he says, his poetic soul is a source of amusement among his mates back in Australia, where he retreats when the glitter of Hollywood gets too bright. He spends time on his 560-acre farm raising livestock, including more than 100 cows, and riding his horse Honey.

"It kind of leads to some kind of silly moments when we're mustering," he says, "because the other guy's going 'Come, Thunder,' and I'm like, 'Come on, Honey.'"

Asked why he's not ready to live on his farm and leave Hollywood behind, he says, "I haven't done a performance yet that I really like, so I think I've got to keep going until I at least get something right."

PrimeTime Thursday with Diane Sawyer ~ 2002 ~ click on images to play videos ~

Sundance Film Festival with Nicole Kidman, Park City Utah

Source: Hollywood Confidential

January 17, 2002

Good Gruntin'
By Jeffrey Wells

Texas, Russell Crowe's self-produced documentary about 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, the Australian folk-rock band he's been singing and playing with since the early '90s, is much better than a "home movie," which is how Crowe himself described it prior to Thursday night's screening at Park City's Yarrow Hotel.

There's nothing sloppy or half-assed about this roughly 100-minute musical and spiritual self-portrait, which Crowe and longtime pal and fellow band member Dean Cochran produced. It was presented as yet another special screening from Miramax Films, which will distribute the doc later this year, following on the heels of last Monday's four-walled showing of Only the Strong Survive, the Miramax-financed tribute to various long-of-tooth soul singers from directors D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

At the very least, Texas is a professionally shot, smoothly edited, great-sounding portrait of a rock-solid, kick-ass band having a rip-roaring good time with each other and their fans. It's a kind of audio-visual diary of a period in the band's life about 18 months ago when they gathered in London to work through new material and subsequently recorded their album "Bastard Life or Clarity" at Austin's Arlyn Studios in August and September of 2000, during which time they also performed three sold-out shows at Austin's Stubbs Amphitheater.

For me it was an introduction to the Grunts, whose darkly poetic electrified ballads I've never heard on the radio and whom I've never seen live in concert. It's somehow satisfying to report that Crowe, the band's lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and lyricist, has a smoothly soulful voice and a jauntily assured and brashly charismatic stage presence. TOFOG songs are primarily folk tales - ballads, anthems - delivered with what a New York Times reviewer once called a "broad and intemperate" Australian sound that actually has an extremely tight and disciplined delivery. The Grunts know how to rock hard and well. Their playing reminded me at different times of U2 and Men at Work and certain Irish traditional folk bands I've heard from time to time.

Bearded, long-haired, and looking slightly bulkier of frame than he appears to be in A Beautiful Mind or Gladiator, the blue-jeaned, red-shirted Crowe stood in front of the packed crowd to introduce the documentary, and then returned for a 15-minute Q&A session when it ended at around 1:15 A.M. The 37-year-old actor-musician spoke passionately and articulately about TOFOG and the music they've created. He was also characteristically blunt with questioners and, as usual, snippy toward the press.

Crowe had asked that all professional journalists identify themselves as such, presumably so Crowe could fortify himself in dealing with their questions, which he's obviously decided are not worthy of his respect. When one guy sitting in the third row raised his hand and said, "I'm from People magazine, so feel free to hate me," Crowe replied, "What if I just f**king ignore you?"

When another guy asked if he liked being a movie star better than being a rock star or vice versa, Crowe said, "You know, mate? I don't think about being a movie star or a rock star or any of that. If I gave up my music, my acting would be less informed. I'm just gonna play my music whether you listen to it or not. And I'm gonna make movies whether they make a lot of money like Gladiator or f**k-all like Breaking Up."

Crowe seemed to favor and vaguely flirt with older female questioners, but he wouldn't stand for poorly phrased or sloppily thought-out questions. When one guy began to ramble on, Crowe quickly jumped on him and told him to put up or shut up. When another asked a question that was nearly the same as one previously asked, Crowe noted this and refused to answer it again. I wouldn't call Crowe's microphone manner rude as much as brusque; he just won't tolerate fools or waste time.

Well and good, but then Crowe's motive was obviously to make as big a media splash as possible and raise public awareness not only about the film but the band. Why, then, didn't Crowe hold his nose and try to make a little nicer with the press? He can insult People magazine and their correspondents all he wants, but why not invite journalists to the after-party that was held at Cisero's last night, starting at around 1:45 A.M.? It was obvious when I showed up at the door looking to get in that the notion of press being admitted was a repulsive notion to Crowe and his Aussie buddies. A Miramax publicist told me at the door to Cisero's that staffers had been told by Crowe's people that press people were not particularly welcome. Another Miramax rep flat-out lied to me earlier in the day, informing me in a seemingly candid tone that no after-party would be taking place.