March 5

Source: Sunday Mail (Glasgow, Scotland)

March 5, 2000

Something to crowe about; The Insider
By John Millar

We're cruising in L.A. and the driver knows all the lyrics blasting from the stereo.

So he should because he is the singer on the tape.

This is Russell Crowe, rock singer in action. That night driving through Beverly Hills, Russell was receiving great acclaim for his tough cop act in LA Confidential, and he was being tipped as a rising star.

Only a few of his admirers knew then that he was also a talented writer and singer of rock songs.

Now, a few years on, the 35-year-old New Zealand-born actor has plenty to sing about.

He has received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for The Insider, in which he plays Jeffrey Wigand,a scientist who turns whistleblower against the American tobacco industry. And in a few weeks time in the cinemas, he'll be seen heading an all-star cast in Ridley Scott's Ancient Roman epic, Gladiator.

He has also begun work on a big-budget thriller being shot in Britain and Poland in which he stars with Meg Ryan. Yes, Russell Crowe is making his mark as a serious player in the film business.

But, when we met, Russell was anxious to expose that side of his talents which, so far, doesn't earn him a cent - his music. He's almost as passionate about it as he is his acting. Russell sings with and writes songs for a band called Thirty Foot Of Grunts.

But any ambitions on the music front, however, will have to play second fiddle to his acting achievements.

Russell holds his own opposite Al Pacino in The Insider, for which he went through an amazing physical transformation to portray a character almost 20 years older and much heavier.

Yet when he saw the script, Russell thought he'd been sent it by mistake by director Michael Mann, the maker of cop thriller, Heat.

"I said to Michael, `I think you are making a mistake because there are plenty of great 50-year-old actors you should be talking to'."

But Mann met Russell and told the actor that this was a part he ought to play.

"He said he was talking to me because of what I had in here," says Russell, pointing to his heart. "People who think like that and want to work like that, are the sort of people I want to work with."

For the film, Russell piled on the pounds because he felt it was important to look like Jeffrey Wigand.

"Michael Mann didn't see the point of me putting on any weight. He saw a Wigand in the movie and a Wigand in real life. But to me that's like playing Napoleon at six foot seven or Hitler with long blond hair. It's just not reality," says the star.

"This is not a fictional world that has been created for a film. This is a real man, a real series of events and so you have a different level of responsibility."

Getting fat for the part was easy, but losing the flab was not.

"I went on a medically controlled diet of bourbon and cheeseburgers to put the weight on and I had a ball," Russell says, grinning.

"I thought in my naivety, six weeks to put on the weight, six weeks to take it off.

"No way. It took me five and a half months to get all the weight back off."

Understandably, Russell enjoyed working with Al Pacino, but he paints an interesting image of the Oscar-winning actor.

"Al's a funny old chap. You think he's intense, but he is a fluffball. He's relaxed and content with himself. He understands his talent and what he has achieved."

With the Academy Award nomination this is a big year for him, but Crowe is trying to take it all in his stride.

"I like to put the same amount of consideration into everything I do," he says.

Since I first met Russell Crowe at the Sydney docks when he was making a guest appearance in the Aussie TV series Police Rescue, he has moved on to the big screen scene in a hurry.

In 10 years he's appeared in more than 20 movies, ranging from award-winning performances in the Aussie dramas Proof and Romper Stomper and Hollywood movies such as The Quick And The Dead and Virtuosity.

"I realise that your moment in the sun is very short-lived and I didn't want to end up an Elvis Presley impersonator on Australia's Gold Coast," he says, referring to his work.

He also stresses that the quality of whatever project he tackles is very important.

"I'm very critical about my work. I look at it and see some positives, but I feel with everything I've done that I could do it better."

Stars with serious clout rate Russell Crowe. His friends include Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Sharon Stone, who starred with him in The Quick And The Dead. She says Crowe is "charismatic, attractive, talented but also fearless".

There's no doubt that Crowe enjoys making some mischief. After he and another friend, Jodie Foster, were spotted nuzzling and holding hands at the Golden Globes parties, he said he enjoyed creating a mini sensation.

"That was the intention," he says.

Though he works well in Hollywood, Russell has not been seduced by the would-be glamour of Tinseltown.

His blunt attitude towards a town where "they say anything that you want to hear about yourself" is summed up in a classic throwaway line...

"I'd move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up by a huge tidal wave."

His roots remain firmly Down Under. For 10 years Russell rented an apartment in Sydney. Now home is in the Aussie outback, where he has a 100-acre farm with pasture land, some cattle and horses, three dogs and five chickens.

On these wide-open spaces there is a family of platypus, some turtles in the creeks, kookaburras and plenty of kangaroos.

"I like working with animals, it's like a holiday," he says.

But Russell doesn't try to create the impression that he's a frustrated farmer.

He knew he wasn't really cut out for the job when he felt uneasy about a couple of young bulls having to be gelded.

"It wasn't to do with blood, I just thought that can't be right. These animals never reached their potential because of my actions.

"This makes me the biggest lightweight in the world, I suppose..."

Source: The Scotsman

March 5, 2001

The big easy
By John Millar

He's their biggest star but you won't find Russell Crowe power lunching in Beverly Hills. John Millar meets an actor hot enough to let Hollywood come to him.

Russell Crowe, bearded and wearing his hair long and floppy, looked - I was assured by a series of female fans - even more handsome than ever. Stylishly dressed in a dark blue suit and open-neck blue shirt, he also appeared to be rather more relaxed than youd expect for someone who was about to enter "the lion's den".

The 36-year-old New Zealand-born actor, whom one newspapers front page proclaimed as "the sexiest star in the world", was set to face the might of the British Press and deal with attempts to intrude into his private life and accusations of being a difficult actor and a marriage wrecker.

The actor, whose turn in Gladiator brought Roman epics back to the box office, was in London to walk the red carpet for the British premiere of his new film, Proof Of Life.

But before that star-studded occasion he had to deliver a home movie. So he made a detour, taking a helicopter trip from Stansted Airport, where his private jet landed from a whistle-stop European publicity tour, to the south coast of England, in order that a schoolgirls birthday should become an extra special event. She was the daughter of one of the Oscar-nominated stars oldest friends, from the days long before the world has become aware of the talents of Russell Crowe. Unfortunately, her birthday party clashed with the Proof Of Life premiere, so Crowe dropped in on his friends a day early. He also left behind the video footage, which featured his birthday greetings, so that the next day it could be played for the youngster who'd know that "Uncle" Russell hadn't forgotten about her big day.

This generosity of spirit isn't the sort of thing you normally read about in the miles of column inches that have been devoted to the Antipodean actor. But scratch the surface of Crowe, whose fathers father was from Wrexham and whose mothers family are a mixture of Scots, Maori and Norwegian, and you'll discover a more sensitive individual than you might have expected.

Evidence of the softer side of Crowe can be found in the pop songs he writes for his band, Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts. On their latest album, Bastard Life Or Clarity, he has a song called Memorial Day, dedicated to his grandfather, a Second World War veteran. "I take the music quite seriously," says Crowe, who is well aware that most folk will look upon this part of his life as the self-indulgence of a movie star. "At this point in time, there is absolutely no credibility in the fact that I am in a band. People think its a joke - until they actually hear the music.

"I like to write songs, which some people see as a really goofy thing. But a pop song for people of my generation is a totally valid creative expression. Sometimes there is no better way to put things that have happened in your life in focus than to put them in a three-and-a-half minute song."

Russell Crowe has lived a life that's full of grist for his songwriting mill, although right now, he'd probably prefer if what he's done, or alleged to have done, wasn't of such tantalising interest to the tabloid newspapers.

"I have stopped reading things," he says, in obvious reference to the media coverage that was attracted by his affair with Proof Of Life co-star Meg Ryan, which ended towards the end of last year. "Even though I like to be prepared, it gets to the point where it's so much bollocks, you let it slide."

So how does he cope with the combination of gossip and glorification that appears to go hand-in-hand with big screen success?

"These things ... you can talk about them and examine them, but I'm not really sure if they are that important," he says. "The important thing for me is that I am not driven by peoples praise and I am not slowed down by peoples criticism. I'm just trying to work at the highest level I can in a great medium for creative expression."

As far as Meg Ryan is concerned, Crowe insists that the collapse of her marriage to Dennis Quaid had nothing to do with him. He refers to the actress, whom he describes as "a beautiful and courageous woman", with great affection and dignity. "I grieve the loss of her companionship but I have not lost her friendship," he says. "We talk all the time and that was what our connection was about. She has a wonderful mind."

As Crowes profile gets higher, the actor finds himself compared with a host of famous figures, ranging from Richard Burton and Marlon Brando to Steve McQueen. One-time hell-raisers like Richard Harris and Sir Anthony Hopkins, with whom he has worked, recognise him as a soul mate. So does Crowe reckon he comes from that same sort of mould?

"I don't know about moulds, mate," he laughs. "I found Richard to be a fascinating individual and a great bloke to sit down and have a chat with. Playing a scene with him was absolutely magnificent. He is a very wise man and has covered a lot of things in his career; damaged himself a lot and then repaired himself. Richard has such a lionheart.

"When I get the opportunity to meet someone who has such a great career and has experienced so many things and yet is still such a totally balanced individual who hasn't changed, it gives me inspiration. You can do this job for your lifetime, the insanities may come and go, but its all in waves and, at the end of the day, you can still be yourself."

When I mention that Hopkins has said that Crowe reminded him of his younger self, he chuckles. "When I first heard that, I took it as a compliment. I thought that was great. Then somebody put forward that I might actually be reminding him of his younger self when he was an alcoholic. Maybe he meant it as a warning to me."

Today he commands headlines across the world. His performance in Gladiator, as Maximus, the Roman general-turned-gladiator out for revenge on a murderous Emperor, has made him a favourite for next month's Best Actor Academy Award. Yet just a few years ago, as far as mainstream movie audiences were concerned, he was Russell Who?

The more astute cinemagoers might have been aware of his riveting, award-winning performance as a Nazi skinhead in the Australian film, Romper Stomper. Crowes elevation to greater things was delayed, however, as movies such as The Quick and the Dead, in which he and Sharon Stone were gunslingers, and Virtuosity, which had him cast as a computerised serial killer being pursued by Denzel Washington, misfired. But even when things weren't going so well, Stone knew that her co-star had the right stuff. She described Crowe as "charismatic, attractive and talented but also fearless".

It wasnt until he hit a rich seam of roles - as Bud White, the no-nonsense cop in LA Confidential, whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider, which earned him his first Oscar nod, and the box office blockbuster Gladiator - that Crowe was to move into Hollywood's premier league. Now he's at the peak of his powers, but is Russell Crowe still the same person? "Yeah," he answers, without a moment's hesitation. "I don't think that fundamentally I've changed at all. I'm still the same asshole I was 20 years ago." That self-deprecating bit of humour is typical, but not quite accurate.

For starters, he has learned diplomacy. Once upon a time, any inquiry about whether Crowe, whose home is a farm outside Sydney, might ever settle in Hollywood would have produced this response: "Id move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in Europe, and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack."

When we meet this time round, though, his reaction to a similar question is much more circumspect. "America is a really big country and there are lots of beautiful places there. I have a lot of good friends in LA and I have been going in and out of that town for 10 years. I am very comfortable there, but living there is a different thing. However, never say never. I try to remain open to see what life brings along."

One impression of Crowe that remains constant is that, when it comes to film-making, he is single-minded. Taylor Hackford, the director of Proof Of Life, calls him thorny, difficult and questioning.

Certainly, if Crowe disagrees with something, he'll make his point forcefully. An example occurred during the making of Gladiator when the producers wanted a love scene between Maximus and Lucilla, the Emperors sister. "That would have been ridiculous," he says. "Maximus is avenging the death of his wife and for him to suddenly have nookie with the Emperors sister would go against the honour and structure of the character. Ridley Scott (the director) and I had quite a battle to get the producers to see that we shouldn't do that. We won.

"If I am going to play the character, I like to know that I am going to give it as much as I can. I don't see that as being difficult.

Directors like Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential), Ridley Scott and Michael Mann (The Insider) don't see it that way either. They see that as a help." During the filming in Ecuador of Proof Of Life, in which he plays a hostage negotiator who falls in love with Meg Ryan while trying to gain her husband's freedom, Crowe went his own way. The jungle location was about an hour and a half away from Quito and the actor did not fancy a three-hour round trip being bounced about on some dodgy roads. "Ecuador's roads are not the best in the world, particularly when you get out of the city centre. You have pot holes, seven or eight earthquakes a day, which means that there are a lot of landslides. So I started living in the jungle," he says, as though it was the most natural thing. "I lived in my trailer, made a barbecue out of an oil can, stole food off the caterer and waved as everybody drove out at the end of the day and greeted them in the morning. The locals said, Are you crazy? There are wild cats and stuff in the jungle. But frankly Ill take the wild cats over Ecuador's drivers any day of the week."

Out in the jungle any spare time was spent reading scripts. He says he's continually looking for things that are exciting to do, scripts that will give him the goose-bumps, which Crowe regards as a sign that it is a film for him.

"I don't read books so much any more because I'm reading hundreds of script pages every week," he says. "That kind of bothers me a little bit. But you have got to read everything that comes along because it's not the scripts that are really pushed at you that surprise you."

His next movie will be with Ron Howard, the director of The Grinch. Called The Beautiful Mind, it features Russell as a schizophrenic mathematician.

"That'll be interesting," said Crowe. "To prepare, I'm doing what I normally do, which is read a lot. Then I'll find out what the questions are that I've got to ask.

"The mathematics, at the moment, are so far beyond my understanding. It's about instinctively being able to find an answer to a very complicated question and then prove how you got to the answer. Thankfully its only a movie because I was hopeless at maths when I was at school." He may not have been the best student, but Russell Crowe would probably be every school girl's ideal maths teacher

Source: Bulletin Wire

March 05, 2007

Russell Crowe helps Bra Boys launch doco.
Byline: Erin McWhirter

Oscar winner Russell Crowe vigorously pursued notorious Sydney gang member Koby Abberton with the prospect of filming a movie based on the professional surfer's life.

It was November 2005 and as Crowe watched Abberton talk to ABC's Australian Story about life growing up surrounded by violence, poverty and drugs in the Sydney beach suburb of Maroubra, he saw a potential film script brewing.

"He kept calling saying it was Russell Crowe and I thought it was one of the boys playing a joke so I would hang up," the 27-year-old surfer told AAP in Sydney.

"There were emails too but I kept ignoring them, until a mate of mine who plays footy for South Sydney told me Russell had been trying to ring me but I kept hanging up on him. I couldn't believe it.

"He believed in my story ... he realised there was more to tell."

Unknown to Crowe, Abberton's older brother Sunny, 37, was in the process of writing a documentary-style film of their troubled life.

On March 15 Sunny will make his writing, directorial and producing debut with the release of Bra Boys, a film about the cultural evolution of Maroubra and the social struggle of its youth, including the tattooed and much-maligned gang known as the Bra Boys.

Crowe narrates the 90-minute film featuring Koby and Sunny Abberton.

"If Russell didn't believe in the film he wasn't going to do it," Koby said.

"He believes in the struggle and he knew it was a story worth telling."

The brothers agree having the Hollywood star's name linked to the project generates greater interest and they hope to market the film overseas.

"Oh, definitely it adds weight," Koby said.

"He is an Oscar winner and one of the best actors in the world, people will listen.

"Hopefully it does well here (the film) and we can tour it through Europe," added Sunny. Sunny Abberton is already working on a feature adaptation of the documentary, which also stars middle sibling Jai, who was acquitted of murdering Sydney underworld figure Anthony Hines in early 2005.

The case made national headlines and the family gained more attention when Koby Abberton was charged with hindering police investigations.

Last year Koby was convicted of lying to police, but escaped doing time in prison. Archival footage follows the brothers from 2003, documenting their thoughts throughout the case.

"It was showing the reality of what our lives are like," Koby said.

"We grew up in a very violent home life and violent area, with drugs and crime around, we aren't hiding that ... that time in our life (the court case) was tough, but me and my brothers we stick together.

"There were a lot of misconceptions about us and now we can show our story in a real and honest light," added Sunny.