March 20

March 20, 2000

By Barbara Wexler

Actor Russell Crowe is known to be so intense in nature that many of his pals thought he might clash with the equally strong willed filmmaker Michael Mann when they worked together on The Insider (Buena Vista prebook March 21 street April II).

"I got all these phone calls going 'You guys are gonna explode' recalled the New Zealand born actor But the exact opposite. When somebody's searching for the absolute right nuance at the intensity level of Michael, that's where I like to And Michael Mann, he drove me crazy. And I loved it."

In The Insider, Crowe portrays former tobacco company executive Jeffrey Wigand, who, in 1994 blew the whistle on tobacco industry malpractices. Al Pacino co-stars as Lowell Bergman, the 60 Minutes producer who eventually got the story aired on the nation's most influential expose show. Veteran Pacino and relative newcomer Crowe appear to have clicked on screen, resulting in a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Crowe.

"He's so relaxed and so comfortable with himself," said Crowe of his renowned co-star.

"The things you see between 'action' and 'cut,' that's the acting thing. Al's a really relaxed bloke. People says, 'Were you anxious about working with him? Did it worry you?' Mate, never at any time. As soon as I knew it was Al Pacino, I thorugh 'Let's get it on. Let's do the business."'

Crowe is quick to point out that his characterization of Wigand is "not an impression." "We had many, many conversations about it. [Mann's] attitude was, Listen, this is the movie Jeffrey Wigand. It's not the real Jeffrey Wigand. I don't require you to look like him, talk like him or even walk like him if you don't want to:" recalled Crowe, who was 34 when he portrayed the early-50s Wigand "The more we talked about him, the more absolute it became that I had to get as close to the guy, physically, as possible. I also felt the weight would help me with the age. And Michael was a little unsure of that. But as I allowed the body to kind of develop, he started to see what I was seeing with it.'

How did he gain the weight? "Bourbon and cheeseburgers," Crowe laughed.

Source: The Australian

March 20, 2002

What makes Russell Crowe tick? The craftsman behind the wild man of Hollywood.
By Lynden Barber

Australian Director Stephen Wallace will never forget the day 13 years ago that a scruffy 25-year-old turned up for a screen test for the role of a certain Private Talbot.

The film was Blood Oath, a drama set in Indonesia about an Australian war crimes tribunal at the end of World War II. Talbot was a tiddler of a role. So Wallace was astonished when the newcomer revealed that he had written fictional letters home, pulled out as many as 20 pieces of paper and proceeded to read them aloud -- impressing everyone not only that he had gone to the trouble of writing them but also at their quality.

Russell Crowe was too old for the part (which went to Jason Donovan). But "we all talked about it afterwards, saying: 'Wasn't it extraordinary? We've got to give him a part'," says the director. Crowe accepted another small role and Wallace watched him build up the characterisation virtually from scratch.

Since then Crowe has continued to display that extraordinary drive and he shows no signs of relaxing it. On Monday we will find out if he has won his second best-actor Oscar in successive years; having won last year for Gladiator, he is competing again for playing mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. But it matters little to Crowe's career whether he wins or loses, for the 37-year-old has established beyond any doubt that he is one of the leading male actors of his generation.

His rise to the top has been as fiery as his acting is widely admired. To understand why, it helps to see beyond the labels (arrogant, rude, thuggish, blokey and anti-social being among the more polite) to the fact that Crowe's drive is ferocious.

His disregard for social inhibitions and conventional notions of stardom are the handmaidens of a fierce refusal to compromise.

"There's a fire in him that burns all night long, all day long, all the time," says Burt Reynolds, who co-starred with him in ice hockey movie Mystery, Alaska, "and that may hurt him because people don't understand that kind of flame." In Australia, where the Kiwi-born Crowe grew up, it's not uncommon to hear members of the public opine that "he's such a good actor, if only he behaved better". The assumption that his brilliant acting and unyielding public persona are two separate beasts is mistaken. Crowe is a great actor not despite but because of his temperament at least in part. Many who have worked with him also comment on his intelligence while recognising a sensitivity beneath the macho exterior.

Wallace is not the only Australian director to have been amazed by his dedication.

David Elfick, producer-director of the comedy Love in Limbo, where Crowe's character deployed a Welsh accent, was taken aback when the actor revealed on the first day of filming that he had spent a week or two in Wales for research - at his own expense.

For the rural drama Hammers Over the Anvil, Crowe went off to live "with the mountain people" before rolling up to play a stable hand opposite Charlotte Rampling, says director Ann Turner.

Then there was Romper Stomper, where preparations for his first lead role, as a neo-Nazi skinhead leader, extended to his sleep; Crowe would leave a tape playing of crowd noise from a British soccer match to infiltrate his subconscious. Romper Stomper's writer-director, Geoffrey Wright, recalls that Crowe was "always prepared as an actor, always studying hard to find some extra detail, some extra edge he could give the inner and outer representation of his role".

"Many American actors, these days, fail to work hard and are more concerned with star treatment on set," Wright adds. "Russell makes many of the Yankee leading men look like the under-skilled and over-precious wimps they truly are." Observes Wright of Crowe's sometimes fiery demeanour, "I think it is most easily triggered by various forms of star-fuckers, con artists and pompous fakes. Russell Crowe, like many, would like to kill them all.

But you can't. They're legion." Clearly, Crowe expects the same from others that he asks of himself. It's a big ask. Speaking to The Australian, Crowe compares his attitude to his upcoming directorial debut, an adaptation of John Hepworth's World War II novel The Long Green Shore, with that of the great US director John Ford - that is, anyone who works on it must understand that "we're on an adventure together, it's going to take X amount of time, there is no room for your private life during the course of this film".

It is a typically uncompromising statement and the project symptomatic of his vaulting ambition.

Crowe admits he may fail. But he says, "I've done what I can in order to prepare myself. I have many mentors that I can call late at night when I get into a bit of bother and I've been questioning them thoroughly." As he says this, he laughs. He's referring to the top Hollywood directors who gave him his most widely admired roles - Ridley Scott (Gladiator), Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), Michael Mann (The Insider), and Curtis Hanson, whose LA Confidential gave him his US breakout role.

In the words of the Neil Young song, Crowe obviously believes it's better to burn out than to fade away. It seems the inferno will be burning for a while yet.