March 26
Source: The New York Times
March 26, 1995
Straight Out of Australia, to L.A.
By Jamie Diamond
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
Russell Crowe is wearing dark glasses, a day's growth of beard, jeans, a work shirt and black biker boots. This is not surprising for an Australian-bred actor who has been described as having the animal magnetism of the young Marlon Brando. What is surprising are his fingernails. They are pristine, manicured, covered in clear nail polish -- and just right for a new role (opposite Denzel Washington) as a computer-generated outlaw in "Virtuosity," which is currently in production. "When you're cyber-realized," Mr. Crowe says reasonably, "you have perfect fingernails."
With or without lacquered nails, the 30-year-old actor can presently be seen as a repentant gunfighter in "The Quick and the Dead," which stars Sharon Stone, and in "The Sum of Us," which opened earlier this month.
In "The Sum of Us," based on the play by David Stevens, Mr. Crowe plays Jeff, a lovesick homosexual who lives with his widowed father, portrayed by the Australian actor Jack Thompson. Jeff's father supports his son's sexuality but intrudes on his privacy.
Mr. Crowe has been praised for his performance in the film -- "Move over, Mel Gibson," wrote Randy Gener in The Village Voice -- but he says the producers initially wanted a big-name American actor. So he waged a campaign to secure the role.
"I had to position myself politically very solidly within the Australian film industry," Mr. Crowe says, "until the producer was in a position where he couldn't hire anyone else." He gives a knowing smile. "They had to use me."
On this afternoon, in a shadowy corner of a restaurant near the University of California, Los Angeles, the actor smokes filtered Gauloises and drinks Red Stripe beer. Even though his eyes are hidden behind his dark glasses, he looks away when he speaks, and he appears jumpy.
It was while his parents were working as caterers for an Australian television series that he discovered the magic -- or lack thereof -- in acting. "I loved going to the sets and opening doors and seeing if there was anything behind them," he says. "It took the fear out. All acting was, was putting on a costume and playing."
When Mr. Crowe was 6, he won his first television role, as one in a group of orphans rescued from death by a character who happened to be played by Mr. Thompson, his co-star in "The Sum of Us." For two decades, Mr. Crowe pursued acting. "I wanted the leading role, but they never let me have it," he says.
His parents went from catering to managing hotels. "Because of our association with hotels and film" -- one of his grandfathers was a cinematographer of documentary war films -- "we've always been associated to a certain degree with performers," Mr. Crowe says, addressing a curl of smoke in front of his face. "A hotel is like working behind the scenes as a caterer: you get to see the best and the worst of people. In the morning all the glamour is gone, and it just smells of stale beer."
Before 1990 Mr. Crowe was an actor with some stage work and no movies to his credit, working as Rus Le Roc in a rock band in Sydney between stints as a waiter, bartender and bingo-number caller. He has an odd way of accounting for his sudden acceptance by the Australian film world. "I got my tooth kicked out in a football game when I was 10," he says. "I was 25 when I got it replaced, and that's when I started getting work. It's pathetic to find out how much people are tuned in to the visual thing."
It was then that he got a small part in the film "Prisoners of the Sun" (1990). He couldn't have guessed that in five years he'd be working on big-budget Hollywood films playing opposite major American stars.
Yet Mr. Crowe has an unusual ability: he can play both good guys and bad guys with equal conviction. Portraying a Nazi skinhead in the 1993 film "Romper Stomper," he underscored the character's brutality with a show of tenderness. As a gullible dishwasher in "Proof" (1992), he was the pawn to a bitter blind man. He won the award for best supporting actor from the Australian Film Institute for his work in "Proof" and was voted best actor by the institute for his performance in "Romper Stomper."
Next he will appear as an ex-marine turned journalist in "Rough Magic," a romantic comedy with Bridget Fonda due later this year.
But although he can play both Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart, he's mostly known for his villains, such as the cyber-outlaw he is portraying in "Virtuosity." "When I grew up, I was put in scary situations," Mr. Crowe says. "At 14 I worked security during university pub crawls. When people drink, they go to a lot of weird places emotionally. I've been in a room where 50 people are punching each other because they're drunk. I was basically a kid faced with adult fury. This is tattooed in my brain."
Getting the part in "The Quick and the Dead" seemed almost a miracle, since his two big Australian films played only briefly in Los Angeles. But the producer Josh Donen introduced Mr. Crowe to Sam Raimi, who would eventually direct "The Quick and the Dead." "I needed a catalyst, a Sharon Stone or a Sam Raimi, to pull for me," Mr. Crowe says. "Sharon made a stand."
After Mr. Crowe auditioned for a different role in the film, Ms. Stone asked that the actor try for the lead. She says: "When I saw 'Romper Stomper,' I thought Russell was not only charismatic, attractive and talented but also fearless. And I find fearlessness very attractive. I was convinced I wouldn't scare him."
Mr. Raimi says: "Russell is bold and likes to challenge people. He reminds me of what we imagine the American cowboy to have been like." And so Mr. Crowe made his American debut as Cort, a gunfighter who is manacled through much of the movie.
"What struck me when I met Russell for the first time," remembers Mr. Donen, "was that he had this implication of power and threat."
Mr. Raimi adds: "Russell's not dangerous physically. He's dangerous because he's always thinking."
Source: Variety
March 26, 2001
Oscar Spreads the Wealth, but 'Gladiator' Takes Top Prize; Julia Roberts Is Named Best Actress, And Russell Crowe Is Chosen Best Actor
Hollywood - The movie industry has finally learned to share, though the tiger's portion went to ''Gladiator.''
The 73rd Annual Academy Awards had been expected to include more than the usual number of upsets and surprises -- and there were some this evening at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, including the briskness of the show in comparison with those of recent years -- but the dominant feature of the ceremony was the way the 5,700 members of the academy seemed eager to spread their largess among the top films.
''Gladiator,'' the director Ridley Scott's sword-and-scandal epic, edged out its close competition here tonight, winning five Oscars, including best picture and the awards for special effects, sound and costume design. Russell Crowe won the award for best actor for his portrayal of Maximus, a general turned slave then gladiator.
Steven Soderbergh was named best director for his multitextured drug epic ''Traffic,'' one of four awards for the film. Mr. Soderbergh had two chances to win -- he was nominated for ''Erin Brockovich'' in addition to ''Traffic'' -- and many had thought voters supporting him would split between the two.
As widely expected, Julia Roberts won the Oscar for best actress for her role in ''Erin Brockovich,'' playing the spunky legal secretary of the title who took on a polluting utility. ''I love it up here!'' Ms. Roberts said from the stage, lofting her new Oscar over her head and flashing her Panavision smile. ''I love the world! I'm so happy!''
And Ang Lee's martial-arts fantasy, ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,'' won four awards: for best foreign language film as well as for Peter Pau's cinematography, Tan Dun's musical score and Tim Yip's art direction.
Benicio Del Toro, one of the favorites for best supporting actor for his role as a Mexican police officer in ''Traffic,'' won that award. Stephen Mirrione won for his editing of the film, and Stephen Gaghan for best adapted screenplay.
The biggest surprise in the early proceedings came when Marcia Gay Harden's name came out of the envelope for best supporting actress for her role as artist Lee Krasner in ''Pollock,'' beating out such favorites as Kate Hudson in ''Almost Famous'' and Dame Judi Dench in ''Chocolat.''
Ms. Harden exploded from her seat, her face a mask of delight and astonishment, to embraced her co-star and director, Ed Harris. ''When they said my name, I just began emoting in a big way,'' she said.
Another surprise was the writer and director Cameron Crowe's winning the award for original screenplay for ''Almost Famous.'' a semi-autobiographical look at his experiences as a teenage rock journalist in the early 1970's. The writer and director Kenneth Lonergan had been widely expected to take home the award for ''You Can Count on Me.''
Russell Crowe dedicated his Oscar to those who, like himself, had grown up in the working-class suburb of a big city and dreamed of someday winning such an award. ''To anybody who's on the downside of advantage,'' he said, ''it's possible.''
Winners of This Year's Academy Awards:
PICTURE
''Gladiator''
ACTOR
Russell Crowe, ''Gladiator''
COSTUMES
''Gladiator''
VISUAL EFFECTS
''Gladiator''
Source: People
March 26, 2001
Under Guard
By Jill Smolowe
Aussie Tough Guy Russell Crowe Publicly Makes Light of a Kidnap Threat, but the FBI Believes It's No Joke
With the post-Golden Globes party in full swing at Trader Vic's in Beverly Hills on the night of Jan. 21, FOX television producer Bill Cipolla slipped away to use the men's room. "I was stopped in the hallway by an army of guys in tuxedos, and I thought they were simply waiting in line to use the bathroom," he says. "So, we're standing making small talk and waiting and waiting and waiting, until finally Russell Crowe emerges from the bathroom and all these guys fall in around him." In all, Cipolla recalls, six, perhaps eight, tuxedoed escorts attended the Aussie superstar. At the time, says Cipolla, who has covered his share of Hollywood award events, "I thought, 'That's a long way to go for a star to use the bathroom.' "
Now it all makes sense. On March 6 the FBI confirmed reports that the Oscar-nominated Gladiator star was the target of an abduction threat. The feds subsequently declined to comment on a British press report of "gangsters" bent on extorting millions of dollars in ransom. Instead FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley said simply, "We have to investigate until we reach a conclusion. I couldn't tell you what the outcome will be, but it's continuing." As for those undercover guys outside the men's room, an FBI source says, "It's common knowledge that the FBI was at the Golden Globe Awards."
With no evidence yet made public of either a threat or a plot, skeptics are having a field day. After all, Crowe, 36, is the same star whose highly publicized affair with Meg Ryan, 39, costar of his latest film, Proof of Life, ended last December, around the same time the film tanked in the U.S. Now, just when Proof is hitting screens in Europe and Australia, comes word of the mysterious threat-a plot twist seemingly straight out of Proof of Life, in which Crowe plays a hostage negotiator working in South America. "Call me a cynic, but the timing is extraordinary," says a top British security source.
Usually tight-lipped, the FBI is taking pains to put out the word that the Crowe threat was no prank. "This is not a publicity stunt," says Bosley. "We wouldn't expend the resources unless we believed there was a credible threat."
Concern for the peripatetic Crowe, who treats international air routes like the fast lanes on one giant interstate, seems justified given the explosion of kidnappings outside the U.S. over the last decade, particularly in Latin America. "We reckon there were something between 12,000 and 15,000 reported kidnappings worldwide last year, which might only be 10 percent of the total figure," says Gerald Moore, managing director of Inkerman, one of Britain's top kidnap-prevention organizations. "It's an industry." Ann Hagedorn Auerbach, author of the 1998 book Ransom: The Untold Story of International Kidnapping, says that over the last 15 years kidnapping for ransom "has become a big business, a well-known way to make money. The kidnappers' perception is that the higher the profile of the individual, the deeper the pockets."
It would be hard to find a man with a higher profile than Russell Ira Crowe, who stands a decent chance of walking away on March 25 with the Oscar for Best Actor, thanks to his stoic, smoldering performance in Gladiator. "He is in a league with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino - definitely a heavyweight," says Michael Mann, director of The Insider, for which Crowe won his first Oscar nomination last year. Later this month Crowe will begin shooting Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, in which he plays Nobel-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr.-just the sort of professional stretch on which the actor seems to thrive.
Publicly he jokes about the kidnapping threat. At the Oscar nominees' luncheon in L.A. on March 12 he joked about what it might be like for kidnappers trapped in a small room with him. "They'd be on the phone going, 'Look! We've passed the hat around, and we've got a couple hundred bucks if you can take him off our hands!' " The blithe tone suits Crowe's reputation as an Aussie bloke who's as tough as the Outback is dry. Despite his A-list credentials in Hollywood, Crowe regards a stuntman as a wimpy accessory (that's the man himself hanging out of a helicopter in Proof of Life), treats rugby as a religion (he had jerseys flown in for a match on the Maltese set of Gladiator) and has a history of bar fights in which biting is considered an option.
At the same luncheon Crowe told reporters that when the FBI first approached him in January, "I was probably taking the situation a lot less seriously than they did." Since then, friends say, Crowe has wised up. "It's pretty serious when anyone's personal life gets stepped on like that," says his Gladiator costar Djimon Hounsou. "He's being careful."
Cooperating with authorities is a departure for the headstrong Crowe. A high school dropout who, by his own admission, was "an embarrassment" to his parents, caterers Alex and Jocelyn Crowe, he has been known to stomp off sets when he doesn't get his way. His willingness to work with the G-men may owe something to his experience working on Proof of Life. Shortly before the film's U.S. premiere, Crowe said at a press briefing that when he first received the script he knew little about kidnapping. Then he launched into an informed discourse about the "K and R business"-professional security lingo for kidnap and ransom-peppered with information he had learned from K and R specialists while shooting the film. As for kidnappers, Crowe said, "I don't think I can sympathize with this particular way of getting your point across."
If Crowe is an unwitting victim, he is not an improbable one. Though U.S. kidnappings are on the decline (in contrast to the global trend), celebrities remain an obvious target. "It's not unusual to have a threat like that, especially when you're dealing with high-profile people," says the FBI's Bosley. "It's not unusual, especially in Los Angeles, where most of them live or at least visit." Author Auerbach says she was not surprised by the threat against Crowe. When she was researching her book, she says she was warned that she could become a target of kidnappers wanting to make a name for themselves by abducting a journalist investigating their activity. "So," she says, "when [Crowe's] movie came out, I thought, 'He's getting a lot more publicity and attention for that movie than I got. Oh my God, this guy is a target!' "
Last week a discreet but tight cordon of security personnel attended Crowe as he maintained a busy schedule of pre-Oscar appearances. On March 9, following two special screenings of Gladiator in L.A., at least two security guards kept close watch on him as he fielded giggly questions from a largely female audience. Two nights later Crowe was surrounded by guards as he chatted with Kate Winslet and Joaquin Phoenix at the party following the Screen Actors Guild Awards (where Crowe lost to Traffic's Benicio Del Toro in the Best Actor category).
Since early January Crowe has maintained tight security while jetting between three continents to promote Proof and to attend awards events honoring Gladiator. In London he reserved two additional rooms at the Athenaeum Hotel to accommodate his minders. "It was the first time he's ever had bodyguards," says a hotel source. "He's just not that sort of person." In the end Crowe chose instead to stay at the Dorchester, where all the press meetings took place. (The hotel declines to say if he had his security entourage in tow.) "High-profile people need to take measures, and the most effective one is unpredictability," notes Andreas Carleton-Smith, a vice president for Control Risks Group, an international firm that specializes in corporate investigations, security and kidnap situations.
While the FBI has acknowledged only one instance of attending Crowe in public, it is unclear how often his retinue has included federal agents. "We don't do protection, like the Secret Service," says Matthew McLaughlin, the FBI spokesman in L.A. "For celebrities we do investigative work, and sometimes that requires us to go undercover." On this point Scotland Yard is even less forthcoming. "We don't discuss matters of personal protection," says Angie Evans of the Yard's specialist operations unit. "We do not discuss security issues, ever."
The FBI, it appears, only wishes that were so. Last month, around the time that Crowe was promoting Proof in London, the FBI apprised Scotland Yard of its investigation. Lucy Panton, the crime reporter at Britain's Sunday People who broke the kidnapping story, says Crowe was then interviewed at length by a female officer in the Yard's Criminal Intelligence Branch. ("The joke in their office afterwards was 'God, if it's taken that long, she obviously fancies him,' " says Panton.) Subsequently, Panton says, she got her "tip-off from someone who knew the officer who did the interview." The FBI's Bosley says she does not know the source of the leak, but says that "in light of the fact that this was already disclosed from another source, we did go ahead and confirm it."
Greg Boles, director of global-threat management for New York-based Kroll Associates, one of the world's largest private investigative firms, sees cause to worry when such incidents are revealed. "It could have a contagious effect," he warns. "Other people could get the idea and attempt a similar plot on someone else."
But then, what exactly is the plot? The FBI isn't saying what the threat was, who made it, when it was made or why Crowe was the target. It will not reveal whether it believes the threat was made by a hotheaded novice or a seasoned professional. "No arrest is imminent," says a security expert acquainted with the investigation.
While some security experts believe the recent publicity has made an attempted abduction of Crowe less likely, that doesn't mean that whoever made the threat has packed up and gone away. "If, in fact, the announcement has thwarted this kidnapping," says Patrick Mullany, former administrative agent in charge of the FBI office in L.A., "our thinking is always that, if it is a credible plot, the suspects will just switch targets."
Source: Gruntland.com
March 26, 2005
Mid Life Thesis by R.Crowe.
Dear Music Lovers,
Well you will be pleased to know it looks like I will release an album soon that doesn't have "What's Her Name?" on it.
What you possibly won't be pleased about, nor understand fully until you hear this record, is that tofog would seem to have dissolved/evolved.
while that holds certain disappointments, they pale in comparison to the joy of writing unrestricted, of talking from my heart and mind simultaneously about things that are important to me now, right now, in this time of my life, not when I was younger or dare I say it less world weary/wary, but now, as a 41 year old father/husband/lover/man.
The band on this record is Dave Kelly, Stewart Kirwan, Pb Berton, Bones Hillman (bass) and Stuart Hunter (piano).it was produced by Alan Doyle and is being mixed by Nathaniel Kunkel. At this point in time, we are calling the record "My Hand, My Heart", as in what I have written comes from there. Ray thinks it's too soft, but he hasn't heard the whole record yet, and quite frankly it is soft, gentle, expressive, thoughtful...soft.
the album touches on varying subjects, my beautiful wife, past relationships, my son, people I know, family tragedy, immigrant cane cutters, vilification, a choral requiem for a dead friend, my contribution to the genre of drinking songs(the title track, My Hand, My Heart), optimism, and perspective. It is without doubt the most satisfying record I've ever made, and I know when you hear it you will be seduced by its beauty.
On April 19th Raewyn, the song mentioned in the GQ article, will be released as an I-tunes single. We will begin to pursue a traditional release when we see how that goes and hear your reaction to the song.
Our relationship with Artemis has not been a successful one. We need to find a champion in a company with wide distribution to simply make the record available, an individual or group of people who are as much in love with the music as I am.
If we don't feel a real connection is possible, we will go back to mail order, which I'm also happy with. Bruno less so, because he has to lick the stamps.
The I-tunes release is an important first step to finding a home for this record .please be cool about giving up your two bucks and not file sharing. We'll take a straw poll on making the lyrics available prior to hearing the song, or simultaneously, let Bruno know your feelings.
I've chosen to release this song first because it is the first song Alan Doyle and I wrote together and it is the only song I've ever written that has made both men and women cry, think, and call their parents, usually in that order. I have e-mails from Sting and Billy Bragg, two of my song writing heroes that give testament to the quiet power of the song.
We will post those closer to the date of release, and when you read them I believe you will understand what a breathtaking validation they felt like to me.
This record is fresh, revelatory and graceful.
I know over time there have been a lot of fans who don't seem to understand that fitting the music in and around my day job is very tricky, and sometimes the expectation of formalized corporate structure for my music is just unreasonable.
For me, music is its' own reward .anyone else's enjoyment of it is purely an extension of the experience I've already had as a writer. I'm not out to foist my music on anyone, but I would like a clean and simple way for you guys to get it easy. Maybe that is I-tunes?
I've taken the opportunity that the postponement of eucalyptus gave me and I've poured my heart into songs instead. Alan Doyle is the first magical music collaboration I have experienced, the type of synergy that I experience all the time with other actors or directors or screen writers like Akiva Goldsman has always eluded me in music, with only snatches of time spent in the white light of veracity in creation. Writing painted veil comes to mind.
There are 5 crowe/doyle songs on this record, 5 examples of seamless, resonant, common ground collaboration. One of Alan's songs that tofog murdered regularly, is here in it's true to lyric state. Slaid Cleaves, a young genius from Maine , who I first heard in Austin Texas, contributes a song as does legendary Canadian song smith Paul Hyde. The title track was composed and recorded in the wee hours of the morning as songs of that genre should be by Stuart Hunter and myself. There is one self penned, a choral piece, written originally on a beer coaster in Dublin .
I'm typing and yawning, studio hours don't really suit me. I like waking before the dawn, not going to bed after it. Yeah, call me a fuddy duddy, I don't care. You may have noticed I've been called worse.
There is no real master plan for world domination, if you guys like the record we will do our best to tour in the summer. It's been too long I'm missing your crazy, obsessed faces. And here's another thing, I hope I get to hear you singing along to this stuff. We have the best sounding audience around. I am in negotiations with Dani and Charlie. By the way Dani is in the studio as we speak, I think they were doing bass tracks today.
Wow, just thinking of a summers night in Austin, a whole new world of music to play you, all these new stories to tell, the glisten of your laughter, your voices rising to meet the Texas moon, sweat pouring off my fingers...well, we will see huh? Let Bruno know if you want us to tour to your town.
RC
