October 26

Source: The Northern Echo

October 26, 2006

Crowe's Nest
By Steve Pratt

Reunited with North-East born director Ridley Scott for his latest film, A Good Year, Russell Crowe talks to Steve Pratt about being grumpy old men, how fatherhood has changed his ways and buying pasties on a family visit to York.

Russell Crowe says there's very little he wouldn't do to try and impress his wife Danielle. He's certainly gone further than investment expert turned vineyard owner Max Skinner does in his new movie, A Good Year, in which he becomes a waiter to impress a girl.

"I've known my wife for a very long time. We met in 1989, got married in 2003 and I did so much stuff over that time to try and impress her, I couldn't begin to tell you. Eventually it must have just been the untold weight of effort that helped her to decide I was worthwhile," Crowe confesses. He once hired a boat to take her for a romantic meal in Sydney Harbour but the only one available sat 150 in the main salon. He had to take it because he needed a kitchen as he wanted to cook for her. "This thing arrived and I was like, 'Oh my God, because it was just massive, empty and smelt like there were definitely a lot of 21st birthday parties held on it, " he recalls. "I had all this fresh scampi and was in the kitchen, but it was almost a three minute walk to get from the galley to where she was sitting on deck. It could be a comedy in itself. She thought it was way over the top because she must have thought I intended to get a boat that size."

Crowe also goes to visit the in-laws like a dutiful husband. His wife's family come from Nether Poppleton, near York, and the couple were spotted in the city on a family visit the other week. Crowe also bought something to eat from a pasty shop in the city centre.

The couple took the chance to visit relatives during Crowe's promotional trip to the UK in support of A Good Year, which reunites him with his Gladiator director Ridley Scott. The North-East director, who has a holiday home and vineyard in the South of France, came up with the story of Max Skinner's move to Provence to sell a small vineyard he's inherited from his late uncle. Peter Mayle, author of the bestselling A Year in Provence, wrote the book that Scott's now turned into a movie.

Crowe and Scott have since made another film together, American Gangster. So why do they get along so well? Crowe points to a quote given by the film-maker in a recent magazine interview. "He said that he believes we're both marginally grumpy men, but our mood significantly lightens in each other's company," says Crowe. "It's an incredible privilege for me to be in a Ridley Scott film. He's one of the greatest film-makers ever to exist and, for some reason, he likes the way I do my part of the gig and keeps wanting me to be on a film set with him. So, if he keeps asking, I'm going to keep saying 'yes'."

A Good Year is one of four new movies to star Crowe, all of them planned to fit in with family life now that he's a father of two - Charles, nearly three, and three-month-old Tennyson. "The jobs I'm choosing don't come with a 26-30 week schedule like the films that I've done in the last few years. It may seem like I'm doing a lot more work but these new films wouldn't even add up to the weeks on the set I spent for Cinderella Man, " he says. "Every decision that I make now goes through what's right for my wife and my kids. Life is balanced out, but daddy's still got to go out and earn the milk, mate."

People shouldn't be surprised to see him in a comedy like A Good Year because, he points out, about a third of the movies he's done have been comedies. He cites the gay football-playing plumber he played in The Sum of Us and the ice-skating sheriff in Mystery, Alaska. He doesn't see the physical comedy of playing for laughs as any more difficult than dramatic scenes. "If you get it wrong, whether you're wrestling a tiger or trying to get out of a foot of cow dung, you're still going to bleed - it's the same thing," says Crowe. "The thing I've learned is that it's much more enjoyable to solve those problems with your mates, with people you really respect and regard. "There's a certain level of excitement working with someone new but just as your cuddles and kisses get deeper the longer your marriage goes on, the depth of communication with Ridley Scott increases because we know each other and there's a shorthand. "I can tell from 50 yards away if he's cranky about something, and can probably work out what I need to do about that as I'm walking towards him. I completely accept the role of sidekick or lieutenant working for Ridley because he's a great leader."

Crowe's well-known for his method acting approach to roles, and playing Max was no exception. He doesn't feel you fulfil the character if you don't do that depth of work. For A Beautiful Mind, he studied what happens in a schizophrenic's life and spent more than six months training to play a boxer in Cinderella Man. "There's a lot of stuff about Max that I already know and had already experienced. In life's big curve ball, I've met guys like him," he says. "Funnily enough, when researching other films like The Insider, when I had to go and find a bunch of corporate sharks, I met a lot of people that reminded me of Max."