The
36-year-old Aussie first became popular on North American soil as
Bud White, the conflicted but sexy young cop in 1997's L.A. Confidential.
Last year, he returned in The Insider, but this time was
almost unrecognizable as a pudgy, middle-aged scientist with all the
sex appeal of, well, a pudgy, middle-aged scientist. The performance
earned him an Oscar nomination.
Now
comes his third big role in a "Hollywood" picture--as General
Maximus in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. Once again, Crowe looks
completely different--black hair, muscular--and his performance is
as powerful as his appearance.
From
the Outback, Russell Crowe fought his way to the top of Tinseltown's
A-list. Now, with the title role in Gladiator, he has a chance to
carve that powerful position in stone.
He
may not have won the Oscar, but in coming close, 36-yearÐold Aussie
actor Russell Crowe feels he has conquered the world, "To me,
it was an overwhelming privilege." Crowe says of the Best Actor
nomination he earned for his turn as tobacco industry whistle-blower
Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider. "I'm an Academy Award-nominated
actor now for the rest of my career, no matter what crap I do."
Thankfully there isn't
too much of that coming down Crowe's career pipeline. He is suddenly
surfing a tidal wave of popularity and being offer A-list projects
after years of toiling in Hollywood'' trenches. If L.A. Confidential
(1997) first piqued audience interest in Crowe, and The Insider
finally made his peers sit up and take notice, then this month's Gladiator
will carve in stone his reign as one of the generation's greatest
actors.
Directed
by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma&Louise) Gladiator
is sweeping character epic of Cecil B. DeMille proportions that devotes
as much attention to the gladiatorial brutality of ancient Rome as
it does its assortment of Machiavellian characters. In short, it's
an action film with brains. That's what intrigued Crowe, who says
he'd been inundated with stacks of nonsensical action scripts each
one worse than the last. But he admits that accepting Gladiator
was still a giant leap of faith.
"They
basically said to me, 'Look Russell, we don't have a script that you
would care about, but we've got a concept. Ridley Scott . . . 185
AD . . . you start the movie as a Roman General. Do you want to talk
to Ridley?" And I said ÔAbsolutely', because that really got into
my imagination and I just couldn't let it go."
When
Crowe finally did receive the script he wasn't impressed. "They
were right it wasn't very good. " He says with a laugh, firing
up the first of many cigarettes.Ê He's sitting in a suite at the Century
Plaza in L.A., dressed casually in black jeans and a black shirt.
"It was too modern, too cynical, had gags about advertising in
it. It just didn't make any sense to go to that place with such a
facile set of dialogue and scenes."
Remarkably,
all elements came together resulting in what is one of the first real
Oscar contenders of the year. But it's a chance Crowe doesn't want
to take again. "It turned out really well, so we were lucky."
He says. "But if it had turned out bad, then that would've affected
me ever taking a leap of faith again. Because you can have 5,000 blokes
charging through the forest on horseback, you can have lions and tigers,
and you can have a spectacle as big as you want, but if you don't
have a story that means anything to people then there is really very
little point to making the movie. "The fact it worked out so
well is really surprising," he adds, "because all we had was this
concept and a belief in each other's abilities to pull it off."
That
they did. The $100 million film pits Crowe, as beloved Roman General
Maximus against the conniving Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix),
who decides Maximus, must be executed in order to prevent his rightful
claim to the throne. But Maximus escapes death, in dramatic fashion,
by slaying his executioner and is then exiled into slavery, where
he quietly plots the downfall of the young emperor. Shot on location
in Malta and Morocco, director Scott even went so far as to build
part of a full scale replica of the Colosseum and a gladiator "training
area"--complete with ferocious felines.
"This
was certainly the most physically demanding film I've ever done."
Says Crowe "When I made (the hockey film) Mystery Alaska,
I didn't think I would ever find a movie where I could punish myself
any more than that, but I was wrong. I ended up cracking a bone in
my foot. I fractured my hip (they had to shoot around him for a few
days), both bicep tendons popped out. And I still don't have any feeling
in the top of this finger (he holds up the index finger of his left
hand) Ôcause it got slashed in the very first battle sequence with
a sword that was covered in dirt.'"
But
all the pain was worth it. "When I walked into the Colosseum
and there's 5,000 extras shouting ÔMax-I-Mus! Max-I-Mus! Max-I-Mus!
and chariots and lions, are all around you--it was truly the most
thrilling experience of my life. That is theatre on a grand scale.
And nothing can compare to that feeling."
Crowe
admits he is accused of being "arrogant", but it's simply
a level of confidence that is often misconstrued. "See, I'm a
very mediocre guitarist," he says, "so, I can't sit down
and jam with Eric Clapton with any level of competence. But I can
jam with any actor who walks the planet and know, with absolute confidence,
I will fulfill the needs of my character and be open enough to take
in whatever information is given at the time and expand it and keep
that damn thing real. It's as simple as that."
Crowe
is currently in Poland wrapping up production on Taylor Hackford's
Proof of Life with Meg Ryan, and then jumps immediately into
his good friend Jodie Foster's next directorial effort, Flora Plum,
where he will play a freakshow beast opposite Claire Danes. He says
he's handling this unrelenting work schedule well, "but I don't
get to spend enough time with the people that I love, or in the place
that I love much anymore. I have become the king of Frequent Flier
Miles. But I'm an actor, mate, and I've done it for a long time, and
there is a certain level of the gypsy in the job. And I guess it's
the change of perspective and the change of geography, which actually
makes my life interesting. Otherwise it would just be the same series
of cowbums in a cattleyard for me. "In order to complete the
fantasy of my life, which is to work at the highest level in the art
form that I've chosen to work in, then I've got to keep getting on
airplanes," he adds. "But look at the people I'm getting
to work with. Look at the experiences I'm having. Look at the diversity
of characters I'm getting to play. So believe me mate, I don't have
any complaints."
