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SOMETHING
TO CROWE ABOUT by: Caroline Baum |
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He has a reputation for being "difficult," but award-winner Russell Crowe delivers some of the most on-the-edge, versatile acting on the Australian screen. This year, he spreads his wings and tackles comedy, horses and archaeology — not to mention flying. Sure, Russell Crowe has plenty of attitude, but he’s also capable of giving in gracefully: while it may have taken three hours to persuade him to try on a Versace tuxedo, when he eventually did, he not only admitted that it looked good, but even thought he might buy it. He Could pick it up in Rome this month in a break from shooting Red Rain, an Australian-Italian co-production co-starring Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, In The Soup). In it, Crowe, who has grown a beard for the role, plays a professor of archaeology who, having spent his life digging in the ground, suddenly has to dig deep within himself — something Crowe has never been afraid of. There is plenty of sex, and murder, too, in sharp contrast to Crowe’s latest releases, Love In Limbo and The Silver Brumby. Love in Limbo, co-starring Aden Young and set in the fifties, marks Crowe’s comedy debut: in it, he plays Arthur, a Welsh warehouse worker whom Crowe describes as a "wimp, but hilarious." As for The Silver Brumby, it’s this year’s Aussie horse movie, based on the classic by Elyne Mitchell. "People always say I play such different characters, but I’ve been a bushman before, in Hammers Over the Anvil, and I was attracted to the role in Brumby because of the similarities, although the hero’s background is very different. And, this time, I insisted on doing all my own riding, including the stunts," says Crowe, with evident satisfaction. Although he has been in the saddle since childhood, Crowe got more than he bargained for, sometimes riding twelve hours a day, often at full gallop down steep gullies; it’s a credit to his horsemanship that he only came off once. "Of course, I experienced fear, but I control it, as if I’m in combat," admits Crowe, who also endured looping the loop in a Tiger Moth for the forties romance, For The Moment. "And I’m scared of flying and of heights." The admission is not offered as an ingratiating confidence. An encounter with Crowe is like a meeting with a wild animal that’s considering whether to trust you enough to eat out of your hand, or whether to simply bite off the ends of your fingers: one minute, he seeks to entertain and charm, the next minute, he’s looking for an argument, just to flex a few mental and physical muscles. Although he may, in a moment of mellow introspection, admit to crying easily, at anything from television news to Ghost, the next minute he’s back in challenge mode: "You guys should have done a story on me way back, when I did The Crossing — I doubt I’ll ever give a better performance than I did in that film. In this country, you still have to wait for recognition from overseas before anyone pays attention. Look at Proof (in which he played Andy) and Strictly Ballroom." He is still smarting over the disappointment of not getting the role he really wanted, in The Sum of Us, a new film with Jack Thompson in which he would have played Thompson’s homosexual son. "I wanted that part so much because the script, by David Stevens, was one of the best I’ve ever read, even though it would have meant I’d have to kiss a man. After I heard Gˇrard Depardieu say that was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in a film, I thought, ‘If Gˇrard can do it, so can I’," he says. "But the film has American investors, so they want an American for the part, even though everything else about it is Australian — that makes me really mad." Crowe has no illusions about his chances on the American scene, although he’s recently joined the prestigious stable of ICM (International Creative Management) and shares the same agent as Nicholas Cage, Melanie Griffith and Denzel Washington. "I know I’m not suited to the American way of working. It’s hard enough to fit in here!’ he shrugs. But Crowe’s anger dissipates fast. He is mercurial, his mood changing faster than he can flash the devastating smile in his versatile repertoire. During the Vogue shoot, he hams it up, adopting ludicrous poses, binding himself up knots with masking tape, restlessly picking up any handy object to play with it as a prop, whether it’s a kitchen knife, an umbrella or a hair dryer. He exhausts himself with a compulsion to perform. Another disarming technique, which he freely admits to, is the bold stare: Crowe makes unnervingly direct eye contact, locking his cold grey-blue irises onto his victim and simply not letting go. It’s a trick that works equally powerfully in person as on camera. Despite the intimate gaze, he remains fiercely private: about the address where he lives alone, about his mates ("I’m sick of all that brat pack stuff about me and Aden Young") or about his current girlfriend, saying only that she too is an actor. "They’re generally easier as partners because you don’t have to explain some strange things you have to do in this profession." Such as the explicit sex scenes in Romper Stomper. On this, as on everything, Crowe has an opinion: I really resent the fact that when you’re doing a scene like that, the director will always take the female to one side and talk to her and look after her, whereas, if you’re the bloke, you’re left totally alone to cope with the situation. I also resent the notion that because you’re a male you’re trying to cop a free feel during a sex scene." Warming to the subject, he continues: "And don’t believe all that stuff about shooting those scenes on a closed set, because they’re never really closed; there’s usually a monitor in another room with the whole crew watching — that makes me furious. If I were the director in that situation, I would want them all sacked. Actors are not there to be pissed on." When Crowe gets disillusioned with his profession, he turns to his first love, music. He still writes "pathetic songs, poems and short stories", his inspiration is Billy Bragg, the British working-class troubadour, and he spends most of his money on CDs ranging from fifties rock, of which he boasts connoisseur status, to operetta, which reveals the romantic side of his personality. As does his choice of favorite films: The Princess Bride and The Purple Rose of Cairo. "These days, I don’t get to the movies. The only way I see films is to hire five or six videos at a time and watch them all in one day." Last year, Crowe spent only nine weeks in his hometown, Sydney. This year, it could be even less, as the Crowe flies. |
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