Either way, you're compelled to watch.

That's why he's the new toast of the Australian cinema, the first real movie star from Down Under since Mel. Crowe is imminently watchable, but it's not always like watching the same person. He plays American in his new and biggest film, Virtuosity a cyber-thriller with Denzel Washington as the hero. And if that weren't schizy enough, Crowe's digital villain Sid has 183 twisted personalities.

Crowe has a few himself. And like the guys he's played in his native country the brutal skinhead in Romper Stomper, the kindhearted gay son in The Sum of Us, the nice guy in Proof, and in America -- the gun-fighting priest in The Quick and the Dead -- some of them are darker than midnight in the Outback. Extremes are his turf, the only place he feels remotely comfortable. And it's the going back and forth between the two at a very high velocity that really gets him off.

Maybe that's why the 31-year-old actor, originally from New Zealand, actually likes the 13-hour commute from Sydney to L.A. that seems to kill everyone else. "I've been doing it for three years," he says in his house in Los Angeles, where he's come to take meetings on some new projects. "And it's not really that bad. You have to set your mind for travel. I work for the first few hours, watch one or two movies, sleep the other five hours and, badda boom badda be, you wake up in Australia. Once you know what each place is, you're all right. Anyway, you have to adapt. Sydney's three-and-a-half million people; L.A. is 12 million. But you can get used to anything -- and that's my job. You can't be faint-hearted. If you're doing a swimming scene and it's five degrees that day -- it's bad luck, you have to do it. I've grown to enjoy this aspect: I need to pretend there's depth in what I do for a living."

Crowe's alterable states are really in evidence at the photo shoot to accompany this article. He insists on picking out all his own clothes without the aid of the stylist, then hates all the outfits. In the end, he picks only the most garish clothes he can find. He won't speak to any of the crew, but blows cigarette smoke in their faces, including his hairdresser while she's combing him out. When told he can do whatever he wants before the cameras, he replies, "Then I'd be sleeping right now."

He downright yells -- loudly -- at the photographer when the man tells him he can't break down the camera to follow Crowe around the room at a clipped pace. "When are we going to do what I want?" the actor moans. Crowe then demands masking tape to bind his wrists, and goes into a Stanislavskian rage before the camera, hurling obscenities and breaking the tape. Later, he demands his mouth be taped "now!" He calls one female stylist over to the side and offers to show her "the hand of God." It turns out to be a small pistol with a cross embossed on it which he brandishes with bravado, ignoring the question of its being loaded.

All in all, it's the scariest shoot anybody can remember. But when he leaves, he shyly thanks everyone and slinks out.

"I'm not a model," he explains later of his bizarre behavior. "They're just good-looking. I don't like sitting there as Russell Crowe and smiling. I want to have fun and keep moving. I figure, if I keep moving, no one will notice."

Notice what?

"I've lived with this head for a long time," he says. "It's just the way it is."

Well, Russell Crowe may not embrace the way he looks, but luckily he's not the final authority. So he's not chiseled, groomed or particularly sinewy: he oozes that tough, wild, macho-with-wit persona that male Australian movie stars get famous for: Bryan Brown (his hero), Mel Gibson, Sam Neill.

"They're harder on you down there," Crowe says. "You get a bit well-known, and then you have to go through a 'threshing machine.' They call it the Tall Poppy Syndrome at home -- Australians like to put eachother down. You're constantly having to figure out who your mates are. Mates are really important there. You don't rely on your mates the way people rely on each other here -- that's why they're your mates. You only rely on your family. In America, people make requirements of each other. In Australia, there are no requirements. And in America, people are so abstinent. I went to dinner with Bruce and Demi; there was no alcohol, no cigarettes. It really is the most puritan of progressive societies. There's what's done -- and what's said to be done. Even the Germans know how to have a good time, tell a few stories and have a few drinks."