Face of the Future: Actor RUSSELL CROWE
By Cindy Pearlman
Cinescape (January/February 2000)
Russell Crowe, the Australian actor who plays tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand in the Insider, lovingly touches his pack of Benson & Hedges and strikes a match. "After The Insider, I know the exact chemical compounds in a commercial cigarette, but I've been smoking since I was 10," he says, inhaling deeply. "I know it's terrible, but I am a great fan of irony."
Thanks to the Insider, Crowe's career is also -- if you'll pardon the expression -- smokin', as the handsome 35-year-old generates Oscar buzz for his transformation into the paunchy, graying Wigand. Meanwhile Crowe's next metamorphosis may transform him into an action hero: He'll star as a courageous Roman Warrior in Ridley Scott's costume epic Gladiator. While the virile actor enjoyed the role's physicality (Crowe spends his free time tending cattle on his ranch in the Aussie outback), he admits that playing a gladiator isn't easy. "You're dealing with going from one 10-day fight sequence to immediately rehearsing for the next 10-day fight sequence," he says. "In between, I'm wrestling with a tiger."
Crowe grew up on film sets in New Zealand and Australia, where his parents ran a movie catering business. After establishing his career Down Under, Crowe played a dusty gunslinger in the Quick and the Dead and a serial killer in Virtuosity. His Hollywood breakthrough, however, was his acclaimed turn as police officer Bud White in L.A. Confidential. But as Crowe drew rave notices, he also earned the dubious label of being "difficult to work with." He shakes those accusations off with the flicker of his cigarette.
"I love searching for the absolute right nuance in my work," he says. "And I don't equate being intense with being difficult"
Crowe the Chameleon
FOR Russell Crowe, it's the toughest role he has to play. An actor with a strong reputation for having an uncompromising approach to his craft, he still can't play the Hollywood celebrity. And he wears that inability like a badge of honour. He wouldn't have lost any sleep over it.
So, Crowe – cheery and enjoying celebrity company – soaked up the vibe at the Golden Globes, but all with an air that said he was happier in an acting role, or on his farm back in Australia.
"He isn't ungrateful about his career," says a producer on a recent Crowe film, Mystery Alaska. "He just feels uncomfortable about hype. That's a very Australian quality." Even at the Los Angeles premiere for The Insider a reluctant Crowe was ushered across the red carpet to a starstruck television reporter. "Doesn't this feel great?" she enthused with gushy Entertainment Tonight flair. "Right now," Crowe said flatly, looking her in the eye, "I would rather be anywhere else but here."
There is, however, a flipside. When his band, 30-Odd Foot Of Grunts, played at Johnny Depp's Viper Room last year, Crowe played a rock star to the hilt, revelling in banter between songs, then rocking out.
"He is not driven by reviews or awards," says Al Pacino, Crowe's co-star in The Insider. "He is driven by the work, and that makes him a rare talent."
That talent has given Crowe a chameleon quality. For his latest face, 53-year-old whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, Crowe, 35, had to weigh about 100kg and shave off all his hair – a far cry from today's well-toned figure with a full head of brown locks.
It wasn't a good look, the two-time AFI award winner admitted. "I was at 220 pounds and bald as a badger for four months, which made socialising next to impossible, folks. I was a lonely guy; not a good look at all." In The Insider, Crowe plays Wigand, who has a PhD in biochemistry and endocrinology who accepts a job with a tobacco company under the guise of making a safer product.
What unfolds will forever be etched in history as Wigand blows the whistle on the conduct and practices of the industry. He uncovers secret scientific data proving tobacco's addictive qualities and the industry's knowledge of the health hazards posed by smoking.
It recreates the first time television network CBS pulled a story off air and the first time the integrity of its 60 Minutes program was questioned.
It's also the first time New Zealand-born Crowe has played a real character in 21 films. Crowe, who won the 1992 AFI best actor award for his unforgettable Hando in Romper Stomper, says it was difficult playing an older man.
He was forced to put on weight because it was the only way he could carry off the age, and he spent more than four months with his head shaved.
"I was wearing wigs because we just couldn't get my hair to act old," he said. "It was down to skin; not a No 1, like a skinhead, which still has a little bit of dignity in it ... not because of the skinhead connotation but because you have a little bit of hair left."
Crowe, whose profile jumped following L.A. Confidential, has already won best actor awards from the National Society of Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
He will also be seen later this year in the Disney flick Mystery, Alaska, opposite Burt Reynolds and written by David E. Kelley of television's Ally McBeal fame. It's the story of a little place in Alaska that has a history of creating champion ice hockey players. One day a big NHL team visits, turning the town upside down.
Crowe will also be seen in the title role of The Gladiator, a $100million blockbuster set in Rome 180AD and directed by Blade Runner's Ridley Scott.
In his next project, Crowe stars with Meg Ryan in Proof Of Life, where he plays a hostage negotiator who falls in love with the wife of the man he is trying to save. The character was written as an Englishman but Crowe won a small battle to make him Australian instead, which is a reflection of the clout he now has in the film industry.
"I think it (L.A. Confidential) changed the nature a little bit of what I do in America," he says of the film based on James Ellroy's best-selling novel. "I took a few of what I considered to be quality jobs like Quick And The Dead and Virtuosity and they didn't necessarily find their mark commercially.
"L.A. Confidential was kind of like a watershed ... it very definitely has changed the way I do things. I've got a lot more responsibility now in terms of when I'm on a job ... there's a different level of respect."
Russell Crowe is overweight and middle-aged in his latest Hollywood film. Just one more persona for the versatile
young Australian actor, writes Lawrie Masterson.
Russell Crowe has perfected the compound – bravado and a touch of Australian larrikinism which come naturally,
blended with an uncanny ability to assume accents and transform into personae with which the world’s biggest
movie audience, America, so strongly identifies.
And now he has Hollywood where he wants it, which is at once at his feet and half a world removed from where he
most likes to kick his boots off at night. That is northern New South Wales, about a seven-hour
drive from Sydney, where the actor lives on a 25-hectare farm. Despite the fact that he now works mainly in
Hollywood, he doesn’t feel the need to establish a home base in Los Angeles.
"Film is an international medium" he says offhandedly. "You know, I’ve got a bag, got a
passport. Off you go."
Already a star in Australia after being a successful child actor and later making movies such as "Proof" and
"Romper Stomper", Crowe made a faltering start in the United States. He was in the Sharon Stone western "The
Quick and the Dead" (1995), then co-starred with Denzel Washington in "Virtuosity", but it was his third American
film, "L.A. Confidential", in which he played the violent, obsessive copy Bud White, that really put him on the map.
In 1999 [sic] he made three major studio films -- as a small-town sheriff and local ice hockey hero in "Mystery,
Alaska"; the Roman Empire epic "Gladiator", and "The Insider",
in which he co-stars with Al Pacino and is barely recognisable.
Today, amid the plush surrounds of the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, Crowe, 35, looks as if he might
have just wandered in from his farm. He is wearing jeans and a rust-colored flannel shirt over a white T-shirt.
His dark hair is slicked back, he is sporting a goatee beard and the rest of his face has not had the benefit of
a razor in a day or two.
So what convinced director Michael Mann that Crowe could play the over-weight, middle aged and greying Jeffrey
Wigand in "The Insider"?
"I think all he had seen was "Romper Stomper" and "L.A. Confidential", so I have no idea how he came to the
conclusion that I should play a 52-year-old research scientist with Bachelor of Chemistry and Endocrinology in
the study of hormones," Crowe says, then breaks into a high pitched giggle.
Al Pacino, an eight-time Academy Award nominee and winner of the Best Actor for "Scent of a Woman", initially wasn’t
sure either. "I thought at first he might be too young for the role," says the man recognised as one of
America’s finest living actors. "But then, as he started to play it in rehearsal, he was just transformed. I
thought what he did was just brilliant."
America’s critics agree. Janet Maslin in The New York Times called Crowe "subtle powerhouse in his wrenching
evocation of Mr. Wigand." The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan referred to him as "the virtuoso Australian
actor . . . who joins an old-fashioned masculine presence with an unnerving ability to completely disappear inside
a role."
Jeffrey Wigand is the man who infamously blew the whistle on the American tobacco industry’s neglect to warn the
public of the dangers of nicotine, resulting in lawsuits eventually settled for $US246 billion ($AU380 billion).
His revelations saw him become the subject of death threats (no one has ever been charged with making them)
and smear campaigns. He lost his career and his family.
A lynchpin in Wigand's decision to "go public" was "60
Minutes" investigative reporter and producer Lowell Bergman (played in the move by Pacino), who gradually
gained his confidence to a point where Wigand agreed to tape an interview with reporter Mike Wallace (played by
Christopher Plummer). However, before the most newsworthy "60 Minutes" segment in years could get to air,
corporate powers at the CBS network decided to kill it, causing bitter divisions within the world famous current
affairs program.
Crowe doubts he or his co-stars will be subjected to any of the clandestine tactics used against Wigand. "I mean,
I'm the easiest mark in the world," he says "if you want to make a fool out of me, I can help you . . . and I do
quite regularly. So, if that's what they want to do, that's what they're going to do. But I think they should be quite seriously focusing on
their own houses. They're going to have to make some big business decisions shortly. They’re already under massive threat. They haven’t got any secrets left."
He also is skeptical about whether the movie will have any sobering effect on corporate America or international
big business. "I don't think they respond to films on that level. I think this film helps in that all those
people who were wondering what all the hassle was about as CBS, who know the name Wigand, who know that suddenly
the tobacco companies are under pressure, are all going get some very interesting detail."
Has working on the movie prompted Crowe to quit smoking? "No," he admits a little sheepishly. "I have
never accused myself of being smart.” (For the record, the slightly built, 167.5cm Pacino quit more than 10 years
ago. "Probably if I hadn’t stopped, I wouldn't be as tall as I am," he quips.)
Crowe had just seven days between finishing "Mystery, Alaska" in Canada, he had to learn how to ice skate and
play "the toughest sport I’ve ever tried" -- and started work on "The Insider", or landing on Planet Mann, as he
describes it.
"I left Canada, flew home to Australia, sat in the paddock for three or four days, woke up in the mornings
and played the horses and dogs, then got back on a plane."
With six weeks until the start of actual filming, he began his transformation process under the meticulous and
driven Mann, whose credits include creating the television series "Miami Vice" and writing, producing and
directing such movies as "The Last of the Mohicans".
"He's like the Energizer bunny," Crowe says. "He just runs all day. About five and a half weeks later I
said, "Michael, let's go to dinner tonight. It's been very fascinating and interesting working to your
schedule, but you're insane, mate, and you’re driving me crazy!"
At the start of the six weeks, Crowe was 82 kilograms. By the time filming started, he had ballooned to about
104 kilograms. It would take him five months to return to his normal weight.
"I'm the sort of fellow who will walk down to the shops as opposed to getting in the car and driving, so I came
to the personal decision to take on a sedentary lifestyle and expand," he says. "So you consciously say, ‘Drive, don't walk’ or, ‘Walk, don’t run’. You don’t go down to
the park and play with a football. You don’t walk up to the top of a mountain to calm yourself down, or whatever.
And then there were the dietary decisions, like a daily intake of bourbon and cheeseburgers. I mean, there were
elements of this job I quite enjoyed!" Crowe gives his high-pitched giggle again, then reverts
to serious when it comes to the subject of his hair. "We bleached it seven times, the last time for an hour and a half," he says. "We shaved the temples back up and took 70 percent of the volume out of the hair, but somehow every morning I'd wake up and miraculously it was looking
young and floppy again."
By the end of week one, hair and make-up artists had started working on a wig for him, and an increasingly
frustrated Crowe started doubting himself.
"I thought Michael Mann was silly hiring me and I tried to tell him on a number of occasions that he should get
someone else, but he wouldn't listen to me," he says.
"I was actually halfway through explaining to him that there were a lot of 50-year-old actors out there he
should be talking to, and he put his hand on chest and
said, 'I'm not talking to you because of your age. I'm talking to you because of what’s in here.'"
Mann asked Crowe whether he wanted to meet the real Jeffrey Wigand. Because he had access to "60 Minutes" tape
and other footage of Wigand testifying in court, Crowe
said no three times. On the third occasion, the director's response was: "All right, but he's flying in tomorrow and your appointment is at 8:30."
Crowe continues: "That's free choice, Michael Mann style, but when I did meet Jeffrey I realised that that
was one of the silliest thought processes I've ever had. This is the first time I've played a real person, and
there are many levels of realisation. I was going down one particular line, but having him in front of me
informed me of a whole area of the character that I didn't have my eye on."
Slipping back into an American accent was no problem for New Zealand-born, Australian-raised Crowe, a cousin of
former NZ test cricketers Martin and Jeff Crowe. "I've worked in the business since I was a little kid and it’s
just one of those things I’ve always had an ear for," he
says. "My parents (who were movie caterers) would have visitors from overseas and within minutes I’d be
imitating them. They were always making excuses 'Oh,
yes, lovely to see you. Sorry about the kid.'"
Crowe describes his relationship with Pacino as "easy. . . that's the thing with really great actors,
it's really, really easy." Aside from their work, the two got to know one another mainly by attending basketball games together.
"When you think of Al you tend to think of words like 'intense’' but he's a very relaxed fellow. He's
very comfortable with himself and he's like a rumpled old
blanket, you know? Dogs have lain on him and people have
had picnics on him and spilt food and maybe even had sex,
but he's kept them warm and dry over the years as well."
Another giggle, this time accompanied by an expletive. "Where did that come from?" he asks himself.
When they were filming in Louisville, Kentucky, Crowe bought his new friend one of the famous Louisville
Slugger baseball bats and had it customised with Pacino's name. "It cost about $40 ($AU62) and it was no big
deal," Crowe says, "So, I just left it in his trailer. I didn't know Al Pacino was the world's biggest baseball
fan. I mean, it wasn't baseball season and we'd been
watching basketball. He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread and he's like, 'How did you know?'"
When the Kentucky shoot finished and Crowe flew to Los Angeles for more filming, he found a stack of cartons
waiting at the door of the house he was renting. "They're from Al, and I start opening them up
and it's a baseball pitching machine, the whole box and
dice," he says. "A bloke that was working with me, a
very dry fellow from Canada, said, 'Well Russell, thank
God you didn’t give him a pair of flippers!'" (Article - thanks to Patricia!) (Photo: Hello Magazine, 2/28/00 - Thanks to Susan M.!)
Russell's Smokin
With tobacco industry film The Insider leaving him a Oscar contender, Russell Crowe's career is red hot...
Russell Crowe, who stars alongside Al Pacino in the critically-acclaimed drama The Insider, could never be labelled vain. Portraying a middle-age man in the middle of a controversial scandal about the tobacco industry, Russell - who is touted for an Oscar nomination for the role - felt he would be more believable in the part if he gained weight and died his hair greyish-blonde.
"It was a great deal of fun having to put on weight. I liked having to step into a completely sedentary lifestyle, and I gained in the vicinity of 50 pounds (23 kg). I could eat whatever I wanted - mainly cheeseburgers - and drank lots of bourbon," he says. "But the five month process of taking the
weight off was not as enjoyable. It was bloody difficult."
Firing up the first of many cigarettes, it's interesting that the movie didn't turn Russell off smoking given it's subject. He plays a whistleblower who reveals to 60 minutes that cigarette manufacturers were highly unethical in their practice of adding chemicals to their cigarettes to ensure addiction.
"Well, I'm an actor. I've never accused myself of being smart. People have asked me whether I smoked more or less while shooting this movie, and my answer to that, is the more hours I'm awake, the more I'm going to smoke," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm aware of the chemical make-up of available blends of tobacco, and still that has not stopped me from smoking, which is an indication of how powerful and addictive a drug it is."
Born in New Zealand, yet raised here, Russell is patriotic to both. The actor, 35, recently filmed Mystery, Alaska, in which he plays a captain of a hockey team in a small town, and before shooting each day, he raised a special flag. "I carry a flag of the Southern Cross, which is something that covers both countries. It doesn't have a Union Jack on it, It's the flag of the revolution," he smiles. "But don't get me wrong, I've got
nothing against the monarchy."
Although he has a reputation for being difficult, other actors admire Russell's talent, referring to him as "fearless". And his generosity, which is evident when discussing his Aussie peers, is refreshing. "I feel proud when other Australians like Nicole Kidman do well in Hollywood. If you've come from where we've come from, it's a long way, mate," he laughs. "It's one thing achieving success in America as an American, but achieving success in America when you're from another country literally means success around the globe. It means at some point you've had to take a deep breath and start all over again."
"There are plenty of great Australian actors like Heath Ledger, who I liked in Two Hands. And I thought it was Bryan Brown's best performance for ages, which warms my heart, because he's one of those iconoclastic Australian actors that has been disrespected by so many people. For anybody who ever says something negative about Bryan, I just say 'Look mate, why don't you watch Breaker Morant and shut the f**k up.'" He lights another cigarette. "Same with Jack Thompson. In Sunday Too Far Away, his performance was the beginning of realism in Australian film."
Since the release of The Insider in the US last year, Russell has picked up a Golden Globe nomination and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Acting Award, and it seems assured he will get an Oscar nod when the nominations come out on February 15. But his down-to-earth demeanour seems genuine. "I don't take the Oscar talk seriously. It's not because I have any kind of disrespect, but there are a lot of bullshit artists who'll say whatever it is they feel you need to hear." (thanks to Katrina!)
Russell Crowe may have lost out to Denzel (The Hurricane) Washington as best
actor in a drama at last week's Golden Globes, but there's no denying he was
the star of the ceremony. Reason? The wild colonial boy flabbergasted
everybody at the glam affair by fronting clutching the hand of Jodie Foster.
"I had the best date in the room," The Insider star boasted next day of the
unlikely liaison. "He paid me," quipped the actress on a night when
confronted with a chorus of "huhs?"
Truth is, the two are old pals. He reportedly sent the
actress/director/single mum a tiny rugby league jumper when her son, Charles, was born 18 months ago and since then, says Crowe, they've developed a "telephone relationship ....and I was kinda cheeky on the phone a couple of weeks ago and said I needed a date for the Golden Globes and she
said, 'I'm your girl'."
Scoop wonders if she knew what she was letting herself in for. On arrival at the Globes, the acclaimed actor, 35, crowed to reporters that he was
looking forward to getting drunk and losing his car keys, and on the first promise, at least, he seemed to let nobody down. Unlike Crowe's Coffs Harbour post-pub incident in November, no-one got roughed up, but at the Disney after-party and exuberant Crowe was seen to lead Foster, 37, away from minglers and heard to remark, "Stop being so (expletive) popular." He
stood on balcony smoking and drinking wine while Foster chatted to others.
He paid the price, admitting the next day, "I'm a bit doughy this morning.
Pulled up a bit soft." And Crowe, now in London filming Proof Of Life with Meg Ryan, had a typically blunt response when told of the stir his date with Foster had caused in Australia. "Aw (expletive) 'em if they can't take a joke." (thanks to Katrina!)
Back to In Print: Page 3
Back home to
By Nui Te Hoha and Jo Dougherty
Daily Telegraph, January 27, 2000
Earlier this week, when Crowe showed up to the Golden Globes with lesbian poster girl Jodie Foster on his arm, some interpreted it as the actor once again diverting attention away from himself and his best actor nomination as his role in The Insider.
"I don't think I'll get [the award]," Crowe smiled, "and I haven't lost any sleep over it, either."
Of course, the difference between Crowe and the rest of them is that he means it.
(thanks to Chris!)
L.A. Influential
Qantas Magazine No. 79 (January, 2000)
By Jo Gardner
Neweekly (February 7, 2000)
Inside Scoop: The Crowe Show
ed. Helen Martin
Who Weekly (February 7, 2000)
Back to Articles and Interviews
MAXIMUM
CROWE
