The following transcript is from Russell's interview with Ian "Molly" Meldrum. The interview took place in Austin, Texas and aired on Australian Network 10, August 24, 2000

(The interview starts by showing images including preparations for the concerts, fans queuing and Russell talking to his camera crew on where to position the cameras.)

Molly Meldrum: How do you do it? I've watched you over nearly 24 hours now and you have not stopped.
Russell Crowe: These are the things that I dig, so it's easy. It's harder for me to work on somebody else's schedule because then I'm the one hanging around. But when I'm setting the schedule and stuff, I can get everything I need to get done in the given 24 hours for sure. Like I said, these are the things I dig, playing with the band, these are great loves. This band's been basically together, or together in the form of the song-writing partnership since 1984, so it's like 16 years-old now and it's ah, obviously there's no extra points or credibility for me, for doing it. So I just do it cause I want to.

MM:Ok two questions then, why Austin? And did you imagine when you took on this project, that -- this is bigger than Gladiator, I think, I mean just the whole operation . . .
RC: Austin's a live music town, man. I didn't want the band in a place that is distracting for the wrong reasons. Here, it's distracting for the right reasons. They might want to call a night in the studio a little earlier because they're desperate to run over and see some 300 pound redneck playing guitar in a band down on Sixth Street. You know, that's cool. You know we're here to record an album. And to submerge themselves in music, is what it's all about, so it's just a great town for it man -- there's got to be 30 acts on a night.

MM: Yeah, I didn't realize it has got so much music in it.
RC: You just walk down Sixth Street and you walk out of one bar and there is a reggae playing and you walk down and you hear country and western, then you hear you know, honky tonk piano in the next place. It's just exactly the sort of place to come and record music.

MM: Ok. When the band was flown over to London, you're still working on the film.
RC: Yeah, Proof of Life.

MM: With Meg Ryan. And they're in one studio, you're in the other doing film takes and then you go and rehearse. How can you go from one to the other?
RC: The two jobs are completely separate things, but you know, it's not that difficult for me to go from one to the other. It's tiring, but it's certainly not. . . you know, both things are things I've put a lot of thought into, so I can just step from one to the other. I think the freakiest thing for the band was walking into the rehearsal room with a gun on my hip.

MM: I know, Dave was telling me that you walked in with a gun, you put it down and said "Ok where were we?"
RC:"Where were we", yeah, and everyone's just like, looking at me like going (gives a perplexed look). "Oh, I'm sorry boys, it's a prop. There's nothing in it." I showed them it was unloaded and everything. I'm like, "sorry!"

MM: Alright now, let's go back, when you were in Wellington and you moved to Australia, what was your first love? Was it music or acting?
RC: Well, the both things were kind of simultaneous, which was kind of strange. Christmas of 1970, I was given a guitar -- right? -- I was like 6 years old and in that same period of time, I'd say within about 3 months I worked on my first film set that I worked on, which was actually a TV show called Spyforce.

MM: Right, right.
RC: Which Jack Thompson was the star of ...

MM: Which is a great irony when you think of it.
RC: Yeah, so for me it was really about performance and then it's about discovering within that desire for performance what it is that you do well. Right throughout my childhood and into sort of early 20's and everything, I really had no idea with the acting stuff. I never really focused on it. Music was my priority -- and then basically somebody gave me an important job and asked me to treat it seriously. And when I treated it seriously, I realized that I could really disappear inside of this, you know. And it was a much more cerebral sort of journey.

MM: What was your aim at that stage? Did you really think you'd be a serious actor?
RC: When I was a little kid?

MM: Yeah.
RC: No, not at all. Seriously, it wasn't until someone told me that they wanted me to do a movie that I ever thought I was going to be in a film.

MM: Right.
RC: And we signed up for that and then they put the shooting dates off four months, and I just went -- yeah, well, there you go. You see well why am I going . . . I'm not going to be in a movie, you know. And ah, that director's name was George Ogilvie and then I ended up, funnily enough, doing another film prior to The Crossing starting, where I was playing a minor role opposite Bryan Brown.

MM: Bryan Brown, Blood Oath.
RC: Yeah, Blood Oath, and I got to work with him for about 10 weeks and watch him, observe him and ask him lots of questions. So it was kind of cool cause the major work I'd done before that in terms of acting was about professional work on the stage -- stage musicals, so it was really a different environment. I'd done the standard bits and pieces of TV -- a couple of days on Neighbours, Rafferty's Rules . . .

MM:: Did you enjoy that?
RC: Yeah well, when I did Neighbours, right, the final scene, I'm whacking Craig McLlachlan, Jason's trying to break us up, Kylie's on my back trying to strangle me and it's like mate, you gotta do that don't you? You gotta have video of that for the grandkids.

MM: The Crossing. Um, what does that mean to you, that movie?
RC: The Crossing's George Ogilvie, and it's the beginning of an incredible friendship with two wonderful people -- Robert Mammone and Danielle Spencer. Both friendships still survive in tact today. In fact Bobby's in Austin, flew in last night -- he wanted to see a show. And then we worked together again on Heaven's Burning. But George, was, he was magnificent, a very gentle man and he took me aside one time at this carpark at the showgrounds in Sydney, and he goes -- "I don't know how to describe this particular moment in the film to you, I don't know how to describe this to you, I've been thinking about it and thinking about it". And at this point in time, I really didn't know his history, and then I find out later he was this fabulous actor and when he became a director he decided he was going to make a 100% switch. So he goes "I can't explain it to you so I'm just going to do it". So we're standing in this carpark right, and he just went on a dime, bang, the most radiant, deep, emotional serious information just came out of his eyes. And because I knew what moment he was talking about in the script, I could see all of that information coming out at me. And that was an incredible, incredible lesson.

MM: Ok, '91, with Proof, working with Hugo Weaving and also your first AFI award. [Australian Film Institute (Best Supporting Actor)] Good film I mean.
RC: Mate, it was a wonderful experience. It was Jocelyn Moorehouse getting to do a story she'd worked on for years in tandem with her husband P.J. Hogan. She knew every inch of the thing. She knew exactly how she wanted it to be. And with both Hugo and with Genevieve, it was just funny because our characters were very, very different people so there's no direct real emotionally friendly connection -- there's three different notes being played that don't necessarily relate harmonically, and so it was really exciting for me cause that was dead serious stuff, you know.

MM: Ok, Romper Stomper. For Australian audiences it was one of the most intense roles we'd seen by an Australian actor, and it won you an AFI award.[Best Actor] I mean, were you, in yourself, growing as an actor by this stage?
RC: Yeah, from the first movie, for me the lead role, The Crossing, everything started to open up for me in terms of what I could do. And I got really lucky -- I got a few opportunities, but at the same time, the preparations there. I'm really for those situations that come along and I also, even given the small nature of the Australian industry was saying no to the majority of things and waiting for the thing that I read and I'd get really excited about. To me, the concept of Romper Stomper, even without having read a script, when I'd heard of the concept of it -- that there was a filmmaker in Melbourne that was going to do this -- that was a "must be involved" kind of situation for me. And Ben Mendlesohn actually was the bloke who was supposed to do it and had been in Geoffrey's first short film. But in that short time, I'd built up a body of very strong work, so when we approached him, very passionately about being involved, he being a film buff, he'd seen that work, and a seed had already been planted in his mind -- after seeing a combination of things like The Crossing and Proof. So, for me that was about just being patient, and am you know. Then the wind changed and then suddenly I was the bloke but only about a week and a half or something before we started rehearsal.

(Runs clip)

RC: It's '92, and I'm making Silver Brumby, right, and the year before I'd made Love in Limbo, Romper Stomper and Hammers Over the Anvil with Charlotte Rampling. And the year before, I'd also gone to the Cannes film festival and maybe had seven direct approaches for American representation then. We'd had, maybe, you know, literally hundreds of calls in that twelve months. So I'm sitting up on a mountain top and I'm thinking, "Okay, I haven't read anything that I wanna do". So I've known I'm gonna do other movies, I've known The Silver Brumby's coming up, so I've been reading things for probably six months looking for what I would do after that and there was nothing for me. They were all similar or one or two degrees to the left or right of what I'd done. So, there I was already, a couple of years in and with a production slate of 15 - 20 feature films a year, I'm only ever gonna possibly get one or two. And how long does the luck hold out where the thing is going to be different and not just the same note? So I couldn't do it. I just had to, had to challenge myself. You know when I went in the first time and I suppose it took a lot of people by surprise, but the first thing I did was I rang up an attorney that I'd met in Cannes, who completely dismissed me as, you know, anybody he should care about when I'd met him, but I had his card, right, so I rang him up and told him the other titles of stuff that I'd been doing, and said that I was coming in, and could he arrange meetings for me, with 'bout the top 10 agencies, I think I can deal with. And he was like (imitates American accent) "Oh yeah, is that right?" So he made a call offhand to about the 10th and they went nuts. They went "absolutely, we've got to meet the guy, absolutely. We're crazy, we dig his work, we've been seeing it, you know" and he was like "Really?" So then he went up to the top ten and every single agency would take a meeting. Cause that's the thing man, film's an international medium -- once you do something it goes out into the world and it goes out into the film festival circuit and all this sort of stuff. People who are obsessive about film, people who work in the business, then they see it.

MM: Right.
RC: So getting an agent for me in America was -- it wasn't that sort of going around knocking on doors thing, but it was going around seeing a whole lot of people and trying to find somebody that I thought I might be able to trust over a long period of time. I've only ever had two agents in my life and I still work with both of them. I only need somebody to operate evenly and clearly and honestly and you know, I'm going to do the work.

MM: To take on such a role, as Jeff in Sum of Us, I thought was an extraordinary, gutsy effort. Because, you know, the Aussie and the whole thing and playing a gay person, Jeff, in that with Jack Thompson, seemed extraordinary to me.
RC: It was such a beautiful script. They sent it around and I read it, and I knew it was going to be Jack, and as you know I worked with him when I was a little kid so I'd always had felt some connection with him. Though he didn't remember the meeting until many, many weeks into rehearsal when he politely said (imitates Jack Thompson) "Oh yeah". Um, but the thing is, I've been a big fan of his and loved his work -- Sunday Too Far Away, Breaker Morant . . .

MM: Did you learn from Jack, did you learn anything from Jack?
RC: Oh I learned a lot of bad habits from Jack, mate (laughing).

MM: (laughing) I don't mean bad habits.
RC: Some which haunt me, some which help me.

(MM laughing).
RC: But he's just a fabulous old sailor, mate. And he knows about the knots and he knows about the wind, you know. And he -- so when you're in the middle of a scene with him, you fly man, you're off. And anything can happen and the end of it you turn around and have a wink and a giggle, you know. We were doing that thing on the couch, and we were doing it to [John] Polson, we didn't discuss with him what we were going to do to him at all, kind of thing. We just, we just put the pressure on him -- just a whole lot of pressure -- and that thing just came out and the timing. I think that's the first take that's in the movie, first or second take, something like that. The timing between the three of us, you see, that's the thing, I mean that scene, that movie stands up anywhere. If you're a movie fan, that movie's great if you watch it in England, great if you watch it in France, or China. It doesn't matter where you are, and that's three actors doing their craft.

MM: Ok, going to The Quick and the Dead with Sharon Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio, but also Gene Hackman, good experience?
RC: In retrospect, there's a lot of good things that came out of it. You know it was a very heavy, ah, situation for me -- straight from the set of Sum of Us, very relaxed, basically a two-hander, shot like, for the most part like a theatrical production into a full on big-budget American movie with two A-list stars and the new up-and-coming idol, and I'm actually supposed to be one of the four main characters of the movie and everyone's walking around going "Who's he? Who's he now?" So, it was kind of weird, but again it was another lesson, big quantum leap, you know, a different level of discipline, and I had some things to do in that movie. I'd never actually shot a handgun in my life, and so that quick-draw and the gun spinning and all that sort of stuff, that gave me enough stuff to concentrate on physically. And all these shots of my hands and stuff and you can see because of the way they've cut it and the way they've shot it, um they'll start on my hand and they'll pull out -- there's not enough room for an edit, and when I'm doing that gun routine it's me doing it, ya know.

Gene was an interesting experience for me. Very disciplined, very hard on directors who don't respect narrative.

Sharon was a complete trip. I'd never, ever confronted that level of American stardom before and um, it was very, very hard for me to understand. It still is. And I'm not at all saying that she was unpleasant -- I'm not implying that at all. I had a lot of fun with her, you know. Things like she knew I was going to be alone for Christmas Day, so she rings up and says (imitating Sharon Stone) "You know Russell, I'm doing a thing for the Salvation Army on Christmas Day. I'm gonna like give out coffee and orange juice and like serve turkey. Wanna come and help me?" I'm like, (Acting Sincerely) what a cool thing to do. That's magnificent. So I go down, I meet up with her, I jump in the car, we go down, I go to the Salvation Army, I put my apron on. It's about 8 o'clock in the morning and everything and I start and I get into it. You know my Mum and Dad are caterers, mate, and pub managers, so I know how to bus some tables, mate. I'm out there, I'm pumping away, I'm doing my thing you know, I'm handing out the turkey. I give one a bloke a coffee, this old dero from the street. I give this bloke a coffee and he goes . . . what'd he ask for? He asked for . . . there's a product over here in America which is kind of like -- it's got French vanilla milk, and I'm like, where'd you get your tastes from? I'm running around, like I'm probably, there's probably 250 people there and I feel like I've served 120 of them myself. I'm like just full on into it. And at one point in the day, I look over and Sharon's got her apron on, doesn't have any food marks on it, she is standing between two people getting her photograph taken for the local newspaper and the only time she picked the orange juice and coffee up was for that photograph. (laughs) So, it's a different kind of attitude I think.

MM:: OK, shortly after that you worked with Denzel Washington in Virtuosity, playing SID.
RC: Yeah.

MM:: That must have been a buzz.
RC:Mate, he's fantastic.

MM::He's a great actor.
RC: Great actor and he's a very, very nice bloke.

MM: Yeah?
RC: Great family man, and we got on really well.

MM: Love to do that sort of film?
RC: Yeah, yeah. That was really interesting to me, first time on major blue screen. I'd done bits and pieces of blue screen before then, but that was like, you know, complete interiors of a studio absolutely blue you're standing in the middle of it, you have all these intellectual ideas that you're supposed to do. You know, you step through a doorway here, grab a rose out of the sky here, you know, jump up on to a piano here, and there's nothing there. There's literaly nothing there so you're just doing all of that in your mind. And then you see it a couple of months later and they've added all the computer stuff and schwwwu, there's a rose, and you know.

MM: Yeah
RC: Magnificent stuff. So, that was very interesting, but working with him, it was fun. He came into my trailer one night out of the blue and gave me a big cigar and a cognac. He said -- we're just sitting there in silence, just talking a little bit, you know -- "How's your kid?" and blah, blah, blah. And he goes, "You know I've never said this before to any actor I've ever worked with", (imitating Denzel) " But I wanna play your character".

MM: Well really?
RC:(giggling) Well, I was having some fun with it man. I was jumping around and going crazy. You know, I mean I had 183 different personalities, that was required of the script. So you know I was like, "heeeeeee whoooooo". (whipping motion) I had the whip out baby.

MM: In '97, L.A. Confidential, a great movie to do? I mean with Kevin Spacey . . .
RC: That was, mate, that was when it gets sublime, you know. You look through that cast, there isn't a single person in that cast all the way down to the second bloke from the left, that isn't magnificent in what they do, you know. And Curtis Hanson, you know, has a certain process, but he's a very deep thinker, so you'll always get answers to your questions. And I'd kind of gone on a bit of a run of directors who weren't . . . having started with a series of people who were completely and utterly focused and knew their subject matter back to front, then it goes to a period of time when some days you feel you're actually making the whole thing up, you know, because you've just got somebody in front of you who's waiting for you to tell them what the scene's gonna be, you know. Um, and then it sort of turned around again. It began with Curtis, and then through a few directors, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, you know, where I've gotten to work with people who are great at what they do.

MM: You must have been delighted with that movie cause I remember you coming home for the premiere. And, I mean, Australia really was proud of yourself and Guy and you, that whole . . .
RC: And Simon [Baker]. Simon was great as well.

MM: And Simon as well. I mean, Simon was a great part of that. I mean, it was a strange part for him to play because it was sort of a . . . but he made his mark in it, you know.
RC: Yeah. You had to remember that guy. You had to remember his face.

MM: Yeah, you did.
RC: Otherwise you didn't make the connection.

MM: Yeah you did because it was a very important part of the whole story.
RC: Yeah, yeah.

MM: And of course Kim winning the Oscar for it.
RC: Yeah.

MM: But I also smiled when I saw you at the Oscars earlier this year, and thinking, well, here you are nominated and two of the other people that are nominated is Kevin Spacey that you worked with that film in, and of course Denzel in Virtuosity. So was it a bit weird for you, was it a good buzz?
RC: It was. It was pretty fantastic. Because, you know, if you include the best supporting actors as well, you know with Tom and ah, it was a whole bunch of people . . .

MM: And also Toni
RC: And Toni Collette [Spotswood], I knew and respected and had worked with, so it didn't feel like I wasn't suppose to be there.

MM: Yep.
RC: You know what I mean, in a funny kind of way.

MM: Mystery, Alaska. I love that film . . .
RC: You do?

MM: Do you?
RC: Yeah. I love it. Absolutely love it.

MM: Yeah?
RC: Yeah. Beat myself up -- considerably yeah, I mean . . .

MM: (inaudible, both laugh)
RC: I had to learn to ice skate in six weeks. I started in, I think the last week of November, in some place in the mountains in California and went home for Christmas, and basically, first week of January, I was on my way to Canmore, in Alberta, Canada, and that was 36 degrees below. I've never, I've never (laughs) had that sensation before. I've never been in a place that cold. I mean, that's when it's physical -- you walk out -- and someone goes whack! (makes a whacking motion to face) Weather!!! (another whacking motion) The hairs on your nostrils freeze (touches nostrils), you know, your eyebrows start kind of crinkling up (touches eyebrows). You know, it's just the weirdest thing. You go out without a hat, 15, 20 minutes mate, you know, your face is tingling and that's the first sensation of frostbite. I mean, it's cold, you know, and we had to ice skate on open pond, black ice. So you'd get these icicles, (laughing) you'd get these icicles cause I had a beard and everything, right, you get these icicles hanging off your beard, and we showed the director and said "how cool is this right?, right, "look at this you got icicles hanging off your hair and your beard" and all that, so we tried to recreate it makeup-wise. You know that sequence in There's Something About Mary?

MM: Yeah, yeah.
RC: Ended up looking like that. So we didn't use that.

(Both laugh)

MM: OK, The Insider.
RC: Right.

MM: Pacino. An incredible story. A character that's scientist, bland I guess, and you threw yourself right into that. I mean, physically, you changed yourself. I mean how hard was it?
RC: When we first started, we had probably about an eight week pre-production run up where we started doing different makeup tests, where we must have shot seven of them, and done it time and time again, trying to find a way to make me age, and everything, cause, I just . . . Right from the beginning, I mean, magnificent script, you know, I'm not gonna, not gonna go and see the director and have a conversation. But I couldn't quite take it seriously that he was, that he really wanted me to do it. So I said to him one point, "why don't you get somebody else, cause there's plenty of 50-year-old actors around here". And he puts his hand here (pats chest) and he goes, ah, "I'm not talking to you because of your age, I'm talking to you because of what you have in here". You know, and that's the sort of person that I really like to work with. You know, Michael's at a level of focus and concentration which is akin to insanity. He's absolutely a megalomaniac, but when you look up "director" in the dictionary, that's what it should have. You know, it should have, you know, the requirements for the job is megalomania. You've got to be so single-minded because it's a difficult medium, you know, it'll get away on you. And you've got to be able to wrangle it. He's just one of those blokes, he's so ultra-prepared, you know. So we ended up having a magnificent relationship on that movie and it still continues today, you know, you know, we're still very good friends.

MM: When doing that movie and playing that character though, did you go home at any time depressed?
RC: Ah yeah, well, you do that to a certain degree -- carry things with you, but, you know, see like with Romper Stomper, you know, when you wake up in the morning and you look into the mirror and there's a bloke starring back at you with no hair and all those tattoos. That would make me really sad, you know, you know, cause of what those symbols represented, and all that, you know. So probably I got more depressed on that. With Wigand --it's like when you have to start to rock yourself back and forth two or three times to get out of a motor vehicle and you're 34 years of age, and that just isn't your, that's not your normal . . .

MM: Exactly.
RC: You know, physical size. It is strange. You see, but Michael makes you so tired during the course of the day, you really don't have any other thing to think about. You get home, you crash out, you wake up, take a deep breath, you get into it again. So that's the wonderful thing about working with Michael -- you never, ever finish a day with that great actor's nightmare of going (clicks fingers) oh now I've got another idea but you know but it's the next day.

MM: Now is it true, you were filming The Insider and you'd received or got a phone call or something from Ridley Scott to ring him, and you were not undecided or unwilling about it or anything or not, but you'd let it wait, but Michael came in and said, "I think you should take this phone call. I don't want you to lose focus on The Insider, but -- I think you should take this phone call".
RC: The way it came about, actually, was we were approached by a fella called Walter Parkes who is head of production at DreamWorks, and you know, he said if I send you the script that I have now, we won't get the answer we want, you know, because we don't think it's ready for you to examine in that way. So what we wanna do is we wanna pitch it to you. And I was like, listen mate, if you don't have a script, don't pitch it to me. And, you know, he says ok, if we can't pitch it to you, let me say three things . . . it's 185 AD . . . being directed by Ridley Scott . . . and you start the film as a Roman General. Now can we pitch it to you? And I went, "Yeah!" On a handshake and a wink, you know, me and Ridley made the deal that we were going to work this one through. You know, ah, you know, you might get offered cop roles every now and then but you sure as shit aren't gonna get the chance to put on the armour and swing the sword that much these days.

MM: You go from The Insider, the look you played in that and the size -- you go to the role as Maximus, I mean how did you do that?
RC: Um, well basically, ah . . .

MM: When you tell us it, we'll pay for it and basically, we'll sell it to everyone!
RC: (Smiles) Ah, but it's all up in your head though, isn't it. It's all about how you view yourself or if you care to view yourself. And see for me I don't really care what I look like, so if I didn't have the Gladiator to go and do, I'd probably wonder around in the alleys and shadows for years looking exactly like Wigand. But I care probably more about the characters I play (laughs) in term that they have to be right. Yeah, so I had about five months, and it really wasn't a matter of adapting too much as it was more going back to what I normally do, you know. I'd taken on a very sedentary lifestyle with Wigand, you know, cheeseburgers and bourbon, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Well, with Gladiator, the build up to that, you know, I went on a non-fat diet maybe for about three weeks, and I went to one of those, those retreats for about, I was supposed to be there for about 10 days and I think I lasted five. And I went, "you know what" (Gives a salute sign and laughs), "see ya". And went back home instead. Went back to the farm instead.

MM: You love the farm, right?
RC: Yeah mate and um, just did a non-fat diet for about three weeks to begin, you know, the change in metabolism and just started doing everything again that you know, I hadn't been doing for months while I'd been Wigand. You know, working on the farm and working out and going for a walk and going for a run up a hill sometimes. The funny thing for me was going to the doctor just after the movie and him telling me that my cholesterol level and all that sort of stuff was out of this world. It was just really super dangerous.

MM: Really?
RC: I remember, and this is how stupid I am mate, I remember being shocked that my body was taking it so seriously. Didn't it know it was just a gig? (laughs)

MM: Did you ever imagine that your life would take a real turn, really, the Academy Awards for The Insider and then the success of Gladiator.
RC: With Gladiator, you know, it was different from, I mean, when I saw L.A. Confidential, I couldn't believe how fantastic it was. When I saw The Insider, I was just completely taken with how Michael's camera work and the character's relationship and all that. When I saw Gladiator, I was jumping up and down like I was 14. I was going whoohoaa . . .. There was only about 20 of us in the screening room mate, and we were like "This is just fantastic! It's magnificent!" You know, but see I thought Virtuosity was magnificent. I thought there were aspects of that movie which were just fantastic and they'd been stolen and used by other people since then, you know, in a whole line of movies. But at that time the audience just didn't go and see it, for whatever reason. So, where I was nervous about Gladiator, I was just, ah, when that first weekend figure came in, you know, at 34.7 million in a one night, two-day weekend, opening two months before summer, that was just, I mean, there it was in one weekend, one three-day weekend it had nearly eclipsed The Insider, this massively, critically acclaimed movie with all those Academy Award nominations, you know. Um, what we were talking about before -- it's the depth of the characters with Gladiator that people dig, you know, even if it is a bad guy . . .

MM: And some great old actors too.
RC: Ah mate, getting to work with Richard Harris . . .

MM: Richard and Oliver . .
RC: You know, that was fantastic. We had so much fun.

MM: He's a wild guy.
RC: Ah, he is.

MM: The new film.
RC: Proof of Life it's called.

MM: Yep, with Meg.
RC: Yep.

MM: Good film?
RC: It should be I reckon. This is the wrong time to ever ask me about a movie. Cause all I can remember about the film now, after just finished it, is how tired I was, you know. Ah, but I think we've done some really great scene work. I really enjoy working with Meg. She's a great actress. In fact, for me, it was, when they said this script was going to be for for her, you know I read it and it was like, wow, she's really gonna challenge herself with this, you know, so I'd really like to be there when she does that. And we're, mate, we've got a fantastic friendship that I hope continues for many, many years, so that's a wonderful by-product of that film as well, but the actual work together was magnificent. She said at one point, she felt like it was Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton sort of material. We just have a rhythm that works of together scene wise -- and she doesn't have any of those neuroses that I've come to really enjoy with American actresses and actors. She's completely clear in the head and down-to-earth, and likes to laugh mate, you know.

MM: You're here in Austin, Texas, with the band and there's new songs . . .
RC: Yeah, there's about, well we came here with 17 new songs, but I think about only nine of them so far have made it to the album. And we've been doing a few things that appear on other records and songs that for us are old, you know. The audiences have been incredible man, you know. And we've got the record for selling out tickets at this venue, Stubbs, and this place has been around since the 50's or something you know. We sold over 4000 tickets in a couple of hours. It got to the point we had to put another 1600 on sale, and go from being an inside venue one week, to an outside venue. But, that was, people just had to walk up, and they reckon they've sold tickets from China to Ireland, Germany and Switzerland, you know. It's ah, yeah, I mean, the gigs were secondary. We were just coming here to make a record. We just thought we'd play a couple of gigs to put a little adrenalin into the week. We didn't realize it would explode like this.

MM: Snd the album's going really well?
RC: The recording's going fantastically, yeah. It's a very calm environment. It -- we're going in and we sort of keep double backing and checking ourselves cause how could it be this easy? How could it be this effortless, you know?

MM: How you getting along with you lawyer?
RC: My lawyer?

MM: Yeah, I saw her on a photo of you and her in one of those . . .
RC: Isn't that amazing?

MM: Weekly magazines.
RC: Here it is folks. Though, isn't it, right? Now this is what you actually have to deal with. Now this is a reality thing here, you know. Ah, here is a completely manufactured story, right, that did worry certain people in ah, my close proximity. And you know, you wonder where it's sourced from, you wonder what it's about. And you're reading it and it's with such a nasty attitude, such a black heart, you know, that the whole point of why I do what I do and all that stuff, you question why you'd even bother if there's people like this that are allowed to actually comment on what you do. And so we were thinking, so who could this woman possible be? And we were looking at the photograph, cause we only had a fax copy of it. We were trying to work out, me and Andy (points to Andy off screen), we were looking at it going, Nah, could be Laura . . . you know, and we're looking at it . . . well look, my head's facing that way all the time so whoever she is, she's just walking behind me anyway, you know. But all this absolute innuendo and everything. And then we get a colour copy of it, and Andy rings me up and he goes, "It's Candice ______". Candice ______ is one of my attorneys. (MM laughs). And she was there at the gig looking after the band's interests. So, it's just amazing what people are allowed to put it in the newspaper. *

MM: I know! (Clip of Russell singing "Other Ways Of Speaking") RC: Well, Other Ways of Speaking is um (smiles) . . . it's like you and me having a chat, and we're mates right, but we play for different sides, right, and ah, that's what . . . MM: Some of us do! RC: I have not, I do not have a problem with that mate, you know that. But that is what that's about. That's about meeting somebody that you think that you could really, could ah, easily fall in love with them, but they in fact play for a different team. MM: Right. RC: So, there's other ways of speaking mate (smiles). MM: Right, can, a . . . RC: That's what you can call it from now on.

MM: Absolutely, I will. That's right on my mind now. (Russell laughs). Now with the success of these concerts that you and the boys have done, would it give you a great buzz to get a gold record for the band?
RC: For sure.

MM: Yeah, would you be blown out by that?
RC: Ah, definitely, definitely. Um, what we've learned with the website is that yes, we do have an audience, yes, what we're doing -- we're not crazy. Um, there are people that dig this music and they love the lyrics and they love, you know the tone of the band. And yeah, for a . . . you know, this is a long-term thing. I mean, Dean and I have been playing together for 16 years, some kind of . . .something like that is a great achievement, you know.

MM: Well, I have a feeling you're gonna do it.
RC: Well, we'll see what happens. You know I have got a gold record at the moment. It's for the . . . it's for the soundtrack sales of Romper Stomper.

MM: Oh, really.
RC: Yeah. (Laughs.) I had to twist Gudinski's arm for like six months and finally he like gave me one. Thanks mate, you know. But he had me like go and fly down to Melbourne and give it to somebody else -- to give it to the director, so I'm standing there in the room going (move's head side to side), "so where's my one?" (laughs) But he sent me one, so.

MM: Alright. It's been a pleasure.
RC: Cheers mate

(Cuts to music clip of TOFOG.)