Russell: In Print / Maximum Russell Crowe

Russell, we hardly know ye.

By legend, he is difficult and quick-tempered - a pugnacious star with an outback-sized chip on his shoulder. But this isn't the real Russell, his friends and colleagues insist. Crowe, they say, is one of the most driven, intelligent and generous actors of his time. True, his intensity burns in megawatts. But it stems from his passionate nature, a thirst to live life and practice his craft without limits.

Besides, they say, this Aussie fellow happens to be a helluva lot of fun.

When the work is done for the day, Crowe, 37, likes to round up a crowd for dinner, even entertaining local residents for hours with a bottomless supply of colorful stories. (Think Crocodile Stanislavski.) As for gifts, there are many recollections, from sports jerseys on the set of Gladiator to stylish lab coats for a crew of hundreds on his latest film, A Beautiful Mind - many with little nickname insignias. Or he'll give out candy from Australia. "Every few days," Crowe says, "I just want the people I work with to know that their attention to detail and focus is appreciated."

A Beautiful Mind is generating Oscar buzz, particularly for Crowe's stunning performance. He plays real-life mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., who has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia but still won the Nobel Prize in 1994. This isn't tough-guy Russell, à la L.A. Confidential. It's more the uncanny Crowe who skillfully transformed his appearance and persona for The Insider. He ages 46 years in A Beautiful Mind, most of them spent battling a destructive psychological foe. After filming, Crowe had nightmares.

"The basic concept was the nature of schizophrenia," he says. "Fifty percent of what he believed to be absolutely real was actually false. A complete half of one's life was only his imagination. When I started thinking about a concept like that, I started to scan through my own experiences. It kept me up at night. But I do not begrudge the lack of sleep."

In conversation, he is gracious. His well-reasoned thoughts are delivered with the most impressive baritone this side of Richard Burton. He's relaxed enough to slide into a couch on his back, staring wistfully at the ceiling as the discussion lingers. It's hardly all serious and brooding. There are plenty of stories about life down under; Crowe loves all creatures, great and lethal. "We have the taipan family, the most poisonous of snakes, with the king brown and the red-bellied black," he says, clearly enchanted. "Then there's the redback spider. I have not been bitten by the snakes but have been bitten by the spiders. It just depends upon how much they pump into you, mate, y'know? If they get a good shot at you, you're in a bit of trouble."

As one might expect, Crowe's larger-than-life cinematic and real-life adventures seem to blur. On the set of Gladiator, he had a close encounter with a man-eating tiger. "He was supposed to roll away safely, but the timing was off," recalls co-star Joaquin Phoenix. "He picked up his sword, turned around, and the tiger was on him. They got it off, and he was fine. I would have been screaming. Russell just looks around, dusts himself off and says, 'OK, let's go at it again.' " Crowe remains quite fond of those tigers, just like the creatures on his ranch. "There's something mesmerizing about their eyes," he says. "When a person is attracted at that level, you want to touch it, pat their fur, feel their coat. Then I pull myself back - they're sitting there just begging for me to do that. 'Come on. I'm just a nice pussycat ...' "

The fact that Crowe is so decidedly un-Hollywood, with his shaggy hair and a grizzly-bear beard, makes him both attractive and a tad dangerous. But Ron Howard, the director of A Beautiful Mind, says it's Crowe's dedication that sets him apart. "He's extremely intellectual," Howard says. "I spoke to directors, and they said he really is an intense guy. But it's all about the work. If you're prepared and can debate his points, you won't have problems. It's not about being an egomaniac who wants things his way. He's challenging the material constructively."

When the shooting is done for the day, however, Crowe plays. On the set of Gladiator, he organized cricket matches. In Pascagoula, Miss., while shooting The Insider, he'd charm the locals over bayou shrimp and beer. "He'd be going until 1 a.m.," says Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, who played himself in the movie and still wagers with Crowe when the United States takes on Australia in the America's Cup. "I'm ready to call it a night, but Russell was just getting started. The next morning, he's back on the set at 6 a.m. A consummate pro. Look, he's a real guy. There isn't anything phony about him. He enjoys life every minute."

Crowe talks a lot about his family and upbringing. Born in New Zealand, Crowe moved to Australia when he was 4. His father devoted much of his life to shaping up pubs - unruly, gang-plagued places with names like The Flying Jug - and turning them into respectable establishments. "Once the job was done, like a gunslinger, he'd go to the next town," Crowe says. "It was a great service to the communities." Then, there's the honorable legacy of his grandfather Stan Wemyss. The actor was wearing his grandfather's MBE medal as he accepted his Oscar last year. Wemyss was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire after serving as a cinematographer in World War II. "I never had a single conversation with him about it," Crowe says. "He kept the MBE locked away in its box. He never wore it. When he died, my grandmother gave me a box with his stuff. I found a whole bunch of medals."

Crowe has a lot to say because he has a lot to dispel. (He won't discuss his past relationship with actress Meg Ryan, and he seems genuinely hurt that the subject comes up after an engaging conversation.) He realizes his romanticized rogue image can reap publicity dividends. But he's swift to derail misconceptions. True, he is a heavy smoker, but he finds nothing glamorous about it. He had his first cigarette at age 10 and has since regretted the day.

Then, an abrupt segue: "Let's go over this drinking thing," Crowe says.

Gladiator co-star Oliver Reed - notorious for his brawling, boozing ways - died during the shoot, and Crowe, in polite but clear terms, places distance between their lifestyles. "Mate, he did that to himself," Crowe says. "I have little time for the Oliver Reeds of this business. I'm not pleased that he's gone. In fact, I never had a drink with Oliver, because I didn't want to encourage him. I'll go for long periods without a drink. When I'm on the farm by myself, it's not something I even think about. But I'm not afraid to have a beer in front of a studio executive. That doesn't make me a wild man."

You could conclude that Crowe has it all. He chooses from the best scripts, works with the top talent, then leaves it all behind for his ranch. But he knows there's something missing. He's not a father, and there's no immediate prospect of becoming one. By his own admission, he was a difficult son. Perhaps that would make him a better father? Who knows? But what strikes deeper is that Crowe, as rooted in family as he is, may never find out.

"I've been thinking about this for a long time," Crowe says. "I'd like to be a father. But it's not something I can do by myself. I'm a lot more patient now than before, which is perhaps good. But I'm counting the years: 'Even if I get married and have a baby tomorrow, I'm going to be 57 when the kid is 20.' Frankly, this is starting to drive me nuts."

Russell on Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind):
"It's great to work with a guy who understands the grave stones -- the resonance of silence. For me, I'd rather not say the page of dialogue if I can communicate the moment without words. That's where the power of a feature film comes from. When you take on such a complicated man and a story that could possibly confuse a regular audience, you need to have a consummate storyteller who's going to communicate all of that detail. He's a really great filmmaker. He's very confident, yet not demonstrative of his confidence. You see the extension of that confidence by how calm the set is. That's because he's prepared. He's done his work. Not all directors prepare at that level. There's a great deal of technical detail that you have to be familiar with in order to control the medium. It's a very elusive medium. It's the most expensive commercial art form that people work in. It's good to have thoughts and ideas and all of that stuff, but you have to be grounded technically in order to do the job at the highest level. He's just a good filmmaker.

"I think it's kind of funny that he has the whole world fooled that he's just a simple, easygoing guy. Where that's part of his nature, it's a very inefficient definition of Ron Howard. He's a very deep thinker. When I think back about making the movie, it's not about the complications with my character. It's about the pure and focused energy on the set. It allowed every performer in the movie to have a platform for experimentation and extend the boundaries that would normally confine them."

On his Oscar speech and the connection to his life and his career:
"I thought the most I'd ever achieve was maybe doing Arthur Miller at the Sydney Opera House, but I knew I wanted to be an actor. At first I wanted to be a performer. It took a while to find a medium that really suited me. I did a TV show at 6. I didn't do a feature film until I was 25. That was a 19-year apprenticeship. I could have gotten lost in my late teens like so many actors with a bit of potential do. I could have made the decision to make easy money. I could have done serial television. I could have made decisions that have a dollar figure attached, but would have no credibility or possibility of learning anything more about the art form. I made these decisions all my life, to the point where I led quite a bohemian life for a number of years that was the object of ridicule with my friends. They were doing things that gave them money, gave them a house, gave them a car, gave them security. But, to me, that was giving up far too much to have simple security. I didn't want to waste my youth conforming. I wanted to learn the art form and achieve. Not to achieve awards, but to do films that rock people in the cinema, whether it's cerebral or something like Romper Stomper, which just hits people at a visceral level. That film is 11 years old, and it's still one of the most intense 90 minutes you can spend watching a movie. The byproduct of the extension of doing important stories is that you have a social effect, without saying you're a crusader for whatever. You convey this on a deeper level, and it has a stronger resonance.

"It's all about decisions. Decisions to not take easy money. Decisions to not take a movie because it's a shoot on a desert island and you might have fun. Or not to take the film with the best-looking leading actress. All of these things have come up and I made decisions not to do them. Because of that, for a long time, I didn't have a car. I didn't have any kind of house. Shit, man, I bought my first house six years ago when I was in my 30s.

"But I didn't grow up in a house either."

On the kidnapping plot and the FBI agents:
"It was completely unexpected. The night before the Golden Globes, there were all of these strange messages on my answering phone: 'You got to meet up with these guys.' They were nice fellows. They explained the situation to me. It was generally not something I'd take seriously. But when I saw all of these people taking me that seriously, it affected my demeanor. I went to the Golden Globes knowing there were all of these blokes all around the place in tuxes. It was hard to relax. I wasn't able to explain it to anyone either because it wasn't a public matter. It only became public when someone made the mistake of trusting someone high in the British police force. That's when it made the newspapers. It disgusts me to this day that you can have a high-level conversation with someone in the police and they think 'Oh, good. This will bring me 20 pounds if I bring it to the newspapers."

On good friend Nicole Kidman:
"I've never worked with her. I met her through a couple good girlfriends of mine. She has a great sense of humor. She laughs easily. I like hanging out with people who laugh easily. Contrary to popular opinion, I like to be a little silly."

On Kevin Spacey (L.A. Confidential):
"He's the most charming man. He's the Oscar Wilde of our time. I only had one moment with him in that film and it's a great source of regret. I love spending time with him. He's always very open and effusive. His interest in you is genuine."

On Sharon Stone (Quick and the Dead):
"She was instrumental about me getting my first American job. Absolutely, without her support, it would not have happened. At the same time, however, was it really about me or her wanting to flex her producerial muscles? I don't want to sound ungallant about the situation. But I didn't find that in working with her, that we clicked on any other level."

On Will Smith (Ali):
"I met him in Michael Mann's (The Insider) office one day. He just walked in the door and I got this sense from him, this broader, spiritual thing, and that's something I gravitate toward."

Leonardo DiCaprio (Quick and the Dead):
"When we see each other now, it's a very pleasant experience. It's beyond his being smart. He has something good inside of him, mate, that you can't destroy with this business. He's gone from strength to strength as an actor."

On his own history with mathematics, and connection with John Nash:
"I had a bit of a hiccup in the third year of high school. The school I was at hired a non-English speaking Hungarian who was a professional of some great standing in Eastern Europe. But he hadn't learned the English language yet. He probably is a great asset to the teaching staff now, but we were his first class. That was when mathematics and I parted ways.

"There's a lot of mathematics in music. It's all in groups of eight, mate, y'know. The one thing that I may have in common with John is that the subject matter I do know, the driving part of my life, my work life, there's a point where structure and scaffolding is left behind and intuition takes over. That's the difference between John and the next 100 mathematicians. He's fully prepared to leave the scaffolding behind and get into the ether of the equation and find the answer quicker. The bane of his existence, however, is finding the proof."

Russell Crowe: In Print