RUSSELL CROWE
by Rosa Montero
EL PAIS February 3, 2002

He comes into the small room like a buffalo, obviously tired of being cooped-up in a hotel all day, giving interviews. His brow is in a frown, ready for the attack; his body is stiffened by the effort of controlling his dislike with a certain measure of manners. I have to put a small tie microphone on him (although he is not wearing a tie of course, but a simple sweater and simple jeans), but he snatches it out of my hands and puts it on himself. He doesn't say anything, but it's clear he doesn't want to be touched. He doesn't want you to come near. He sits rigidly down on a sofa and there is one available next to him, which is the one I would have used with any other interview, because I like to be near the tape recorder, to be able to check on it. But Russell Crowe's body language is emitting such powerful rejection signals that I don't even think of getting close; so I sit down opposite, as far as possible, and I would have liked to have gotten all the way to the back and plastered myself on the wall like a fly. He is a man of imposing presence, not only because he's tall and strong, but above all because of the raw energy that emanates from him, a potential electricity capable of melting high voltage towers as if they were candles. He is the kind of person that cannot go unnoticed and who changes the atmosphere of any place they come into, as if they'd rarified the air or set it on fire. I tell him that I liked his movie and his performance very much and he answers with a stiff "thank you, madam," as conventional and fastidiously polite as a child's words to a school teachr. If he could, I'm sure he would leave, running.

Watching "A Beautiful Mind," I thought that the characters in your best movies are all trapped: the cop in "L.A. Confidential" was trapped by his past; the gladiator by an atrocious existence from which he wanted to escape; "The Insider" by a moral conflict... It's life as a trap, and this latest character is much more trapped than any other because he is a prisoner of his body and his mind.

You can also view the movie from a different angle and say that it's a story of survival, about the incredible capacity of human beings to overcome even the most incredible odds.

Yes, it's a story of survival, of course, and besides, that's how the promotional kits for the movie put it, but I wanted to take it further.

Movies and novels as well, usually focus on challenges, almost all of them are about the ways in which people overcome difficulties, about the struggle that makes them triumph over adversity.

Well, some movies and some novels do not tell about the triumph over adversity, but about defeat, about pure and harsh failure.

Yes, of course, I'm not saying that you always have to make movies about winners. I'm not interested in that at all because absolute winners do not exist; human beings are imperfect, ambiguous, we are full of contradictions. I want to make movies that reflect reality, that are true, that establish a real communication with the viewer, that tell stories in which people can recognize themselves. And nobody can recognize themselves in a winner. But you can recognize yourself in the struggle because all of life is a struggle. I'm not saying you aren't right in your observation about trapped characters; I'm saying that what interests me about them is the fight, not the trap.

Well, what is destructive is living a reality that you can't explain to others. Things that only you see, that only you know.

Are you a believer?

Yes. But I don't believe in a defined God nor in a specific religion or practice. What happens is that we don't know anything about life, our ignorance is enormous. Life, death, the world are a gigantic mystery and you live in such turmoil because of this mystery, that inevitably you fall on your knees and accept this ultimate idea of a God that can give sense to everything, or else the emptiness and the darkness will be unbearable, specially for the male mind.

Why for the male?

I have the impression that, in a way, women are more capable of living with this great emptiness, with that enigma, probably because of the fact of their reproduction capabilities. I don't know, we men are always looking for the meaning of things, we need many more certainties to live, we are compelled to action, we want to know, do, fix, control... That's why it's so disquieting to find ourselves in a world of which we don't know the answers.

Well, yes, it's true that in a way, you live other lives, but in a very concentrated way. It's like a brief journey into another existence.

And I understand that you also live that journey much more intensely than most actors. When you were filming "L.A. Confidential", the author, James Ellroy, who also wrote the script, told you that your character didn't drink and you spent five months and seven days without drinking, the time that took to film the movie, which was, apparently, a real sacrifice.

Without drinking beer. It was without drinking beer. I told Ellroy that Bud White the cop would surely have a beer with his colleagues after work, but he convinced me that he wouldn't. The character wasn't like that because White didn't want to socialize with his colleagues, he didn't want to shorten the distance between them; he was among them, pretending to be one of the guys, but deep down what propelled him was a revenge wish, which for him was something like a mission. He was an outsider and that is why he didn't have a social life. But he did drink the odd whiskey now and then, that's what Ellroy said to me. Bud drank whiskey when he was alone.

And you did allow yourself that in the five months.

I assure you it's not a silly game that I played during the shoot, to see if Ellroy will allow me a drink or not... That trait was an essential part of the guy, it was one of his defining traits. You can't drink beer when that act alters the character in such a fundamental way.

You're right, but what amazes me is that you never drank a beer. I mean, the day's shoot was over, you went home and even then you wouldn't drink. You stayed inside of White.

But that is something natural. Let's say that you more or less keep the character in your head. But don't think that I'm one of those crazy actors that answer in the character's voice when people talk to them on the street, or that during the shoot they insist on being called with the character's name, or that only dress in the movie's clothes and so on..No, nothing like that. The only thing I do is try to maintain the right atmosphere day by day during all of the shoot. It's something subtle, something inner, it's like a kind of physical training. You have to fill yourself with the character's information and appropriate it, even subconsciously. And then, certain attitudes surface naturally and that makes things work better on the set. Of course nobody has to know if I drank a beer or not during the five months of shooting "L.A. Confidential," but the thing is, I have the impression that in the end, the effort shows.

(One of the people in charge of the press comes into the room, trying to cut me off beforehand (I'd been given half an hour, but during these marathon promotion junkets, they always try to steal some of your time), and Russell Crowe has turned and has barked something at her that I couldn't understand, but which sounds so definitive, that the girl apologizes and disappears, creeping around the corners.)

"Gladiator's" producer, Douglas Wick, says that you're your character's guardian and that you remain vigilant 24 hours a day... It seems a good simile, I can almost see you defending your characters' integrity at gun-point.

Wick said that because he put me in a position in which I had no choice but to act like a guardian. See, consider a story in which the character loses wife and child in a brutal manner and with them, he loses all interest in life, absolutely everything. In fact, he just yearns for death to be reunited with them and the only thing that keeps him alive is the desire for revenge. Well, Wick wanted that a man like that had a love scene with the Emperor's daughter. Do you think that's logical, that it's sensible, that it's believable? Of course it broke completely with the character's principles themselves, it destroyed his credibility, his continuity. I take this job very seriously. I think that if making movies makes any sense at all, it's because it aspires to that, making sense, because it's trying to explain something out of life, something that contains some truth, that has sincerity and cohesiveness. I was then forced to tell them that the scene that they wanted to shoot was totally wrong, that they were finishing off Maximus and the whole sense of the movie.

At least you stopped "Gladiator' from turning into a totally silly movie.

Well, it was logical. It would have been catastrophic for everyone. I told you that it's all about taking things seriously and assuming responsibility for your work. I do and there are a lot of other people who do as well, like Ridley Scott or Ron Howard. If everybody had the same sense for responsibility about what they do, things would be a lot easier in movies.

Anyway, I imagine that telling such a tremendous story as John Nash's, for instance, must be painful. Specially for you, since you get so much into your work. Aren't you sometimes afraid of accepting a role because of what you may suffer portraying it?

Well, it's a strange thing, difficult to explain. You see, naturally you never totally dissolve into the role. You always know that you're acting, because it's impossible to isolate yourself from your surroundings, from the cameras, the confusion always present on a set, the people, the make-up. Of course, sometimes it's a great effort, a tension that is sometimes painful, but you can also have a wonderful time shooting a movie, even if the role is tragic. For example, I had a great time shooting "Gladiator," aside from the problem of shooting a movie for which the script was being modified as we went, which was very complicated. But I had a lot of fun, everything was very exciting. I don't believe those stories of suffering. If everything is going well, it's great. When you get a scene in which everything went well, even if it's a very hard scene, it's exciting, exhilarating.

(The girl comes in again on tip-toe to kick me out, and Crowe tells her, this time politely, to leave, that we are not doing an interview anymore, that we are chatting, and not to come in again. I'm surprised that he says we're chatting because it seems that he really means it. That would indicate that Crowe is a reserved man who has a hard time opening up. He's not so stiff anymore, he doesn't emit that almost lethal rejection vibe; in fact, he has put his elbows on his knees and he keeps leaning forward, so as to shorten the distance between our seats, marking with his body the passion and energy with which he speaks.)

And tell me, why do you think that you have that reputation of being difficult?

I suppose it has something to do with what we were discussing before, with the fact that if you take this job seriously, that if you are responsible and demand the same responsibility from others. It's something that's not always common. And then there are also some disagreements with the press that came up because of a lack of preparation and a lack of respect that some journalists show. Sometimes they get here and they don't know anything, they haven't prepared at all and the only thing they do is ask you things like have you slept with so and so. The thing is that I have a rather direct personality and I also don't believe in social hypocrisy just to be polite and I don't see why I should respect those damn people who don't show any respect for me when asking something or approaching me.

Staying with your reputation, a few months ago, when you came to Spain to present "Proof of Life", in which you co-starred with Meg Ryan, the press said that you and the director, Taylor Hackford, weren't on speaking terms.

Hackford made a bad movie because of lack of responsibility, and to me, making a bad movie is just as exhausting and requires as much effort as making a good one. So let's say that from the beginning, I was upset, because I had invested so much work and I had exhausted myself just to make a movie that lacked sense and rigor. Hackford is a documentary director and he didn't know how to make feature movies, that was something that was over his head. And to make it worse, instead of accepting the fact, or learn from it, this man said during the press conference that what had ruined the movie had been the bad publicity generated by my relationship with Meg during the filming.

He said that?

He did! Right here in this hotel, during a press conference in front of more than 200 journalists. He had the cheek to say it. And to top it off, I arrived at this press conference later without knowing what he had said and I faced the rest of the conference ignorant of his offensive comment. So not only is he a bad director, I also think he is not a guy I can respect as a person. And I don't see why I should be polite to people who, like I said, do not deserve it.

Just a couple of questions more. is it true that you lost your front teeth playing rugby when you were ten and never had them fixed, and you went ahead with your career until you were 27 and, after several pictures, the director of "The Crossing" insisted that you had them fixed and even paid for the dentist from his own pocket?

Yes, it's true.

What a tough guy.

(Crowe laughs and his laughter lights up the room. His charm intoxicates, in the same way that his tension turned the air into something almost unbreathable before. It's that mercurial density he possesses, his toughness and his magnetism. Let's admit it openly, finally, just in case it's not sufficiently clear up until this point in the interview: his seduction capabilities are formidable. It's true that he prides himself in being sincere and direct to the point of crudeness, that he seems a little misanthropic, that he doesn't acquiesce, that sometimes he stings like a hedgehog; but we women usually have a fatal weakness for these handsome, clever and complicated guys. To sum things up: he's not a charming guy, but an irresistible one.)

Well, the truth is, I don't know very well why I was so stubborn about not fixing them. I think that at the beginning it was because it was something that had happened, I mean, something that had happened to me. In life, things like that happen, it was like losing a hand, you have to get used to life's losses and scars. Those broken teeth were part of who I was. But the funny thing was that I'd been acting in theater for 12 years, because back then I didn't think about becoming a movie actor, my ambition was to make a good career in theater, and I had been working, like I said, for many years with a broken mouth and I had even done some movies by the time I had the teeth fixed. And from then on, my movie career took off. Which doesn't say much for the movie industry. Of course. But later I thought about it a lot and I think it was a real blessing for me being scarred until I was 27, because that allowed me time to grow, to learn to act.

And you would have known success at a much earlier stage, possibly so early that you might not have been able to handle it properly?

Exactly. If I had had a good smile, I probably would have done a lot more TV at 18 or 19 and I would have turned into somebody famous or popular at an age in which you are too stupid to know how to differentiate between what is important and what is not. With teeth, my looks would have had too much weight and that would have been a disgrace for me. This way, things turned out the way they were supposed to be: I had a good head on my shoulders when everything turned up.

Speaking of that, about being able to differentiate what is really important, the first song that you recorded at 16, as a writer and singer, was called "I want to be like Marlon Brando". Now, after all this time, Brando's life doesn't seem to be specially happy or enviable.

No, he doesn't seem very happy. But you see, when I wrote that song, I hadn't seen any of Brando's movies. I wrote with a friend of mine in mind, who had a totally anachronistic existence: he wore 50's style shoes, he bought 50's cars, he wore 50's clothes... And the song was a joke, I never thought anybody would take it seriously, and when the guys at the record company told me that they were going to record it, I was totally surprised. I've seen Brando's work as a young man and he was a magnificent actor but, I also think that it's a great lesson, his life and his career are a great lesson for not starting to believe too much in your own talent. An actor has to fill himself with information; if you don't have that previous information work, simple talent won't help you understand the magical series of sounds that come out of your mouth when you play the part. And that is the question. I've made this movie, ABM, thinking about the musician Miles Davis, playing it like Miles Davis, in the sense that I filled myself with information so that I could be completely free when the moment came to act. Maybe there are other people who can make this job without investing all that effort previously, but tell me where they are, show them to me. Every actor and actress that I respect understand that acting is a job like any other. And that is not something negative.

No, of course not. I suppose that is what makes it more exciting.

Exactly. I'm not an actor that keeps control over his acting all the time, it's not that I'm playing in an outstanding way thanks to my art and my skill. No, in reality the opposite happens. Being an actor is about filling yourself with information and then letting loose. It's about being open. There are intense moments, interpretative achievements that you reach when you do exactly that which you are incapable of assuming intellectually. And that is where the wonder begins and that is where the true joy is: when you start acting and the character is flowing from a part of you that you don't know, whenever you act beyond your capabilities and knowledge.