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diversions
online-extra
Crowe not as
difficult as he wants you to believe
By Alex Roman
Photos by Eli Reed, courtesy of Universal Studios
Daily Forty-Niner
Russell Crowe steps
into The Burton Room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles,
wearing a Red button-up shirt and blue jeans and carrying
his cigarettes and a plate for his ashes. Crowe also brings
with him a reputation, and the next thirty minutes that he
spends answering questions reveals much about the fine line
between truth and reality.
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Mathematical
genius John Forbes Nash, Jr. (RUSSELL CROWE) learms
about love from MIT physics student Alicia Larde (JENNIFER
CONNELLY).
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"I think that
it's a romantic notion to think there is a connection between
madness and genius," explains Crowe when asked if he's
ever crossed that line. "I think that like everybody
else, I've had my moments. But, in the true sense in terms
of sanity and insanity, no, I think it kind of cheapens the
seriousness of the disease to even go that sort of area."
Madness and genius
are two words used most often to describe Crowe, the man and
his work. The topic comes up however in reference to his newest
film "A Beautiful Mind," which is the story of John
Forbes Nash, a Nobel Prize winner and certified schizophrenic.
Like his character
in the film, Crowe's persona has been a bit schizophrenic.
He has received the tag of being difficult on the set and
has spent much time in the tabloids for his difficulties off
the set.
"He was really
great for us and I say that pridefully and honestly,"
says the film's producer Brian Grazer. "He was great
with us and worked incredibly hard and got so involved in
the character, but in a way that was cool."
Crowe offers very
little in defending his reputation and more interestingly
doesn't seem to care.
"I don't think
that I'm misunderstood, but I definitely think I'm misconstrued,"
he says in his own defense. "I think it's very easy to
offend people with the truth, for some reason."
Truth is what Crowe
seems to be all about. He also seems like a man of very few
words. When asked to repeat a story about the first time he
met Nash, he does so reluctantly. This reluctance would resurface
throughout the interview, and in fact there are a couple of
times where he downright refuses to answer a question that
is asked of him.
When one journalist
presses him about his answer to a particular question, Crowe
responds, "I know what your thinking mate...NEXT!"
Crowe has been
in the acting game for quite a while even though he has only
recently become the darling of the American film world, which
culminated with his Oscar Award winning performance in "Gladiator."
Before his Oscar,
Crowe cut his teeth in films like "Romper Stomper,"
and the "Quick and the Dead," before jumping to
more mainstream films as "L.A. Confidential" and
"The Insider."
"When I was
a young fella, I never imagined that I would work in feature
films," says Crowe. I knew that I wanted to be an actor
from a quite a young age, but I also knew that I wanted to
write and songs and I just wanted to explore performance in
general, which I went ahead and did.
"Once I was
on a set and I was performing a character, I noticed the subtlety
of performance on a camera as opposed to a stage and I realized
how comfortable I felt then it was a revelation to me. I found
a medium which I was truly comfortable in and was absolutely
expandable as long as I remained committed to it on a deeper
level and made the decisions that respected the medium."
The medium has
definitely been respected by Crowe. The $15 million that he
received for "A Beautiful Mind" tripled the $5 million
that he received for "Gladiator." Since wining the
Oscar, he is also able to pick and choose his roles and now
gets to work with cream of the crop directors like "Mind's"
Ron Howard.
Despite all the
talk of Crowe's difficulties, Howard, like Brian Grazer, has
nothing but nice things to say of his experience with Crowe.
In fact, Howard seems impressed not only with Crowe's work
but his preparation.
"Russell does
a lot of homework and a lot of preparation and then he sort
of throws that out," says Howard. "It's not willy
nilly like suddenly he's going to do something altogether
different, but now he's going to start working from the inside
out. So all the preparation is outside in and on the day of
shooting it's inside out."
Despite an Oscar
and the world at his fingertips, Crowe still seems uneasy
with his success. Particularly when he takes into account
the reason why he is famous.
"I think that
the star system is a little bit out of control, in terms of
the emphasis on the thing that I do for a living," says
Crowe. "I do wish that it was seen more in context a
lot of the time and the fact that I'm an actor, doesn't mean
that I'm a spokesperson for anything."
With that, Crowe
is done. He ends the interview with a sigh of relief. After
seeming somewhat uncomfortable at times and bordering on confrontational,
he stands, smiles and begins to sign autographs and have leisurely
conversations with people around him. He no longer seems difficult,
just normal.
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