Empire magazine

by Mark Dinning  ©April 2002

There are amazing interviews.

There are crazy stories.

And then there are two cities with....Russell Crowe.

The Man with Two Brains

In his latest movie, Russell Crowe plays a modern-day genius. A man at the very top of his chosen field, and yet battling both schizophrenia and his own inner demons. Oh, the irony. Forget what you thought you knew. And welcome to A (truly) Beautiful Mind.

Russell Crowe is eyeing Empire's tape recorder with some suspicion. It would seem that he is not yet ready to start. In fact, in answer to the opening enquiry: "Why are we here?" he paced the room, lugging on a cigarette, before slumping into a sofa and mumbling something along the lines of, "Well, I thought you wanted to be here." This atmosphere, frankly is a little ludicrous, considering that just over a month ago we spent two convivial days in each other's company and quite possibly appeared , to the outside world, to be the best of buddies.

Oh, how times change...

Clearly some history required. So here goes. On December 6, 2001, Empire met with Russell Crowe in London, to conduct an interview for a cover story. The meeting was a a raucous, bawdy affair, involving much hilarity, many tangents - literature, bisexuality, bottled water, tights -some 157 swear words, 11 cigarettes, (Empire 5 and Crowe six) and two pots of the Dorchester Hotel's finest English breakfast tea.

A few days later, Russell Crowe contacted Empire, via his publicist, to express some reservations. He had apparently, undergone something of a change of heart. Didn't think he 'd given an accurate account of himself. Wasn't happy. And, in turn, requested a second interview, to restore what he considered to be a much-needed sense of balance. And so, on February 10, 2002, Empire met with Russell Crowe in Paris, to conduct an interview for a cover story. We will say no more about the first interview at this point. But think about that. It's important. A busy actor, in full Oscar campaign mode no less, personally requests a second meeting because he 's worried about certain things he said in the last. Thought maybe he 'd been misunderstood, or even had misrepresented himself. Thought it was perhaps time to cast off the old image, to start afresh. Think about that. It's important. It could very well turn out to be the whole damn deal...

PARIS, FEBRUARY 2002
The Eiffel Tower and a vague Gauloises haze aside, there are two things worthy of note on the brief cab ride from Paris Nord Station to Le Hotel Bristol. First is a glimpse of the poster for the French release of A Beautiful Mind. On it, Russell Crowe's studious, strained, furrowed little brow stares out into the ether, just above the all-new, francais-friendly title: Un Homme D' Exception. Talk about being right on the money. Second is Gerome, our hyperkinetic, highly excitable driver who, in between puffs on a decidedly suspect roll-up and a positive melange of suicidal manoeuvring - "Fuck them" he shrieks, cutting up yet another Citroen, "fuck them all!" - drops the bombshell that he was in fact Russell's personal chauffeur for six days back in 1997, when he was in town to promote LA Confidential. Nothing new in that you may think. Almost every cab driver in every capital city has a tale to tell (most of them tall naturally) of some celebrity encounter. Well, not so this one. "Oh Christ, Gerome!" laughs Crowe later, earlier's tension having swiftly dissipated. "Sure I remember him. We had some fun, I can tell you. I tried to call him actually a couple of times, but could never get hold of him. He didn't give you a phone number by any chance, did he?"

Sadly no. But here's the point: How many of Crowe's contemporaries would embark on a 20-Heineken, five-strip club bender (Gerome's conservative estimate!) with a shady character they'd only just met? Seriously, think about it. It's important. Cruise? Hanks? Even the legendarily fun-lovin' Clooney? Not a chance. No way. Never.

Indeed, anyone in any doubt as to Russell Crowe's unique, caution-to-the-wind persona need consider no more than the following anecdote. We 're still back in Paris 1997, and Crowe and LA Confidential cohort Danny De Vito have just flown in from a busy promotional week in Cannes. Crowe, bear in mind, is relatively new to the Hollywood scene and has been told only that a friend of Danny's is cooking them a pasta dinner. arriving at a pokey cafe on the Left Bank of Seine, he is, therefore, somewhat surprised when it turns out that their chef for the evening is none other than Francis Ford Coppola.

While most people in these circumstances would quietly munch away on their penne and tomato sauce (delicious too, by all accounts) and perhaps nod and smile occasionally, Russell Crowe has other ideas. After all, as far as he is concerned, Francis Ford Coppola may be one of the  greatest directors the world has ever known, but he 's still just a man. "By the end of the evening Francis was in this really existentialist mode", Crowe laughs. "He was saying to me, 'I don't know whether I should be working less, or working more. I went through a period when I was obsessed with only doing the absolute best, and now I feel like I have to re-prove myself as a director, to prove to people that I can actually finish a film on schedule. Oh, I don't know. Should I be focusing on just the one opus, or should I be diversifying more?' I was like, 'Well, Frankie', because I 'd started calling him Frankie after a couple of bottles of wine, 'Frankie mate, the best thing to do is to die while you 're working. Just keep going and one day, somewhere in between 'action' and 'cut' you 'll just keel over.' He thought about that for a minute and said, 'Yeah man, that way they 'll never know if it was my greatest work or a pile of shit. I love the way you 're thinking...'"

This, of course, is precisely the sort of behaviour that has by turns marked Crowe out of the anodyne industry crowd, endeared him to it and, every once in a while, landed him firmly in the crapola. Frank, direct and unflinchingly honest, he's a fish out of water who just happens to have sprouted one mighty fine set of pins. He 's never been one for diplomacy. Doesn't see the point. Which, paradoxically, is why he remains such an enigma. Which is why the journalists, and the public respectively, only ever tend to see the one side of the Crowe coin. Which, more or less, is why we 're currently sipping Evian in a Paris suite, at eight o' clock, on a Sunday evening.

"The thing is," he says of requesting today's rematch, "that I have no perception of an outward self. I don't really give a fuck about what an image is supposed to be. I 'm just not that sort of bloke. I don't think in terms of how I 'm placed in the world and how I should be perceived, because I couldn't care less. And the last time we chatted, we started out on a 'blokey' note, so that's where we ended up going. You know, I 'm not one to steer the conversation towards my agenda. Mainly because I don't actually have one." He smiles. "I 'm not saying I 'm special, you understand. More that I'm kinda hard to translate".

That's a statement worth examining in detail. First part first. Is he special? Well, the biography certainly doesn't deviate too far from the standard issue:

- Russell Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 7, 1964.

- Mum, Jocelyn, and dad, Alex, were landlords-cum-caterers, meaning he spent much of his childhood either on a film set or in the pub. - So no change there.

- At only 15 years old, the young Crowe tried to embark on a career in music, billing himself as bizarre incarnation, Russ Le Roq.

- So confident was he of imminent pop idol status, Crowe launched the Le Roq Fan Club (with tongue firmly in cheek, he would like to stress), and produced a batch of 20 newsletters for the fans he felt sure would materialise any time soon.

- He still has 19 of them somewhere.

- Not long after, Le Roq finally conceded that he didn't really, and formed new outfit - and consider for a moment the eerie double prescience of this -Roman Antix, a band whose repertoire included the track I Wanna Be Like Marlon Brando.

- Aged 22, Crowe moved to Sydney and worked as a waiter, until he was sacked for handing an American customer, who had asked for a decaffeinated coffee, a mug of hot water and the line "Lady, when we decaffeinated something in Australia, we don't fuck around."

- There followed stints as a busker, horse wrangler and (seriously) bingo caller, before he landed the role of Frank N. Furter in a stage production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. - He looked "pretty damn fucking good" in the tights. As for being hard to translate, that's a tougher call. Armed with a sense of humour drier than your average Kalahari summer, his liberal use of irony, innuendo and rhythm steadfastly refuses to make the transition to black and white. As, he reckons, does his emphasis. "How can you deny yourself something that was absolute and passionate and gigantic? We fell in love. It happens -- thank God",  he said recently of Meg Ryan. "She 's a magnificent person, but that isn't enough. On the page, it won't be big enough to convey how huge and important that relationship was to me." 

Couple that with a tendency to speak his mind in snippets of dialogue that must give his publicist month-long migraines, and his notoriety is sealed. To wit:

Empire: Is there a particular type of role you 're attracted to?

RC: "No, I don't covet any particular role. I don't want to play Hamlet. I used to, but frankly I 've now seen too many fucking bad ones."

Empire: But is it fair to say there are sometimes parallels between yourself and your character?

RC: "Oh what, like in A Beautiful Mind? (laughs) What are you trying to get me to say? That I think I 'm fucking genius or something?"

Empire: Perhaps in terms of your field you are.

RC: (lifts his right buttock and carefully examines the crevice of his bottom) "Sorry mate, but is that your saliva?"

Schizophrenia: noun 1. Any of a group of psychotic disorders characterised by progressive deterioration of the personality, withdrawal from reality, hallucinations, delusions, social apathy, emotional instability. 2. (informal) Behaviour that appears to be motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles.

Now, far be it for us to suggest that Russell Crowe suffers from schizophrenia. Of course he doesn't. Nevertheless, his role as John Forbes Nash Jr. - the acclaimed, Nobel-prize winning, mathematical wunderkind who, as far back as the late 40s, redefined modern economic theory, despite suffering from the cruel disease - is significant on more than one level. Arguably it's his finest performance to date. But more on that later. For the moment, take just a minute to ponder the phrase: "behaviour that appears to be motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles." Think about that. It's important. We are, after all, talking about the man who, by his own admission, has "that natural dichotomy (he claims to be incredibly shy when he is not performing) that could actually drive you insane". Who himself concedes, "There are two voices in my head: one that's saying, 'You will not be able to achieve this,' and the other that's saying, 'Give it a shot, give it your best, see how it turns out.'" Well, God bless the pair of them, because it's precisely these diametrically opposing, frequently warring factions that enable Crowe to both physically embody Maximus and think like Jeffrey Wigand. Or, if you 'd prefer, enable him to break your heart as effortlessly as snap your neck. Body vs. mind. His nature vs. a 31-year nurturing in the business. 

Today he's a very different incarnation from the profane, argumentative Crowe Empire first encountered back in December ("Listen, you caught me at the end of a long fucking day") Fresh out of the bath, his long, lank hair slicked behind his ears, and equally fresh back from an extended Christmas break at home on the ranch with his family, he appears veritably re-charged, enhancing individual anecdotes with wild hand movements and impersonations of mixed success (his Danny DeVito, in particular could do with some work) Bucking the typical post-party season trend, he looks considerably leaner; toned, muscular and trim. Which, you could speculate, is a handy coincidence considering that later on in the month he's going to have to squeeze into last year's Oscar's tux. 

"Oh please," laughs Crowe. " People who say that I did A Beautiful Mind for the Oscar (He's nominated for a third successive year) really have no idea of the process. We did this because we wanted to challenge ourselves. You know, if you're in it for the glory then you're only going to disappoint yourself. There were a thousand ways we could have made a mess of this movie. So there were a lot of suits saying, " Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsman, Russell Crowe, these guys are all great, but God, do we wish they were all being really great doing something else together..."

The suits needn't have worried. From the second he read Goldsman's script and felt his ever-reliable goosebumps spring up his spine, Crowe's subconscious had made the decision to sign on, before even he realised it. " That tends to be the way it works," he says. " Subconsciously, I find myself making decisions on behalf of the character I'm reading, making notes on the script. And if I then feel "my goosebump factor", then it's a go. You know, this was a script about a schizophrenic mathematician. Was I looking for a script about a schizophrenic mathematician? Erm, no."

That said, there is an argument that Nash is the role Russell Crowe has been actively seeking out for some time. When asked, for example, by his previous agent, the Australian Shirley Pearce, about his future in Tinseltown, the conversation went as follows-

SP: "What is it you want to achieve?"

RC: " Well, have you seen Rain man?"

SP: "Yes"

RC: " Well that sort of work.."

SP: "What, like Tom Cruise?"

RC: "No, the other fella.."

And if the net result of A Beautiful Mind is ultimately no Rain Man, Crowe's performance comfortably outshines that of Dustin "3,284, Charlie Babbitt" Hoffman. Having only ever met the real Nash accidentally-he visited the set to try and explain some equations to a bewildered Ron Howard-Crowe deliberately sacrifices direct impersonation for an emotive, keenly researched characterisation. " I didn't want to meet Nash because I think we're all false witnesses to our own lives, and that his answers to my questions would have therefore been biased," he says. " And call it instinct, call it osmosis, call it whatever the fuck you want, but it's when you apply that approach that authenticity truly comes. All the flotsam and jetsam just drops away."

That Crowe should himself raise the issue of authenticity is symptomatic of some of the criticism that has been levelled at the project. the point though, he feels, is that, yes, certain aspects of Nash's life have been airbrushed, but for valid reason. " It's about taking an overview," he says. " And fine, so Sylvia Nasar (whose original best-seller the film is based upon) raised the question of Nash's possible bisexuality. And certainly if you are that spectacularly unsuccessful with women, maybe it's just that they aren't for you. But we certainly hint at it. I mean, watch the movie-half the time I'm eyeing up other guys in the corridor! Besides, c'mon, moviemaking is very Freudian. Any little gesture is a stone into a pond, mate. There's a future resonance at play here. So our level of sensitivity to the bisexual aspect should be applauded, not machine-gunned."

Whatever the consequent hoopla, one thing is not debatable: Crowe's Best Actor Golden Globe, as well as his almost guaranteed Oscar, are deserved plaudits. Indeed, whilst certain quarters appear to be under the impression that Russell Crowe MegaStar (TM) appeared from nowhere, thrust under the spotlight solely on the basis of the zeitgeist-busting behemoth that was Gladiator, they couldn't be further from the truth. His status at the top of the pile being instead the product of unstinting dedication and "more than a little hard fucking work."

There, he's said it. He's not apologising for it, and to be perfectly honest, he's not telling us anything we didn't already know, but Russell Crowe has said it. He can, all said and done, be a little difficult to work with. But just think of the results...

"Working with Michael (Mann, on The Insider) was a huge learning curve," says Crowe . "I remember, the first shot we did was of me walking through a doorway. Seventeen takes it took. And two days later we re-shot it. Eventually I was like: Michael , don't spend the first ten takes looking at the fucking shadow on the wall. Don't even call me until you've worked out where the fucking shadow is. Don't waste this stuff, because I'm working from take one. I don't care who you've worked with before, mate, I don't need a warm-up. I'm ready. And if we go into double figures, then someone's gonna have to fucking die.." I think I actually loosened him up a little, because later he said of me, and I'm not blowing my own trumpet, " Alright you've got the best Ferrari on the market. So what are you gonna do? Are you going to leave it in the garage or are you gonna get in and drive it?"

And then, of course, there was the slight matter of one Maximus Decimus Meridius. " When Ridley realised just how much he could get from me, he was like, Whoa...!" says an on-a-roll Crowe. " he realised that he could have as much fun with me as he wanted, because there's no level of anything that I can't go to. There's nothing I can't do. So when someone flies in and suggests some sort of happy ending, I feel I have to take a stand and make sure it's not going to end up as a fucking grape-chewing fucking toga party. I mean, c'mon, Maximus has to die, right? What's he going to do if he doesn't? Open a pizza parlour outside the Coliseum and sell fucking autographs?"

Russell Crowe leans back in his chair, fully aware of the arrogance of what he's just uttered, and equally determined not to take it back. Why should he, to be fair? Is he wrong? " No, but it's fair to say that my mouth can sometimes get me into trouble." he says. " But pretty much everything I do is about me taking that extra breath, facing my fears, facing my demons. I'm not playing to the wider house, man. And I never will. I don't want to make common denominator movies and I don't have any problems with saying that I couldn't give a fuck about that kind of filmmaking. Cinema is the most elusive medium, and I've seen some really fucking smart guys come totally undone by it." He smiles. " Will it undo me? Who fucking knows? I just know that I'll keep on doing it as long as I feel I've still got something to contribute. In a nutshell, mate: Rock on, brother! Rock on!" Likewise, sunshine. Likewise. 

 (Thanks to Darcy for providing this article)