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 Russell Crowe
Spotlight By: Michael Dance Russell Crowe is a busy man. “I’ve just been running around the five boroughs of New York chasing Denzel Washington, and that requires a little bit of effort,” he says of a movie he’s shooting at the moment. “The movie’s called American Gangster.” If all goes according to plan, he adds, it will be out sometime late next year. But already Crowe has refocused his attention to the matter at hand. “Yeah, so let’s talk about that movie next time, yes?” Next time it is. This time, the spotlight is on A Good Year, directed, like American Gangster, by Ridley Scott. It’s a departure for Scott: having long been known as a tempestuous Australian who slinks into difficult roles with chameleon-like acting ability, here he finds himself in what some might call a romantic comedy. He plays Max, a rich investment expert in London who is forced to go back to his recently-deceased uncle’s vineyard estate in Provence to sell the property. There, he reconnects with his past and finds love both in a woman and in the land. “If he asks me to jump off a cliff, jump off a cliff I will,” Crowe says of Scott, and it’s no surprise: Scott, after all, directed Crowe to a Best Actor Oscar in 2000’s Gladiator. “Ridley and I share a lot of common ground, we share a sense of humor, we share a work ethic, and I know from a performance point of view that whatever I come up with on camera, he’s going to capture. I trust him absolutely.” This doesn’t seem to be any interview platitude, either: the man clearly has done his homework concerning his director and friend’s professional life. “All the way back to The Duelists, his first film. I mean, he’s been making movies for a long time,” Crowe says. “Obviously I thought Alien was pretty scary, and I thought Blade Runner was a great experience, and working with him on Gladiator is a seminal thing in my life.” Gladiator was a turning point in Crowe’s career, the movie that turned him in to the leading-man star he is today. “We created something together in the trenches, despite the odds of budget, despite the studio heads—” and here he jumps into a hilariously nasally American accent – “saying, ‘no no no, we want a sex scene, you have to have a sex scene!’ Crowe is disdainful of the suits but laughs about the results. “I’m sorry boys, but it doesn’t suit the character. We can’t be avenging the death of the wife and child, and stop for a bit of nookie along the way. I’m very sorry, it’s not gonna happen.” It’s no coincidence that Crowe’s character in A Good Year, Max, shares his name with Crowe’s signature character, Maximus. He’s like the flipped side of the coin. “Max is a ... |
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