Today will end up being a good day for the Russell Crowe brand. Later in the evening, by following a stratospherically weird Ryan O'Neal on to the Late Late Show, the super-manly Australian will come across as an avatar of blokish normality.
All this despite the fact that he does not have a reputation for being the most easy-going of fellows. Russell is one of the few actors to have his own “altercations and controversies” section on Wikipedia. He threw a phone at that woman in that hotel. He had that altercation with that Bafta producer who cut out his tribute to Richard Harris. You know the score.
A fug of unfiltered masculinity greets me as I enter the posh Dublin hotel suite. Wearing a puffy jacket decorated with the logo of the rugby league team he co-owns, smoking Benson and Hedges with proud defiance, Russell crouches ready to spring. He didn’t stop for a pint in Drumcondra this time?
“It’s such a long day I have told everyone that there’s no time for that,” he rumbles. “And as this is the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival somebody will be flogging me their wares at some point. Ha ha.”
I can't cope. There's just too much chap in the room. I don't feel like a man any more. I feel like a teenage girl. I feel like the sort of teenage girl who likes princesses and finds SpongeBob too scary.
Let’s talk about Australia. That’s a safe subject. Then again, Crowe is as much a Kiwi as he is an Aussie. Born in Wellington nearly 51 years ago, he moved with his family to Australia when he was six and then moved back again eight years later. Is there a war going on within him? I know he supports the All Blacks. Listen to me, talking about “rugby” like a normal man.
“That never goes away,” he says of the All Blacks. “But the deeper I have got into my adulthood the more comfortable I am being Australian. Thirty-eight of my 50 years have been spent there. But they changed the laws on me, during the busiest period of my life – between 2001 an 2003 – so I haven’t got citizenship.”
A whisper of irony
But he’s Russell Crowe. How can he not be Australian? That’s like hearing that Foghorn Leghorn isn’t really a rooster.
“I have won the Federation Medal. I am a national treasure of Australia,” he says with what I choose to regard as a whisper of irony. He’s been on a stamp. Hasn’t he?
“That’s right I have been on a stamp. Apparently that’s illegal. But I’m stuck in this grey area. I regularly do things on behalf of the Australian government. They’re totally comfortable with me flogging things.”
We’re laughing about the bastards who won’t give him an Australian passport. This is great. I can feel a beard coming in. If this goes on, we might go out and shoot a wild animal together.
Before then, let's talk a little about his first film as director. The Water Diviner is a thumping yarn – loosely based on fact – concerning an Australian man who, in the aftermath of the Gallipoli catastrophe, sets out to recover the remains of his three sons from the battlefield.
We are about to reach the 100th anniversary of that awful slaughter. Why does it continue to occupy such a prominent place in the Australian psyche?
“It was the point at which the young nations of Australia and New Zealand were truly formed,” he says. “They’d sent troops abroad before – to the Boer War for example – but they’d been an extension of the British army.
“The Anzac corps was formed in 1914. By 1915, you have the volunteers on their way and it’s the first time Australian and New Zealand troops have gone to war under their own flag.” A thief in the right Crowe freely admits that, when embarking on the project, he was happy to steal from the many talented directors he has worked under: Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Ron Howard.
It's been a busy career. Crowe won an Oscar for Scott's Gladiator in 2001. He was terrific as big-tobacco whistleblower in Mann's The Insider. Recently, he helped Darren Aronofsky's Noah become an unexpected hit. Yet one gets the sense that, had things gone differently, he would have been as happy being a musician. He does still warble a bit.
“I’ve had a funny attitude to acting in my life,” he says. “The music stuff is a lot tougher. I remember six of us touring in a Toyota HiAce van. Three in the front and three in the back. I’d do a little bit of acting to help finance the tour.”
A spell touring in The Rocky Horror Show finally edged Crowe to commit to the stage.
“But the music is always in me. I’ll play you a few songs from my new album later if you like.”
Crowe had been at the acting lark for some time before he became properly famous. He did good work in Proof and Romper Stomper during the early 1990s, but it was not until LA Confidential, in 1997, that the wider world began to take notice. He was then 33.
“I made a deal with myself: if hadn’t achieved anything significant by 30 then I would give it up,” he says. “By then, in 1994, I had two Australian Academy Awards. I had won awards at the Seattle International Film Festival. I had been to Cannes. I’d worked in Canada So, by my 30th birthday, I could say that I’ve done well enough.”
Blowing smoke
Even great, great pals of Russell Crowe (people like me for example) would find it hard to argue that he is entirely unencumbered by ego. In the midst of a story about Michael Mann, he makes only the mildest apology before clarifying quite how brilliant that director thought the Australian.
“I am not blowing smoke up my own here, but Michael Mann put it in a very complimentary way. He said: when you wake up in the morning and you realise you have a Ferrari in the garage, you drive the Ferrari.”
(He’s the Ferrari, you understand. Other lesser actors are, I suppose, Ford Fiestas and Vauxhall hatchbacks.)
Oh well. The sparkling world of movies needs all sorts. It would be a less colourful place if every actor was as self-effacing as Bill Nighy or as shy as Ralph Fiennes.
Indeed, it is quite invigorating to hear Crowe gobbling up his own personal mythologies. He is a very persuasive salesman for himself. “I respect the gods of film,” he says. “I can read 50 scripts and not get a connection, no matter what the pedigree, no matter what the cheque.”
So he can’t be bought?
“I just can’t be bought. Have you seen me do any fucking commercials?” Well, if he had we probably wouldn’t have seen them. He would have done them in Japan as so many other movie stars do. Right?
“You’re being a bit abusive there,” he says as a froideur falls across our hitherto deep friendship. “I don’t do endorsements. If you hear me say: ‘I like Yorkshire Tea’ then that’s the truth. Nobody’s paying me.”
On my notes, I have written the phrase: "Fighting Round the World?" I wasn't quite sure if – given his reputation for prickliness – he would appreciate being reminded of the hilarious South Park parody devised when he was at his most brawly. A line is now drawn through that question and the notebook is being turned over.
We’re chums again. Soon we’re exchanging horror stories about passing our half-centuries. We chat about the undoubted advantages of accessing music digitally before putting on sad faces and reminiscing about the great days of the 12-inch record album.
“It’s funny. Being 47 was fine,” he says. “Then 48 came along and it felt lumpy. I remember coming back with my wife Danny – we’re now separated – from a premiere and she said: ‘It must be so hard to watch yourself age on screen.’ To that point, it had never crossed my mind.”
The PR lady is dragging me out, but Crowe won’t let me go. He promised to play me a new song and he insists on being good to his word. So, for five long minutes, I sit nodding to a rumbling ballad – dedicated to his son – hoping desperately that my face betrays no sign of rising social discomfort.
You can do that sort of thing if you’re Russell Crowe.
