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Home , Romper Stomper, Russell Crowe

CROWE’SWE’S NEST A genius on screen, but maligned for loutish behaviour off it, is a man who looks back in anger, but mellows when it comes to wife Danielle and his soon-to-be-born son, writes DAVID LESER.

So, here he is. Russell Crowe. Beyond the the brooding, unshaven figure in a tracksuit those characters, gay plumber included. hype and the headlines, coiled tightly in his in front of you bears any resemblance to “There’s part of me that is a gay seat, head buried in his hands, occasionally the alpha male who seems to fight his way plumber,” he says with deadpan delivery. laughing like a little boy, but talking, always so regularly out of the front pages of the “I love laying pipe ... Excuse me, bad talking, and then occasionally looking up world’s newspapers. gag, not for the The Women’s Weekly.” at you with those eyes of his, those famous It’s a difficult call. We often believe what Okay, but what about the rest? What steel blue arrowheads that might easily we read, and yet here he is in the flesh about the man behind the characters, the pass for weapons of war. giving you all the reasons why it’s as crazy one who allegedly starts a brawl outside This is the man some people like to call to believe these stories as it is to believe a hotel four years ago, where the drunken lout, the foul-tempered prat, that he is, well, Maximus himself. he is seen on four separate video cameras the insecure punk who leaves vapour trails “Do I feel I need to explain myself at verbally abusing two young women, biting of enmity in his wake, but who also brings any stage?” he asks rhetorically and with a club patron on the neck and throwing a to the screen such boiling, watchable a world-weary sigh, a few minutes into our punch at his brother? Did the cameras lie? genius that he is now regarded as one of interview in a hotel room. “Well, Did his accusers? the world’s finest actors. this is the explanation, folks. I’m an actor. And then there’s the incident at the If truth be known, it’s a slightly surreal I play roles. You go to the cinema, you pay BAFTA awards ceremony night in feeling being in his presence. One part of your money. The more effort I put in ... in February 2002, where he reportedly you is programmed not to see the real basic principles of mathematics, possibly pinned a television executive against a person at all, rather just the characters even gravity ... you have a better experience wall because he had the audacity to cut he’s brought to life for our entertainment: in the cinema. 50 seconds from his best actor (for the neo-Nazi skinhead (), “And all I’m doing is telling a story. I’m Gladiator) acceptance speech? True, he the gay plumber (The Sum of Us), the not going to take that character off the later apologised to the executive, but was brutal cop (LA Confidential), the hulking screen and walk up and down the street it genuine remorse or was it the whistleblower (The Insider), the Roman as that character. So, to meet me, you may behaviour of a man who realised general (Gladiator), the SAS soldier (Proof experience some disappointment. There’s he might have just blown his of Life), the brilliant, schizophrenic maths nothing I can do about that. You can’t expect chance for a second professor (A Beautiful Mind), and now, in me to apologise if other people take that consecutive Oscar (for Russell his most recent incarnation, the British character more seriously than the person A Beautiful Mind)? Crowe, 39, a 18th century sea captain (Master and performing it.” And then there is consummate Commander: The Far Side of the World). So that clears that up. Russell Crowe, the scuffle in the actor and And while part of you is going through 39, is not, repeat not, any of his London restaurant a man who this rollcall of stellar performances, another characters, although everything he has in November of that is often ▲

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIM BAUER. TIM BAUER. BY PHOTOGRAPHY part of you is trying to figure out whether ever experienced in his life has informed year, when he misunderstood.

48 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003 apparently hurled a racial taunt at the said that, I’m not a malicious person. I a kookaburra visiting him before his he was 16, he’d Russell and New Zealand Warriors football club don’t view life with a great deal of grandfather’s death 14 years ago, he adopted the stage Danielle owner, Eric Watson, before punching negativity. I don’t think anybody owes responds warily. name Russ Le Roq Spencer after him twice in the face. (Watson retaliated me anything ... “You’re writing for The Australian and penned his first their wedding by knocking Crowe to the ground with a “But if you’ve got photographers up Women’s Weekly, right? Well ... the single, I Wanna Be on April 7 well aimed jab.) your arse most days of the week of medium of that kind of magazine will not Like . It this year. Are these incidents the mark of the your life, what are you supposed to do? allow you to express the fact that you was a spectacular flop. man, or are they more the occasional [Does it mean] I can’t have a negative may believe there is something outside “I actually have two or mind explosions of a fiercely intelligent, conversation with a cab driver, for this human existence that you don’t three of the worst recordings highly ambitious, but sometimes deeply example, because he might ring a understand, and you won’t be able to in the history of the New Zealand insecure, individual still coming to terms newspaper and tell on me? If [he’s] a s**t, understand, but you’re getting clues to. music industry,” he said in another with his mega celebrity status? f***ing driver and [he’s] driving me “[You might] have great intentions of typically self-deprecating aside. “So I’ve Well, to try and find out all one can around in a cab I’m going to tell [him]. treating this as a serious subject matter ... got that whole bottom end covered.” really do is keep an open mind, ask the “I can [be having] a conversation but by the time it’s in a British tabloid Although he had significant success questions and hope like hell the interview with somebody that I’ve known 20 years [it looks like] I talk to birds.” in musicals such as Grease and The doesn’t end before it begins. ago and they can be recounting a story Russell eventually relents on this point Rocky Horror Show, it wasn’t until he Do you ever recognise yourself in the of something we supposedly did together, when I insist that his comments will be was 25 that he landed his first lead stories that are written about you, I venture and I can be sitting there and their recorded faithfully and fairly. role in a film, The Crossing, playing at the outset? memory splits off from reality and they “Okay, well, I’ll tell you exactly the opposite the woman he would later “Very seldom,” Russell replies, taking start relating things to me that they would situation. I’m in my apartment in marry, Danielle Spencer. a deep drag on a cigarette. “Every now have told at dinner parties over and Woollahra [in 1989] ... and I was in the “[That’s] a 19-year apprenticeship,” and then someone will print a complete over again. kitchen and I had the window open. Five he tells me now, “and 19 years of ‘No quote which will make me laugh, when I “And as things have progressed in my storeys up and a kookaburra just landed mate, you’re not good enough. Don’t like think about it ... fun to actually say that ... career or whatever, they’ve added a little on the windowsill. I looked at it and it your hairdo. You’re the wrong height.’ my sense of humour can be a little sharp bit of information here or there to spice looked at me. We were this far apart. That None of the things that are relevant to at times and it’s possibly most sharp when it up. And I’d be sitting there listening had never happened to me before and the character or the possibility of I talk about myself in terms of my self- to it going, ‘I’m actually here now, this it wasn’t scared of me. I felt it had playing characters.” deprecating sense of humour. isn’t the dinner party. This is you and me, something to communicate to me, so I This smouldering anger at being “Somebody asked me about playing right, and now it’s very funny that you’ve just looked at it for a second and I knew passed over for nearly two decades is an the role of a captain [in Master and related that [story] ... but it didn’t happen that my grandfather [ Wemyss] was important clue to understanding Russell Commander] and I said, ‘It’s going to [like that]’. dead. I just knew it right then.” Crowe, as is the fact that – by his own be very difficult to walk away from 70 or “So you get a lot of that. And oddly It was a visitation? “Yeah ... and when admission – he often felt misunderstood 80 [cast and crew members] saying, enough, I get it from my own family. that thought had come into my mind, the while growing up. At school he won ‘Good morning, Sir’. And that gets played Every now and then I will catch my phone rang and it was my mother – prizes for English and history, but they out as some kind of giant egotist and brother [Terry] telling a story and [I’ll say probably 10 or 15 minutes later – I said to never seemed to count for much when that’s not the reality of where it was to him], ‘You know you just told that story. her, ‘Is Stan dead?’ And she said, ‘Yes’.” compared to his alleged behaviour. coming from.” That was you’. And [he’ll reply], ‘Yeah ... For Russell this was evidence of “Being unfairly accused ... dates all the What about incidents such as the but it’s much more fun if I say it’s you’. life’s deeper mysteries communicating way back to primary school,” he says. one in the London restaurant? I ask “[So] if you’re telling a story about themselves to him in subtle, but powerful “There was an incident that happened at shortly afterwards. “I haven’t a situation that has happened in my life ... ways. Only trouble is, how do you talk about [Sydney’s] Vaucluse Public, which had mentioned that.” for a start, you can’t tell it from the these things without being misconstrued? nothing to do with me, but I was blamed No, I know ...? “And I’m not perspective [of me] if it’s something “Whatever I say ... the fact that I am for. And I remember being punished for going to. I’m not going to that’s happened to me ... because you’re open about these things makes me such it and it turned me and my attitudes answer your question. not me.” an easy target,” he says. towards headmasters and teachers.” IF THERE’S A PROBLEM, THAT’S WHERE IT IS – MY WILLINGNESS TO GIVE MY OPINION and my willingness to respond in any kind of situation with what I feel at the time.

“All I can say, mate, is Russell has delivered these remarks “We could muse for hours, but all I’m That’s where the problem lies. I’m not show business. His maternal grandfather, The official school history of his old Mt that people are far more about an hour into what will end up being doing is digging a deeper hole. Forgive me faking it and I don’t put it with a pretty Stan Wemyss, had been an award- Roskill Grammar School in Auckland is a aware of me when I go into a a three-hour conversation. During this for being a little overprotective, but the bow because somebody else needs it winning cinematographer during World case in point. “If I hadn’t gone on to do room than I’ve ever been aware time, we will find ourselves discussing thing is, right here I am saying I am that way.” War II and his parents, Alex and Jocelyn, what I do ... [nobody at that school] would of myself. If I’m in a restaurant, I’m everything from his latest - overprotective and I’m telling you that these ● ● ● ● ● ● were, for much of his early years, set remember me from a bar of soap. But usually there to eat. Very simple. If I’m directed film to various aspects of male subject matters are not good subject caterers in film and television. they’re telling a story – and this is in the walking down the street, I’m probably friendship, love, ambition, the importance matters for me to talk to you about in RUSSELL CROWE’S AMBITION to be an Born in New Zealand in 1964, Crowe official history of the school – where I’d going somewhere. Things get applied to of family and the role of culture and an interview because of the target [that actor was palpable even as a young boy. moved with his family to Australia in become so unpopular with the junior who you are and what your intentions are. spirituality in one’s life. I become]. As he once commented, “I would look at 1970, where, at the age of six, he scored school that at one fundraising meeting it How are you supposed to combat that? Each topic holds its own fascination – and “But I haven’t stopped talking. And the 28-year-old guy playing the war his first acting job in the Australian was voted that I should be chained up How are you supposed to combat people its own potential for misunderstanding. that, mate, is the problem. If there’s a veteran in a film and tell my parents, ‘I television series . At 12, he and led around the school doing a being able to print things with impunity And Russell has been hard-wired to problem, that’s where it is – my don’t know why the director doesn’t see appeared in . In the series of unpleasant tasks in front of a and say whatever the hell it is they want expect the latter, especially from willingness to give my opinion and my me in that role. I might be a little short, interim, he acquired the first of many baying crowd. to say about you. journalists. When I ask him, for example, willingness to respond in any kind of but I can do it’.” guitars, thus giving expression to his “[And I’m thinking], ‘What f***ing planet ▲

““Now, I’m no choirboy ... but having to confirm a story that I’d heard about situation with what I feel at the time. AAP/JIM LEE. He knew instinctively he was born for other great passion – music. By the time are you on. It never f***ing happened

50 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003 51 swallowed up by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in Europe and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.” In that sense, he is the ultimate Antipodean Male, a man who hates pretence, bridles at authority, hides his genuine warmth and softness under a tough exterior and revels in the company of his fellow man, particularly those from his beloved South Sydney team. Earlier this year, Russell caused an estimated $20,000 damage (which he paid for) at the luxury W Hotel in Sydney, after he and the South Sydney first- grade team decided to play a game of football in the restaurant after dinner. On one level, it was sheer, drunken recklessness. On another, it was probably the most astute thing anyone had done for the hapless bottom-of-the table team I’D MOVE TO IF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND were swallowed up by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in Europe.”

[and yet] it’s in the f***ing instructions from his friend Richard Tognetti, that year – get them drunk mid-week book. It’s in the history of the the artistic director of the Australian to remind them that it was, after all, only school. Chamber Orchestra. a game. “As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Biography “I made a pact with myself,” Russell The following Saturday, the team is evil’. People from outside somebody says, “that I couldn’t possibly play a man trounced the far more fancied else’s life can’t describe what that who played the violin without knowing Storm, after receiving an inspirational person’s life was.” in my heart that I could truthfully make half-time talk from Crowe, which included ● ● ● ● ● ● a beautiful sound on the instrument. him drinking an imaginary glass of And there began a long dance with a very Bookers Bourbon to their health. “My TWO YEARS AFTER WINNING his first harsh mistress.” message to them was don’t forget to lead role in The Crossing, Russell Crowe’s Tognetti is full of praise for what Russell enjoy yourself.” simmering displeasure with the world accomplished. “It is hard to play the It’s a message Russell might well have was perfectly parlayed into the role of violin,” he says. “It is one of the hardest been reminding himself of in the wake of “Hando, the vicious skinhead in Geoffrey things you can do ... it’s like learning a all the bad boy publicity last year. Wright’s movie, Romper Stomper. Chinese dialect. And so, given that, he did Joy comes from the bonds of Although the movie was condemned an astonishing job ... especially as he’d friendship. It comes from reflective time by, amongst others, then Australian Prime been holding a sword all day.” on his farm, at Nana Glen, in the hills Minister Paul Keating as “morally bankrupt”, Sex appeal and talent aside, what has behind Coffs Harbour. It comes from the American actress, , continued to make Russell Crowe such a opening a new script and smelling the found Russell’s performance so electrifying compelling figure – to film-makers and pages. It comes from nailing the character she delayed production on the film The the movie-going public alike – is the and from completing the film. Quick and the Dead in order to get him to whiff of danger that has constantly And it most definitely comes from “a play opposite her. surrounded him. lazy day with the wife doing whatever you “Russell Crowe is the sexiest guy It’s not just the previously mentioned want to do”. working in movies today,” she declared. public brawls or the fact that he’s been In April this year, Russell married He was also indisputably one of the known to tell American producers where singer/actor Danielle Spencer in a most talented. Although never formally to shove their budgets – especially if they ceremony at Nana Glen. Next schooled as an actor, he made the craft don’t like his accent – or that in real life month will see the birth of look effortless, even when displaying skills he charms leading ladies () their first child, a son, for which he had no previous training. away from their leading men (Dennis and you can actually Two-year-old In his latest film, Peter Weir’s Master Quaid) – as he did a few years ago. It’s hear the pleasure from Russell in New and Commander, Russell’s character, the that he genuinely seems the antithesis of these developments Zealand in 18th century naval sea captain, Jack the manufactured, overly glamourised in his lilting, smoke- 1966, before Aubrey, is the possessor of an improbable star. cured voice. his family talent: he plays the violin. For that reason, “I’d move to Los Angeles,” he once “When Danni settled in ▲

APL SERGE TOMANN. TOMANN. APL SERGE Russell decided that he would take violin said, “if Australia and New Zealand were and I came back Australia.

52 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003 is patiently waiting In his latest to go home. film, Master and Inside, Russell is Commander, still talking, still Russell plays letting the light in an 18th-century on what it means to sea captain. be Russell Crowe. Sure there’s the incredible job and the homes and the wife and the pay packet ($20million for the last film). But there’s also the rumour mill, which just keeps churning every day. “Every f***ing day,” he says, “there’s 15, 20 articles or more around the world, which are just rubbish, you know. ‘Russell was looking at real estate, I don’t know, in Noosa Heads. Russell has bought a castle in Armidale. Russell owns shares in a winery in Tasmania.’ “What the f*** are you people talking THERE’S A SOCIETAL THOUGHT PROCESS THAT THE ANGRY MAN IS GUILTY. I tell you what, ladies and gentleman, that’s a lie.”

together as adults ... when [to Darcy’s restaurant in Sydney] and I’ll about? These are stories that are she attended the Academy see if that’s the right moment. printed in newspapers by people calling Awards in 2001 ... it just felt really “It was the end of dinner and themselves journalists.” good. We weren’t boyfriend and everything was cleared up, and there was And we wonder why Russell Crowe girlfriend. She just came as my mate to go nobody else around and I just started gets angry. Not because he’s done to the big do. talking about, you know, the same sort of anything wrong, he says. To the contrary, “But if you ever see footage of that conversation we had had many times – because he hasn’t. He’s just been moment, even though I’m completely about how much I loved her and how constantly hounded and unfairly accused, gobsmacked [that I won for Gladiator] ... much I liked being with her, and it just like in the old days at school. and it took me a long time to get out of my went from there.” “There’s a societal thought process chair and everything, before I went up on As for becoming a father, Russell is that the angry man is guilty,” he says. “I stage, I turned to her and I bent down on determined to ensure he gets the right tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, “her level, because she was sitting in the balance between the crazy, peripatetic that’s a lie. That’s absolute rubbish. chair, and I said, ‘This is because you’re demands of his working life and those of “The guy that can keep calm when here’. And I gave her a kiss and then went his family. he’s been accused of all and sundry is up on stage, and made a speech ... “For the next five years,” he says, “I more than likely lying to you. And if “I don’t know about soul mate and think it’s a matter of working harder there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to get stuff. I am my own person and I don’t because I want to be the bloke who picks any truthful, decent man to stand up for know what that means to somebody else up my son from school. I want to drop him himself, it’s when people are accusing who’s reading it. But it feels to me that off in the morning and pick him up at the him of something falsely.” when the person you’re with makes you end of the day. Russell Crowe is a complex man. more thoughtful, gives you an intellectual “I’ve got a friend whose son sometimes He’s combustible, loyal, funny, generous foil that is without restriction to discuss goes to a rural school, sometimes goes to a fault and possessed of a furious, things, and allows your imagination to to a city school and sometimes goes roaming intelligence. wander [then] this is beginning to be correspondence, depending on what the Early on in his career, he worked out what I suppose soul mate means. situation is. that he didn’t necessarily have to love his “But I decided I was going to marry “But the bottom line is you’ve never characters to play them well. He saw that Danni a long time ago. It’s got nothing to do seen a more balanced and loved child loving them too much could blind him to with England or restaurants ... I just didn’t than that little fella. Really ... continuity in their faults, thereby robbing them of their want to ask her when I thought she might a kid’s life has little to do with geography essential, flawed humanity. have more than one answer in mind ... and far more to do with the attention of “In my job,” Russell says, “it’s the “I had already been hanging out with his parents.” faults that make it interesting.” her for quite a while by that stage, with ● ● ● ● ● ● As it does in real life, too. W the ring in my pocket, wondering, you Master and Commander: The Far Side of the know, is this the right moment? And it just OUTSIDE THE HOTEL, the Sydney light World will be released in cinemas around so happened that I thought, ‘Well, let’s go has faded and Russell Crowe’s publicist Australia on December 4. HEADPRESS

54 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003 55 PULL-OUT QUOTES: “I’m an actor. I play roles. You go to the cinema, you pay your money. The more effort I put in ... you have a better experience in the cinema.”

“All I’m doing is telling a story. I’m not going to take that character off the screen and walk up and down the street ... So to meet me you may experience some disappointment.”

“All I can say, mate, is that people are far more aware of me when I go into a room than I’ve ever been aware of myself.”

“I actually have two or three of the worst recordings in the history of the New Zealand music industry. So I’ve got that whole bottom end covered.”

“When Danni and I came back together as adults ... when she attended the in 2001 ... it just felt really good. We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. She just came as my mate to go to the big do.”

“But I decided I was going to marry Danni a long time ago ... I just didn’t want to ask her when I thought she might have more than one answer in mind ...”

“It was the end of dinner and ... I just started talking about, you know, the same sort of conversation we had had many times - about how much I loved her and how much I liked being with her, and it just went from there.”

56 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – DECEMBER 2003