Russell Crowe - The Hard-Ass
GQ's feature on the ten greatest actors of our generation leads with Wellington-born Russell Crowe and his passion for connecting emotionally with an audience. Does this peg him as a dinosaur? “In those respects—credibility, integrity for the work—absolutely. I don’t think there needs to be another bloke who wants to be a superhero. I think there needs to be more people who are prepared to do the nuts and bolts of the job emotionally, and to take people on those sort of journeys. I just did a movie about a boxer, and I’ve seen it, and I’ve seen its effect on people already, and this isn’t a movie with tricks. There’s no animated bits, no bits of cartoon, no utility belt, no laser guns. It’s just one bloke, you know? I mean, I’m 40 years old now, so to get in that sort of shape…. Jack Aubrey was 228 pounds, Jimmy the Boxer was 172. So there’s all the training up to the shoot, but then during the shoot you have to keep training. But I watch the film, and I see its effect on people, and I know that every one of those miles has something to do with that depth of connection.”
(28 February 2005)

Russ stands his ground
"I'd move to LA if Australia and NZ were swallowed up in a huge tidal wave." December cover feature by UK Vanity Fair finds Russell Crowe firmly rooted Down Under despite being one of Tinseltown's major players. VF: "Thanks to a considerable amount of native talent, a lot of hard work, and a shrewd eye for material, Crowe is one of the few real actors among the select group of Hollywood stars pulling down something in the neighbourhood of $20 million a picture [...] But for all his Hollywood pull, Crowe prefers to live here, the far side of the world indeed, at least as far as the movie business is concerned." Read a transcript of the article here.
(December 2003)

Gender studies 101
Guardian writer Julie Burchill questions Russell Crowe's status as "sole standard bearer" for old-school Hollywood hell-raising in the wake of his latest public brawl. Back in the bad old days, she notes, stars did without the "semi-official conga lines of minders-cum-hangers-on" upon which the modern day tough-guy depends. Fellow gender issues reporter Peter Bradshaw doesn't even believe in the bad boys of old. Crowe, he claims, is "just the latest in a line of posturing pugilists [using] drink and brawling to distract both us and himself from the fact that he does a girly-boy job"!
(15 November 2002)

Black Crowe
"I was a kid faced with adult fury. This is tattooed on my brain", recalls Russell Crowe in this Irish Independent interview about growing up in New Zealand as a 14 year-old part-time schoolboy, part-time bouncer. 
(9 March 2002)

Oscar double?
Russell Crowe earns his third consecutive Best Actor Oscar nomination for his depiction of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr in A Beautiful Mind. If he were to win, Crowe would join the elite company of Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks as the only men to scoop the best actor Oscar in consecutive years.
(13 February 2002)

Gladiator to Genius
Russell Crowe is tipped for repeat Oscar honours following his fantastic performance as mathematical genius John Forbes Nash Jr in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind.
(12 December 2001)

Russell cooking
Russell Crowe's Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts hots up Texas barbeque with proceeds going to the city's Settlement Home for troubled youth. As well as being a New Zealander and an Australian, Crowe has also been declared "an honorary Texan" by the mayor of Austin.
(23 June 2001)
  

Destiny
"From the beginning he was destined to be a star," says Martin Bedford, Russell Crowe's agent of 17 years.
(28 March 2001)
 

Everyone's Crowing
An examination post-golden Gladiator coverage on both sides of the Tasman.
(30 March 2001) 
 

Kiwi batter?
Will Russell Crowe step up to the crease for Somerset this season, or is it just that funny time of year?
(1 April 2001)
  

Russ of the jungle
Russell: Charismatic, attractive and talented, but also fearless, said Sharon Stone years back. He proves her right on the screen and in the jungles of Ecuador.
(3 March 2001)
 

Crowe's upward flight
Future films Flora Plum and John Nash biopic will "stretch  Crowe to show the extent of his capability and range".
(23 February 2001) 
 

Go Russell, go!
"What we do in life/echoes in eternity." Russell "Maximus" Crowe gets a second Best Actor nomination (last year was for The Insider), continuing a fine run of Wellington actors and filmmakers who have been nominated or won Oscars (Jane Campion, Anna Pacquin, Peter  Jackson, Fran Walsh, Andrew Niccol) 
(13 February 2001)

Romper Stomper
Crowe's "breakthrough film" released on DVD: "Crowe is electrifying as the brutal head of a group of neo-Nazi skinheads who harass the Vietnamese community in contemporary Melbourne".
(14 December 2000)

Proof of Life
The plot goes wobbly, but Russell Crowe is the man. Crowe is "a powerful screen presence, the sort of fellow every man wants to befriend and every woman wants to love": "the movie comes to life anytime Crowe is on screen," says LVSun, "It's his constant potential for righteous fury, mischief and unexpected sensitivity that makes him so magnetic," according to Salon, "Things went a little crazy on this one," says director Taylor Hackford in entertainmentnewsdaily, and "Crowe is simply the real deal" for The Times.
(December 2000)
 

Even better than the real thing: Gladiator's post-modern take on filming history
When Ridley Scott wanted to recreate the Colosseum he stayed well clear of Rome, preferring to leave the real Colosseum to the tourists. Instead he used computer imaging and sets in Malta and Surrey. The star, Russell Crowe, a New Zealander, best known for The Insider and LA Confidential, is keen to reassure Italians that he does value their history.
(4 May 2000)  

Russell reasserts his edge roots
"Hollywood is carving a bust for Crowe in the action-hero pantheon, but Crowe is keeping his distance. "I'd move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up by a huge tidal wave."
(May 2000)

Veni, Vidi, Vici
Russell Crowe's star-making turn reviewed in People, "Gladiator's pull is potent, thanks to the razzle-dazzle fight scenes (the opening battle rivals that in Saving Private Ryan) and a magnetic performance by Crowe (The Insider), who shows just the right combination of heart and brawn".
(May 2000)
 

Edge living: Roman style
From whistle-blower to tiger-slayer, countless billboards are proclaiming a new hero. But despite the many high-tech advances made since the earlier cinematic days of the wide-screen Roman Empire, at least one fact remains the same: heroes still get the stuffing beaten out of them. "Just a little bit, yeah," Crowe laughs.  "Just around the edges."
(4 May 2000)
  

"Round the horn if you dare"
Russell Crowe graces the cover of Time, prior to the release of his latest film, Peter Weir's acclaimed maritime epic, Master and Commander.  His edge? "Hanks, Cruise and ladies' champ Julia Roberts are the gracious wits audiences like to imagine themselves as, but they are also prisoners of their own goodwill, condemned to deliver endless variations on the same performance. Crowe can play anything because he has conditioned audiences to expect anything. He is smart enough to possibly be given credit for premeditating this eremitic media strategy; he is also obstreperous enough simply to hate having his privacy invaded.” Crowe masters kayaking on Sydney harbour's commanding views below. 
(2 November 2003)

A beautiful mind
Wellington-born Russell Crowe, who last year won an Oscar for his lead role in Gladiator, pulls off the second biggest win of his career - a Golden Globe for best actor, in A Beautiful Mind. Winning both these awards puts Crowe in the company of such superstars as Marlon Brando, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson. "G'day folks. How ya doin'?", he says on taking the platform to accept the award.
(20 January 2002)
  

The Crowe road to Oscar success?
Russell Crowe is named Actor of the Year by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for his lead role in A Beautiful Mind. Crowe has won the award for the last three years.
(15 January 2002)
           

Amazon Crowe
The "Delight-O-Meter" puts Gladiator at the top on Amazon.com.
(13 December 2000)
 

Sincere flattery
Gladiator's next move is into surround-screen IMAX theatres. In real life, Russell Crowe's "punchy" about the buzz he's generating. Crowe spent Halloween marvelling at imitators: "So many gladiators," he said of the Greenwich Village parade, including "a guy with an ice cream bucket and a piece of plastic sticking out the top for a helmet".
PDF File
(24 November 2000)
         

Still Crowe-ing
Does Bill Bryson bring Russell Crowe to mind? For some book reviewers, anything south of the equator can be connected with the Edge’s hunkiest export.
(24 August 2000)

Crowe songs attract flock of acolytes 
Crowds packed, paid up to $300 and queued for up to 12 hours to get into Stubb's Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas, for a performance by an unknown country-rock band called Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. The catch: lead singer Russell Crowe. "Russell Crowe, actor and New Zealand native, could have sat on stage making noise with his armpits and still drawn a cluster at his show." 
(14 August 2000)

"In New Zealand if you asked for a coffee, it was a teaspoon of Nescafe."
Kings Cross, 1986, newly arrived struggling actor waiting tables: an American customer orders a decaf coffee. "Suddenly I'm faced with long black, short black, cappuccino, and cafe latte - plus decaffeinated. So I take her a cup of hot water. She says, 'This is boiling water.' I say, 'Lady, when we decaffeinate something in Australia, we don't fuck around!"' The 22-year-old got fired. 
(May 2000)

G'Day Caesar
Crowe's accent crosses the expanses of the globe and the distance of time in the Gladiator - Owen Duggan corrects the notion that it's Bondi-based, and Christine Kenneally muses on the sound of things ancient from the considered Aussie/Brit/American dialects in Gladiator to the Actor's equity mix of New Zealand and American accents in Hercules: the Legendary Jouneys.
(16 -18 May 2000)
 

Magnetic Maximus unleashes Hell to please the masses in Gladiator
Apart from its spectacular visuals the film's other strength is its acting, "... but everyone else can step aside for Crowe. "Gladiator" should make the Oscar-nominated actor an international star. When he's in a frame, he holds your attention like a vise. In a word, he's magnetic."
(May 2000)

"I wanna  be Marlon Brando"...
sang Russell Crowe years ago when he was an aspiring rock star in New Zealand - the idea no longer seems absurd as Crowe brings an intensity and commitment to his craft that sometimes led to clashes with the equally forceful Gladiator director Ridley Scott, but as Scott says, "He's worth it".
(May 2000)

Russell Crowe: Heroic gladiator rises from the burger-pits of The Insider
"The people who brought you World War II now think that you are ready for really ancient history: the Roman Empire. And, even though they're leaving out the orgies, they may be onto something".
(29 March 2000)

Crowe to fly the coop 
With Australia Day been and gone the Aussies wonder when NZ born Russell Crowe will officially become one of their own. According to Sydney's Daily Telegraph, "the country's most celebrated Kiwi" was confirmed for a live-to-air citizenship ceremony on Australia Day (January 26) but had to pull out because the formalities could not be organised in time. 
(27 January 2006)

Something to Crowe about
Russell Crowe's Maximus (Gladiator) is the greatest movie hero of all time, according to a poll by a British video rental company. Crowe beat Christopher Reeve in Superman, Mel Gibson in Braveheart, and Sigourney Weaver in Aliens  to take top honours.
(24 April 2004)
   

Frosty the Crowe-man
Indie film website Film Threat has voted Russell Crowe 2002's Coldest Person in Hollywood. Crowe topped the annual poll, his "bad-boy big mouth" beating out Winona Ryder and Robert DeNiro for the dubious honour. Guardian: "The accolade is perhaps surprising, given that Crowe is more famous for impassioned discussion and accesses of temper than lofty reserve."
(29 November 2002)
   

Russell Crowe: "From dud to stud"
Russell Crowe makes the grade in a run-down of Hollywood's sexiest men by People Magazine. From unlikely beginnings "sporting high heels and lipstick" in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Crowe has come to epitomize all things macho: "Russell's emotion comes straight from the gut, uncensored and uninhibited […] that's what makes him hot." Or not - as a less noted recent off screen performance (dubbed, Gladiator vs Warrior)  grabbed press attention ...
(11 November 2002)
 

The tyranny of distance
...didn't stop Russell Crowe...talking at the Berlin Film Festival about his edge: "Growing up in New Zealand or Australia you look outwards, fully aware you're living in the last two major land masses to be discovered". Luckily, he went on,  both countries were economically able to keep up with world technology. "Just because we're from the Antipodes doesn't mean we can't contribute". And the Locarno Film Festival announces that its focus this year will be on New Zealand and Australian film-making.
(14 February 2002)
  

Crowe: Edgy Actor
Front-running for repeat Oscar victory Crowe would rather have a beer according to this excellent Independent profile that plays on Rus's ANZAC roots, "Like the classic guy from Down Under, he's very happy to display his lack of education or couthness, his general disdain for all lifestyles and philosophies formed beyond Australia or New Zealand, and his merry, insolent scorn for the way things are done in Hollywood [...] How many people in the Oscar theatre will know, or know how to rate it, that he is a cousin of the former New Zealand cricket captain, Martin Crowe?"
(27 January 2002)
  

Chill of Fame
Russell Crowe would be the crowd-pulling choice to play Earnest Shackleton in the bio-pic Endurance, about the ill-fated South Pole expedition of 1914-15. Did you know: captain of Shackleton's epic Artic voyage was NZ adventure hero Frank Worsley? (below)   
(19 July 2001)
  

Crowe's Anzac
Stan Wemyss, Russell Crowe's Grandfather, was a soldier and cinematographer - a key influence on the star.
(22 April 2001)

Graniator
"No, no leave him alone, don't hurt him," yelled Joy Wemyss, Crowe family matriarch at a private screening in Auckland. Also, Audrey Crowe touched by mention of her husband.
(28 March 2001)
 

Russell's leg up
Russell's main rival for the little naked gold man was "Tom Hanks, who wears very little for much of Castaway. To the Academy this shameless overexposure smacked of desperation, an all-shorts-off attempt to counter Crowe's Gladitorial mini."
(31 March 2001)
             

Edge in the heart of Tinseltown
Russell Crowe and Crouching Tiger herald a takeover of Hollywood by the rest of the world.
PDF Copy
(31 March 2001)
             

The ubiquitous Crowe tabloid dispatch
"Hollywood's golden girl Meg in marriage split ... Crowe has become Hollywood's latest heart-throb since starring as Maximus, in the summer's most successful blockbuster. Ryan is reported to have spent considerable time with Crowe during the filming of their forthcoming movie Proof of Life at Pinewood Studios." Enough Said, and he's wearing Canterbury. (we had to put it in somewhere!)
(30 June 2000)

Russell Crowe: a Gladiator even a woman could love
"Why would a woman want to see Gladiator: 1. It's a love story. Really. 2. An intelligent female character.  3. Russell Crowe ... Born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, Crowe's got that take-no-mess Outback flava; he's attractive in a regular bloke way and doesn't look like he spends every waking moment flexing and posing at Crunch on sunset Boulevard".
(9 May 2000) 

Fresh Crowe conquers in revival of old-genre
"I just thought he was fresh, a new generation, he's a man who's on his way up," says Ridley Scott, of Russell Crowe, the Gladiator's 36-year-old New Zealand star. 
(6 May 2000)

Russell Crowe maximises his earnings
"What we do in life echoes in eternity," Russell Crowe as General Maximus says while admonishing his battle-ready troops in Gladiator. And what we do at the box office echoes in our paychecks".
(19 May 2000) 
 

 
Star Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott: an irresistible pairing
"Scott, the big name auteur, and Crowe, the acting wunderkind, in the same room.  The director, with his well-bred English manners, and the thespian, with his New Zealander ease and laconic wit, are a sight to behold."
(11 May 2000)

Gladiator: movie to crow about The New Zealander lends an unforgettable face to what is otherwise a triumph of logistics. Capable of communicating with the audience almost telepathically, Crowe is one of those rare leading men who can blend hardcore action with internal conflict without coming across as either deranged (Gibson) or just plain dumb (Willis) 
(12 May 2000)

No Roman holiday and no soccer!
Crowe show he's no slave and rebels against producer's request: ''I mean, they'd let me run in front of chariots, wrestle tigers, and do battle with 5,000 men in the snow and mud. The memo I sent back was, 'I can wrestle four tigers, but I can't play soccer? Get over it. Love, Russell.''
(May 2000)

Roman in gloamin' ?
Russell Crowe is being hailed here as the best-looking guy in a skirt since Mel Gibson. The showbiz press have gone crazy over the New Zealander’s performance in Gladiator, just like Mel’s in Braveheart.  " An understanding of macho that only real men like jocks or antipodeans can carry off".
(17 May 2000)
 

Lest we forget
Russell Crowe provided the narration for a “ground-breaking” documentary series on Anzac soldiers, recently aired on NZ television and screening in Australia later this year. The series celebrates the bond between NZ and Australian soldiers, from WW1 to Vietnam. “Russell was the perfect choice,” said writer/director Paul Rudd. “His late grandfather (Stan Wemyss) was a war cinematographer for the NZ film unit. He has a broad and detailed knowledge of the Anzac experience as well as a personal link to the war. He identifies very clearly with both Australia, where he lives, and NZ, where he was born.” Crowd numbers at this year’s Anzac Day dawn service in Gallipoli were believed to be the greatest ever, despite international warnings against travel to Turkey.
(25 April 2004)
  

Crowe KO's the competition
Empire's 2003 awards had a strong NZ flavour, with Russell Crowe picking up Best Actor and Peter Jackson and The Two Towers winning Best Director and Best Film. In other Crowe news, the NZ-born actor is soon to portray 1930s boxing champ Jim Braddock in Cinderella Man. Does this mean Russell needs to be home from the bar before midnight?
(6 February 2003)
  

Maximus vs. Hannibal
NZ-born Russell Crowe has beaten Hollywood heavyweights including Anthony Hopkins, Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, and Robert DeNiro to be voted favourite Best Actor Oscar winner of all time, according to a poll by US magazine Biography. 
(5 June 2002)
  

Bafta - Remembered Gold
Lord of the Rings is ready to cast its spell on the Oscars after bewitching the Baftas with five awards, including best film and best director, for Peter Jackson: "I wanted to make films ever since I was 10 years old and I used to watch the Baftas on TV, but I never thought I'd get one". Guardian's Peter Bradshaw on LotR: "Peter Jackson's dashing and supremely competent orchestration of the humid fantasy extravaganza was clearly deserving of acclaim." Meanwhile Crowe wins Bafta Best Actor: "I love my job and I don't think I do it that well - but keep on disagreeing with me". 
(24 February 2002)

More to Crowe about
Russell Crowe excels on the screen, and now with his band 30-odd Foot of Grunts he is tackling the music scene as well. The bands first album, Bastard Life of Clarity, was released this month.
(24 September 2001)
   

The Kiwis are Coming
"Russell Crowe won't be the only brand-name export to the United States if New Zealanders get their way. The island country is aggressively pursuing foreign markets by liberalizing trade policies and encouraging smaller firms to take the plunge into exporting."
(30 July 2001)

Crowe 007
Will it be "Crowe, Russell Crowe" next time 007 hits the big screen? "To play Bond, you need a man who has great screen presence and is believable in the part. Looking at him, you could easily believe Russell capable of savagely bumping off bad men with a wry comment. For my money, at the moment, he's the only man for the job." - Octopussy director John Glen.
(20 March 2001)
 

Ciao, Gladiatore!
Crowe-band Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts gig Milan for Children in Crisis fund-raiser. 
(27 February 2001)
 

Star of the year
Russell Crowe named "Male Star of the Year" at ShoWest 2001, the largest motion picture industry convention.
(14 February 2001)
       

Hollywood outgrows itself
Gladiator, filmed in Morocco, Malta and the UK, directed by a Brit, scored by a German and "sexed up by the hottest New Zealander on the planet" is a new breed of block-buster, a Hollywood product made without Hollywood.
(18 February 2001)
 

Manly, subtle Crowe
"We already knew from The Insider that Crowe was a fine, subtle, vanity-free actor, happy to ruin his looks to play pudgy and useless. But Gladiator and Proof of Life prove that he's also a great movie star. One is not the same as the other, and the two rarely combine in one actor. Crowe is as manly as Connery and as subtle as Robert Ryan."
(15 December 2000)

Proof of quality
Oscar noms tipped for Crowe's Proof of Life turn as kidnap and ransom rescue specialist Terry Thorne.
(4 December  2000)

Counting Crowe 
Amazon keeps count of DVD pre-orders. Gladiator gores Perfect Storm 80 000 to 30 000. Also due out on DVD is Crowe's "breakthrough performance" in Romper Stomper.
(Ongoing) 

Russell Crowe: Hollywood Actor of the Year
Russell Crowe was named Hollywood Actor of the Year at the Hollywood Film Festival Awards held at the Beverly Hilton on August 7th. Internet users voted online at Entertainment Tonight site ETonline.com and Reel.com for the awards. The actress award went to Angelina Jolie.
(7 August 2000)

"To die or not to die - very good question"
Gladiator features breathtaking photography, sets and computer generated images. But the real glory of the show is Russell Crowe who is simply magnificent ... Like James Mason, he is one of those actors who can make the lamest line (and like its sword-and-sandal predecessors, Gladiator has some clunkers) sound like Shakespeare.
(May 2000) 

Russell's a lot to Crowe About
"Unlikely Hollywood hunk Russell Crowe may well have saved his best work for his latest film, a career-capping turn as an enslaved general in Ridley Scott's sensational sword-and-sandal epic Gladiator".  
(1 May 2000) 

Rome with a view
Ridley Scott's exhilarating and ferocious Gladiator brings the epic back to life.  The movie is dominated by Russell Crowe's towering Maximus, a man of intelligence, probity and Roman virtue.  He's the most virile presence in a film of this kind since Richard Burton ... Crowe confirms his status as one of the best star character actors around.
(14 May 2000) 

 

One of these days I'm gonna get myself maximised
Here is man who would not take it anymore ... Crowe makes the cover of Empire (the magazine - not the Civilisation). "The man exudes the physicality of a wild animal. Shifting testosterone like a pre-bloated Brando, he holds the screen with such assuredness and force you simply can't rip your eyes away from him." 
(May 2000)
 

When in Rome ... Russell Crowe fights on in Gladiator
"Some guys are tough customers, and some are really tough customers. Then there's Russell Crowe". Director Ridley Scott elaborates:
(April 2000)

Russell Crowe gets inside his character's head
Jeffrey Wigland, real-life whistleblower says Crowe, 22 years junior and a native of New Zealand "did a remarkable job .. he did things that made it feel very surreal for me, emotionally retching and uncomfortable."
(15 April 2000) 

Crowe does the hard yards to re-visit grandeur of Rome
"I broke a bone in my foot, I fractured a hip-bone, I had both bicep tendons pop out of their shoulder sockets - fortunately for me at different times so I could still use one arm ...  It was a challenge, I'll say that".
(27 April 2000)
 

Russell: the prequel
Oz comment: "Crowe is a national hero" (despite "inconveniently managing to get himself born in New Zealand"); jokes from the Katzy kitchen; Crowe, Hillary and Rutherford make Australia green; Crowe "a force to be reckoned with". Pre-win: Virtual New York profile; "international" Oscars;  Crowe triumphs in BBC readers poll; Charlton Heston and Tony Curtis voted for Russ.
(March 2000)
    

Russell Crowe: Inside Story
Playing a 52-year-old tobacco company executive in The Insider is all in a day's work for 35-year-old Russell Crowe; giving up the smokes is not.
(4 March 2000)