Birmingham Post Alison Jones ducks
the punches from Russell Crowe at
the Venice Film Festival It seems as though Russell
Crowe cannot help himself. The impatient Antipodean
is already due in court for a well publicised incident where he
allegedly threw a phone at a Yet any appeals
by anxious PR minders to control his hair trigger temper had fallen
on deaf ears judging by his behaviour at Venice Film Festival.
In a press conference to publicise his latest project, Cinderella
Man, and doubtless forewarned about Italian journalists tendency
towards loquaciousness, he twice interrupted one reporter to tersely
instruct her to limit herself to one question. It takes a brave
soul to tangle with the volatile Crowe and, one would assume, would
require considerable confidence on the part of a director looking
to cast the actor, that they could handle him. Two that are are
Sir Ridley Scott, who made Gladiator, for which Russell won the
Academy Award for best actor, and the amiable Ron Howard, who helmed
the Oscar-laden (though sadly not for Russ this time) A Beautiful
Mind. Russell and Ridley
are currently at work on A Good Year, adapted from a novel by Peter
A Year in Provence Mayle. But before that Russell and Ron were
reunited for A sort of Seabiscuit
meets Rocky, it is based on the true story of Jim Braddock a coulda-been-a-contender
fighter, who falls on hard times during the Depression. Reduced to living
in a freezing basement, he and his wife Mae (Renée Zellweger)
are struggling to hold their family together when, out of the blue,
he is offered a shot at the world title. Russell said he
responded not to the aggression that must be a natural part of
any boxer"s psyche, but to his nobility. "One key piece of
information for me was finding out that after being on social welfare
for X amount of time he had actually gone back to the social welfare
office when he got back to a financially secure point and paid
the money back. "I said to Ron that
I believed it was far more indicative of who he was as a man than
anything he achieved as a boxer. "I also just thought
it was the right time to tell a story about basic human decency.
With all the things going on around us in the world we have possibly
lost a little focus on the simple things that should drive us as
human beings." The driving force
for Braddock was his love for his family. He fought first to give
them a good life then, at the height of the Depression, just to
put food on the table and heat in the room. When his despairing
wife, fearing for the children"s health, suggests sending them
to relatives who might be better able to care for them, Braddock
refuses, determined not to split the family up. As a doting father
to 20-month-old Charlie, (and according to recent reports, determined
to have more) Russell can understand Braddock"s devotion to his
children. "Becoming a father
has been one of the most illuminating and fantastic experiences
of my life," he enthuses. "On a daily basis it is an exceptional
thing I would highly recommend to everybody." He also strives
to maintain a happy and stable home life for his wife and son and,
despite the intensity of his performances, does not carry the characters
off set with him. Which must have come as a particular comfort
to his nearest and dearest when he was playing schizophrenic mathematician
John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. "I work between
action and cut. If there"s requirements of research or physicallity
of character then fine and dandy, that"s part of the gig. But my
life doesn"t carry on after that in terms of my relationship to
the character." The story of Jim
Braddock is one beloved of However, this is
also a message movie about the destructive effects of poverty.
It is this heavyweight element that has been blamed for the film"s
lacklustre box office performance - despite excellent reviews -
in the lightweight summer market. "The "baddie" in
this film isn"t another boxer, it"s poverty," says Russell. "A really important
part of making this movie was to remind Americans that the current
abundance they are experiencing is not an absolute right. "A really short
time ago American people were suffering greatly and I think it"s
important to point out, continuously, to wealthy economies that
the world is a large place and that wealth should be shared." Though Crowe"s brusque
manner can be off-putting he is perhaps a victim of circumstance.
His no-nonsense temperament is probably unsuited to the industry
he has found himself in, where stars are flattered and feted as
demi-gods, yet are just a commodity to be discarded or ignored
as soon as they lose their box-office lustre. "You get told some
total crap when you are growing up as a young actor. You get other
people"s paranoia and other people"s fear fed to you all the time," he
agrees. "I had one guy try
and tell me that if I got out on the stage or theatre and gave
100 per cent in my performance than I wouldn"t sell any more tickets.
Because people have seen 100 per cent, why would they need to see
it again?" However, it is not
in his make-up to give less than his all to any project. It may
make him demanding to work with but he feels he owes it to audiences. "The simple bottom
line for me is that I really enjoy this job. It may have a really
small effect on the world and it may not be of much importance,
but if you go into a cinema and I can touch your heart and just
for a split second you can forget about all the other things that
might be going in your life, I have done my job. "And I think I am
in a wonderfully privileged position to be able to do that |
