Translation thanks to Elizabeth Coral:

Today, Russell Crowe is in a good mood. "I come from New Zealand, a land of volcanoes and geysers, It is not surprising that I have a difficult character." Then he adds, "But I grew up in Australia, a very sweet land, but one with much energy...However, the last two years have been the most settled of my forty years."

A great actor, a man of controversy and arrogance, Russell, who has married and has two sons, has changed, and has become easy-going and open, unlike in the past when he always seemed to be on the defensive.

And often aggressive, as in our first meeting in Rome, at the time of LA Confidential. Seated on the long couch, dressed in cowboy boots, hat and with dishevelled hair, he said: "In Australia we are not all rough and uncultured with dirty nails! I love music and the theatre, and nights out with my friends."

Much time has passed since then: in 2001, Russell won an Oscar for Gladiator, directed by his friend Ridley Scott, while at other times the Academy members have unjustly denied him. Think of his extraordinary performances in A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man. "I believe in having a kind of honesty yet a kind of distance with regard to Hollywood", he says, "and this annoys some people...I have established contacts with highly regarded people...Ridley, Ron Howard, Curtis Hanson...I go to Hollywood when it is necessary, to Los Angeles, but success becomes a drug which kills the creativity.I remember those first years in California, I was living in a hotel, the nights were full of anguish, I felt like an animal in a cage. I think if I had gone to live there I would have died from lack of oxygen."

Crowe has many qualities, not least an indisputable talent, and when he opens up he is a very honest man. "Yes," he says. "the relationship with Meg Ryan disturbed my life, it made me question the honesty of the life I had been leading. I was not able to let go of the strong passion. You are not in full control of your emotions while making a film in Ecuador, in the Pampas, in the jungle. Everything was exaggerated and stirred up. Meg is a beautiful person and though what we did was bad, we have grown as a result. I hope that today she has the life she always wanted. I have had a history with several women who could have become my wife, but with whom it would have been impossible to build a relationship. Danielle knew to wait until the storm clouds had passed and today our relationship is good. I could not live a single day without my family and now I choose films with a view to bringing them with me."

In fact, at the Toronto Film Festival where A Good Year is being shown, he arrives with a troupe of sons, wife and grandparents. It was the same in Rome, Paris and London. The waiting press have hundreds of demands, and Russell ensures that he makes himself available or the axe will fall and they will make sure that he loses all his contacts. "I am flexible", he assures us, "and easy-going, but only under certain conditions. I am an animal that lives very well within its confines. but I reserve the right to surprise you."

Is it true that he can knit and is a fine cook?

"It is true and I also know how to operate the tractor on my farm, to talk to the cows, to the plants, to listen to Danielle's friends. Danielle is devoted to our two sons. She is a magnificent singer, she has written new songs while expecting our two sons, Charles and Tennyson, and I have encouraged her to write a new album. "Dani" has sweetness, stability, strength of character, and altruism, qualities necessary for sharing my world and building a life together. She does not have an obsession with her image, unlike the majority of actresses."

Is he happy with his latest film, A Good Year, a story about a love for a house, in which he has turned away from the manly genre?

"The time that I spent in Provence has been one of the best times of my life. Ridley Scott has a house in France, and we were all there, the whole troupe, my wife Danielle, and the friends of the other people in the film. Evenings and nights were sweet and, when our work finished in the afternoon, I would prepare tea and biscuits for everyone. There was a sense of calm and peacefulness in the landscape which infused into our work; the villa where we were filming has an air of the old-fashioned life, of intimacy, far from stress and competition. It was like a soothing balm and I have not yet finished telling the stories of Peter Mayle, the author of the book, who made the decision to leave his career to become a country gentleman in the South of France."

"I have not been reconciled to any job like I have been to this romantic comedy, to the memories, to the serenity of the values that help you to discover your true self. After all, in making the decision to live in Australia I have made the same choice as my protagonist Max Skinner. From the corrosive job as a London stockbroker he comes to prefer, after many uncertainties, the slow rhythm of days on the farm and the joy of discovering his childhood sweetheart, now grown ( and acting with the grace and charm of the delicious actress Marion Cotillard was like the smell of lavender every day), she had been his playmate during the long and unforgettable Provencal summers of his childhood. I loved this film very much, it is as if it has come from within a painting by Cezanne and the memories will stay with me."

This seems curious, as he seems to be a man living very much within the present or planning the future..."I will never forget the peaceful afternoons with Danielle in Provence. Unforgettable days, where I was taken back to the many memories of my adolescence, when I lived at one with nature. Now I am waiting to do a gangster film in New York, again with Ridley. I will miss the soul of these landscapes."

His expression lightens when he says: "Danielle and I met during a very turbulent period, in the Nineties. She has always been there for me, right from the beginning. And she has understood my need for solitude."

He likes being in Toronto, where we have an appointment at a cafe. "Toronto reminds me a little of France. You can take a break at the open-air cafes where students pass by on bicycles and they don't bother to look at you because they are thinking about other things. He admits: "My father and mother have had an extraordinarily happy married life, together for fifty years, with small gestures and grand intimacy. I searched subconsciously for something similar, even though for years I was acting in a way that went against these intentions. My father worked in a pub and as a boy I helped him. The customers were attracted to me. They often came to me because my personality stirred up a kind of competitive aggression in many women, when all I wanted was a girl to go for long walks with and read love stories."

He remembers: "My history with Dani has had its ups and downs, which always is the case when you are young. I courted her a lot after our film and I still do so today. Although I no longer have to wait for her, as I did for years, outside the television studio where she was starring in a series. Danielle is the daughter of show people, and has always been less enchanted than myself with fame and success. My ideal day? An afternoon in the countryside near Sydney with my sons, the smell of the bales of hay, the clear Australian skyline, the knowledge that Danielle will be waiting for us and I shall enjoy myself by cooking my favourite recipes."

Where did he learn to cook? And embroider?

"I learned to cook in the restaurant of the pub where I also wrote songs and inflicted on everyone my rock contry ballad I Wanna Be Like Marlon Brando. I was good at preparing apple custard and nougat biscuits. As for the knitting and the embroidery, it is no joke. I learned while I was touring with my band how to sew buttons on, how to mend jackets and shirts and I discovered that it helped me relax. Them Danielle presented me with a book of small patterns. Now I can embroider small tapestries." He laughs. " I have been committed to my work from the age of seven. I began to act because my mother Joey was working in catering for a television company. Then I decided I wanted to become a pop star and study history. The acting profession gradually drew me in, and today I apply the same commitment to cooking and sewing as I do to acting, which has become more instinctive."

And which actors does he like?

"John Hurt is unforgettable in The Elephant Man. Obviously, when I looked in the mirror as a boy I imagined that I looked like Steve McQueen or Cary Grant."

He speaks with less enthusiasm about actresses, he says he admires Emma Thompson, and as a boy he enjoyed watching Kilm Novak in Picnic on television. "My grandad Stan's favourite film. He was my hero. He always said: "You must choose what you feel in your heart before your head.". I cried when he died. I am sorry that he never met my sons. There are ties that bind my family."

Marriage, children and transquillity have all caused him to gain a little weight. And Russell laughts unreservedly: "I'll have to go on a diet for the next film," he admits.

Does he sometimes think about what the future will hold, about what he will be doing when he is over sixty?

"Certainly. I will be living on my farm, listening to the stories of my children who will perhaps be at college where I did not go very often, I will meet my friends from the band at the pub, listen to my favourite neapolitan songs, perhaps I will wish to return to the theatre and Danielle will be there in the audience to watch me. Yes, I think that the memory of our lives together is important and it is for this reason that I love "A Good Year". Rediscovering your first love, remembering afternoons spent waiting for Danielle. Sometimes life smiles at you, and it is important to notice it."