Q & A With Russell Crowe - and win State of Play on DVD!
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Russell Crowe drew on decades of personal experience to play a reporter in State of Play. This time, of course, the roles were reversed - on screen his character, Cal McAffrey, gets to ask the questions whereas in reality Crowe has spent years under the media spotlight because of his high profile as an Oscar winning actor.
Crowe, 45, won the Oscar for Best Actor for his riveting performance as Maximus in Gladiator. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as a tobacco industry whistle blower in Michael Mann's The Insider and a third nomination for his portrayal of mathematics genius John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard. He was also awarded a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for his performance in A Beautiful Mind.
Crowe's other credits include playing hard-boiled cop Bud White in LA Confidential, a rogue cyber space killer in Virtuosity, a hostage negotiator in Proof of Life and an 18th century British sea captain in Master and Commander.
Born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, Crowe is married to the actress and singer Danielle Spencer and they have two children, Charlie, 4, and 2 year old Tennyson.
Q: Did making State of Play change your opinion of
newspapers at all?
Russell Crowe: No, not at all. I think I already had a
pretty firm opinion of how journalists work and I've sat in front
of journalists for 30 years and been flayed and betrayed by them,
but also formed friendships with them. So there is a lot of talk
about objectivity in journalism but it's an absolute myth, and so
it should be because if you are a writer you are a creative person
and it may be news but it's still a level of creativity in terms of
the imparting of that news. And as an audience member I want that
personal subjection from the writer, I want that person to put
themselves in that situation. However the next stage of that is
where you either achieve something or your laziness makes that
crumble because it's the re-drafting and the self editing that may
actually eventually get you somewhere near objectivity. It's just
not human to have objectivity on every subject matter. And that's
one of the things I said to Kevin Macdonald right at the beginning,
if you expect me to play journalist as hero then you are totally
talking to the wrong man, but if you are OK with me playing a
journalist as a human being and bring those faults and
predilections and prejudices to the table then I'm fine with
that.
Q: And director Kevin Macdonald was in agreement
with that?
Russell Crowe: Yes, he was fine with it. It was probably
something that he spent some time thinking about at the beginning
because I know one of his inspirations for the movie was All The
President's Men but we talked about that many times and things have
changed, things have moved on. Take for example, there's a scene
early on in the movie between Cal McAffrey, the character I play,
and Stephen Collins who is Ben Affleck's character. And Stephen is
outlining to Cal the situation that he is currently in and telling
him some truth about that situation. And Cal's instinct is not to
re-write that story because he knows that there is already a public
opinion that exists, his instinct is to use his privilege and use
his position to write a smokescreen - take one sliver of that story
and expand that and perhaps get his friend off the front page and
on to page four or five or preferably page 9 or 10. And take one
aspect of that story; in this case it's public transport, and blow
that story up as being the lead feature. So right from the start no
matter what the game is that Cal talks, he is corruptible -
and he is corruptible from the point of view of friendship and his
self-belief. He believes in Stephen, he believes in Stephen
absolutely and he has believed in him since college. So it's OK to
be human, as long as if you are in this job you stay fluid as
information comes to you. And gradually over time information comes
to Cal and he does actually stand up for the things he believes in
over time. I've been talking a lot about the fact that he has no
vanity - in that what he dresses in, what he eats, how he lives, he
has no vanity - he loves his job and he is obsessed by his job. And
ultimately at the end of the day his vanity is about how he is
perceived by the words that he writes and quite frankly, that's the
best job.
Q: How important was it that the newsroom was
authentic?
Russell Crowe: The art department on this film spent a
lot of time getting that right. Most people that I've talked to
assume that we went into a real newspaper and just took it over for
a while. They can't believe that we would go to that level of
detail with the stacks of papers and the books. There's almost a
Nashian schizophrenia about the filing system that Cal McAffrey
employs which to the outside observer just looks like a bunch of
papers everywhere. But Cal knows what exactly is in that cubicle
and where it is he can find it. It only takes him a few seconds to
zero in on something once he is looking for it. Those things on the
wall are badges or courage or moments of realisation for him and
these things he puts on the wall to remind himself of those
moments, be they positive or negative, to remind himself of the
cruelty of humanity or to remind himself of the strength of
humanity. And when you have an art department that will go to that
degree for you it just makes your job easier. I had a history with
that particular art director and he was amazing in what he allowed
for in terms of what I might have an opinion on. Even down to what
the colour of my bedroom would be. He wanted me to come in and walk
around my apartment and he allowed me to change where the pictures
were, you know, shift this bit of furniture or that piece of
furniture so that environment felt comfortable and that all plays
into it. Because it's all pretend but it's how much you are allowed
to pretend. And when you have that kind of surrounding it's exactly
the same as walking into the Coliseum and there actually is a
gigantic crowd of people and then you are on a big stage and you
can feel a sense of what it must have been like to do that in
reality and so it just helps you stay in the moment and play the
character, whatever the character.
Q: Did you meet some journalists specifically to prepare
for the role?
Russell Crowe: I've been meeting journalists for the last
30 years of my life and all I had to do was unlock that memory bank
of all of those conversations of being praised, betrayed and flayed
and use those experiences. I didn't do one minute of extra
research. We had on set a guy from the Washington Post who was a
consultant for the film so there were some aspects that I asked him
about but all in all that 30 years of experience of talking to
journalists is what I based pretty much every single decision on -
from the way I dressed to the way I talked to the way I took
notes.
Q: Cal is an old school reporter and has some issues
with the new media climate - the blogging and gossip. Do you share
his criticism?
Russell Crowe: I don't fear it the way he does because
it's not my job. I see it as a natural progression. If you
trivialise the news decade after decade, if you turn news into
entertainment, if you corrupt how people get information and you
corrupt that information in the first place, and you have a cynical
view where you can take a piece of fluff that's not really true,
and you know it's not really true, but we can bang that up so it
fits nicely on Page 5 next to the ad for women's lingerie, if you
start thinking like that then sooner or later people are going to
distrust what those sources all are and we've actually built a
generation who don't know how to discern bullshit from truth. At
least I'm lucky enough that I'm old enough to have grown up in an
era where there were certain newspapers that were absolute
purveyors of the truth and that has morphed and changed over time.
But I'm not threatened by it but I'm not excited by it either
because the one thing I don't need in my life is anymore
trivia.
Q: What do you think of the way the relationship between
Cal and Della is handled in the film?
Russell Crowe: I thought it was truthful. I think there
is a large amount of unrequited sexual tension from Cal's
perspective going on. I think he takes his time to begin to see her
fully, to begin to appreciate her intellect and I think from a
personal point of view it's the heartbeat of the movie.
Q: If you were a reporter and wanted to investigate
something what would it be?
Russell Crowe: What do I think would be important? Well,
many of the things that I think that need to be on the breakfast
table for discussion are in this movie - the blurred line between
news and entertainment, the blurred line on the secret handshakes
between politics and journalism, the privatisation of war - there
are a myriad of subjects that this movie covered that I thought
were relevant and important.
Q: You're about to make your fifth film, Robin Hood,
with Ridley Scott. What's the connection you have with
Ridley?
Russell Crowe: I'm staying away from him at the moment
because the last few days before you start filming people get shot
left, right and centre (laughs). My thing with Ridley is what
happens on the set - when we are on a set together, we begin to see
the world in the same way and it's just a really enjoyable
experience for me. I have a lot of responsibility when I work with
him but I have a lot of creative space when I work with him. And
there's nobody that I've experienced who creates a world, a
complete world, better than Ridley Scott and that's what I enjoy.
The part of me that was a theatre actor appreciates being on a
Ridley Scott set because I'm a time traveller and I can live in the
world and that's a great privilege and I really enjoy it. At the
end of the day he is a master of the cinema and I'm very lucky to
know him and know him professionally the way I do.
