Russell muscles in - interview with actor Russell Crowe - Interview

Interview, Sept, 1997 by Kim Basinger

Intelligent acting hasn't been enough to make New Zealander Russell Crowe a star in America. But pumped-up and violent in his latest movie, he's certain to became a Hollywood hit this month. Here, Crowe talks about his journey with his L.A. Confidential lady friend, actress Kim Basinger

KIM BASINGER: SO, Mr. Kiwi, I'm just going to shoot these questions off to you.

RUSSELL CROWE: OK, my little Georgia peach.

KS: When did you start acting?

RC: I did my first job on TV when I was six.

KB: Who got you into it?

RC: My mother's father was a cinematographer, and one of his friends, who was a producer, conned my mother into being a location caterer. I was on film sets and TV sets all the time between the ages of five and nine, and it just fascinated me. I always wanted to know what was behind the doors, and as you know, on film sets and TV sets nothing is behind them. But I kept thinking, If I open one of these doors, sooner or later there's going to be something there. So I really lost any fears about TV and film performance at a young age, because I knew it was all fantasy.

KB: What kind of kid were you?

RC: I was shy. I was the sort of kid who would sign up for a talent quest and then, having done all the rehearsal and all the work, not turn up. [laughs]

KB: Did you always want to be a movie actor?

RC: I just had a drive to perform. What the medium was going to be took twenty years to find out.

KB: You did musicals, right? You played Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.

RC: Yeah, I did around 415 performances of that from '86 to '88. It's the only show that kept my interest, and that's because it changed every night because of the audience interaction. My favorite screen villain is Tim Curry as Frank N. Furter, although I was pretty good in high heels myself.

KB: I bet. What would be your role of a lifetime?

RC: Generally, I'm not somebody who covets roles, even if someone else gets a part that I'd like to play. I concentrate on what's actually available to me. However, I would have liked to do the first run of A Streetcar Named Desire. Get out of the way, Marlon! Didn't Alec [Baldwin, Basinger's husband] play Stanley Kowalski?

KB: He did. I saw it so many times I could have taken over from anybody in the cast.

RC: You'd rock as Blanche.

KB: Maybe one day. Once you broke into films in Australia, what did you seek to do with your acting?. The characters you played in Romper Stomper and Proof [both 1992], for example, were ambiguous. Is that something that appeals to you?

RC: Every role has different things that speak to you. With Romper Stomper, I was afraid of delving into the darkness of the neo-Nazi ideology on one hand, but on the other hand, I could tell that it was going to be a very important social document. That was the imperative behind my doing it. I don't mind being afraid of some of the characters I play, because it adds an extra level of excitement. But I don't do everything on that basis. I choose some characters because of their attitudes, and some because of what I'm going to do, physically, in the role. After Romper Stomper, I did this kids' film called The Silver Brumby [1993], because I thought, I gotta do one for my niece. I spent three or four months in the mountains in Victoria [Australia] riding a horse, rounding up cattle, and cooking steaks at five o'clock in the morning in this little hut I was living in. I had maybe half a dozen lines of dialogue. It wasn't like making a film - it was like experiencing a totally different lifestyle.

KB: So you're not necessarily looking to go to different extremes with each movie?

RC: No. I think it's kind of pretentious to sit there and say, "I only dance on the edge," because that's not the human condition.

KB: Where does L.A. Confidential fit into this?

RC: That was about getting to work with wonderful people on a script that keeps hold of what the original James Ellroy book was about. And I enjoyed playing my character, Bud White, though at first I didn't like him at all.

KB: What was your journey as Bud in the movie?

RC: Let me just say that I make no analogy between Bud's journey and James Ellroy's. As a young man, Ellroy went around doing a whole lot of strange things, but once he found his passion, which was writing, he totally changed as a person. What Bud finds at the end of his journey is love - a woman he trusts and respects - which means there's no need for him to carry a gun or raise his hand to anyone in the future. He can put away all the things that have been driving him in life, the things he just had to go through because of his childhood.

KB: Bud is very attractive to women because he takes up the case for abused women.

RC: He makes a very healthy statement through his anger and his fighting and his resolve at the end. There's a purity about him.

KB: I want to ask you about a movie that I thought you were fabulous in. It was called The Sum of Us [1994], and in it you played the gay son. Some [straight] actors might balk at playing a gay character. What are your thoughts on that?