A hectic press conference, just a few minutes to assess the great man....
HEADLINE: Simply Maximus
SUBHEAD: With a growl that says he'd rather be in bed, Crowe holds court
BYLINE: JANE KELLY
TITLE: Daily Mail
DATE: 22/02/2001
PAGE: 3
AFTER a two-and-a-half hour wait we are beginning to lose hope, but not quite. The the memory of Maximus's leather skirt in Gladiator, and the pained intensity of the righteous Bud White in LA Confidential keeps us well in our seats.
Yes, we are waiting like attentive slave girls to get a glimpse of 36-year-old Russell Crowe, who is in Britain to promote his latest film, Proof of Life.
Director Taylor Hackford appears and mumbles on about America's view of the world and how he wanted to use the movie to 'reveal' the Andes.
He is about as popular as one of those lone singers who used to go on stage before the Beatles.
It is the great Crowe we have come to see, the world's new heartthrob and the ascerbic antidote to Leonardo DiCaprio.
He appeals to the kind of woman who secretly likes a man with a bull neck and a razor
scar. Certain older actors also like him. Richard Harris and Anthony Hopkins both say he
reminds them of their youth. Most men, of course, don't share their sympathy: The lugubrious Angus Deayton made the mistake of including a film clip of a younger Crowe riding a horse in the nude on a recent television show.
Deayton was scathing, gloating over how Crowe would surely feel terribly embarrassed by this archive discovery.
In fact it was one of the most erotic film clips ever shown on primetime television and as Crowe's muscles gripped the saddle, like most women, I could have watched a great deal more.
For men like Deayton, Crowe is just too successful with the ladies, and is known to be currently cutting a swathe through Hollywood. He once said he only goes to LA to 'look at the freaks'. But he certainly enjoys the company of the lady freaks very much.
In the three years he has been famous he has been closely associated with Nicole Kidman, Winona Ryder, Jodie Foster, Courteney Cox and model Erica Baxter.
He has just finished a torrid affair with Meg Ryan, his co-star in Proof of Life, who left Dennis Quaid, her husband of nine years, to be with him. She is now said to be broken-hearted.
In the past, Crowe has assured the Press that he'd prefer to be on his farm, Nana Glen, near Sydney, hobnobbing with cows rather than hanging around LA. Unfortunately the outback doesn't have the likes of Ryan or Ryder, so he has to fly to the U.S. now and then, and make a few films.
At last, the famous Roman body, built on a diet of Bourbon and cheeseburgers appears in the room. At least, I think it's him: he is so covered in hair, with beard and long floppy locks, that it's hard to tell.
Tieless, with an open-necked shirt and dark jacket, he looks very casual, but the body says something else: I notice that he has enormous fingers, like bonsai tree trunks. They go with his reputation for acting with all the grace of a tree trunk.
He does not seem particularly happy to be here. In fact, he looks as if he is on the verge of hitting someone. The voice is a one-note growl and some rather rude words are coming out.
Obviously he is jet-lagged and would rather have been in bed, the place in which he spends an increasing amount of time and which has been quite good for his remarkable career.
'Are you a marriage wrecker?' piped up one hopeful woman journalist from the back of the room.
The ending of Meg's marriage has nothing to do with me,' he replies in his slow growl.
'She's a brave and beautiful woman with a brilliant mind and I grieve for her companionship. But we are still friends.'
This is very exciting, a man who looks like a bear, but is fairly articulate. He is obviously a backwoodsman poet.
'I read a lot,' he says. 'And I am reading up on the next role I play, of a tormented mathematician.' Better and better. Now he, like Meg Ryan, is exhibiting signs of a 'brilliant mind'.
'I couldn't live in LA,' he tells us. 'It would be like unrolling my swag bag in the office every day. But I remain open. Bigger things, stronger forces could lead me back there.'
'Could that force be sex?' I ask.
He looks appalled. 'I was thinking of love,' he says reproachfully, as if I have seriously shocked him.
'That was a terrible thing to say,' he admonishes me.
Then it is all over. The ladies of the Press have upset him too much. He can't stay any longer. Before he can quite escape, I corner him. Is that 'bigger, stronger force,' dragging him back to LA, anything to do with Miss Ryan?
He turns his round, flat, rather red face towards me, with a look both enigmatic and full of hostility, mostly hostility.
'I was talking in theory,' he rasps, then looks down at me with two very attractive brown eyes, which are full of fun and games. Not cross at all. Forget about his pretensions to intellect. He is a man who can seriously put a woman
in her place - just why we like him so much.