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After an Oscar nomination for The Insider, he returns with an entrance into the arena of blockbuster heroes with Gladiator. . .

Russell Crowe easily gives the impression that, given the choice between talking to the press and having a tooth pulled, he would more willingly place himself in the dentists hands. But considering the course his life is taking, he will be returning often to this hot seat. Five years after the release of his first American film, and in the space of mere months, he has become one of the actors at the forefront. The success of Gladiator at the American box office has given him entrance to the exclusive club of stars in which studios are ready to invest heavily, those preferred for the giant action films that remain the mainstay of the Hollywood film industry. This very closed club can be willing to conduct important meetings inside a phone booth if required when it comes to a certain caliber star -- such as one who has received an Oscar nomination, as Russell Crowe did this year for Michael Mann's The Insider.

"It's a huge honor. A lot of people have had long, successful careers and haven't received this mark of recognition from their peers. But I'm not going to put too much stock in it..., " he says like a true Australian, making a point of not letting it go to his head.

Crowe was born thirty-six years ago in New Zealand, but he has grown fond of Australia and owns a piece of cattle ranch near Sydney. His maternal grandfather was a cinematographer, his parents caterers for film sets, and there was never any doubt that little Russell would make a career in show business. As a child, he worked as an extra and landed his first role at age 6, in a television series. Ten years later, he was found singing under the pseudonym "Rus Le Roq" on the sleeve of a 45 rpm with the telling title "I Wanna Be Like Marlon Brando." Since then the rock and roll bug has never left him. With the group 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, for which he is the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist, he has made several recordings, which can be ordered over the group's web site www.gruntland.com. His various talents he put to use to play a leading role in The Rocky Horror Show for over four hundred performances, before landing his first cinematic role in Prisoners of the Sun. His interpretation of the role of a neo-Nazi skinhead in Romper Stomper was noticed by Sharon Stone, who put in a word in his favor during the casting of The Quick and the Dead (1995), helping him gain a foothold in Hollywood. He excels in creating violent characters, tormented by interior conflict, like the cop Bud White in L.A. Confidential (1997) or the general, Maximus, in Gladiator.

CROWE IS NOT EASY
In person, Russell Crowe is just as intimidating. He was recently seen attending the Golden Globes on the arm of Jodie Foster, who isn't the type of girl who cavorts with brutes. And he gained the affection of the cast of Gladiator by giving dinners and treating everyone to rugby matches and outings during the filming. But some careless remarks from film crew members and rumors of bar brawls have provided fodder for tabloids and left the belief that the man is always difficult. "The great actors are never easy," explains Ridley Scott, with whom Crowe had some animated discussions, whenever the interests of the film and the character clashed.

The offer for Gladiator came during the filming of The Insider. Russell Crowe, who was completely into the skin of his character Jeffrey Wigand, refused to be distracted at first. He claims it was Michael Mann himself who persuaded him, "Usually, I make my decision based on the script. I make films that give me goose bumps when I read them. But that one I chose because of the concept. They called me and said, 'We're not going to show you the script, because we don't think you'll like it as it is. But here's the idea: Ridley Scott, 185 AD, and at the beginning of the film, you are a Roman general.' That was enough to convince me to talk to Ridley because it spoke to my imagination and it was a chance to work with a guy Michael Mann calls one of the best film makers in the history of cinema. And there, they had me..."

When finally he had the script in his hands, it was one no one was satisfied with. "There were still details to hammer out. We sort of had to take the script apart to rebuild it into a narrative that we could agree upon, Ridley and I." And it was probably that collaboration between a director with the reputation for films that are visually amazing but offer somewhat flat characters, and an actor attentive to an obsessive degree to the development of character, that forged the success of Gladiator.

"One of the problems that we ran into was this idea that Maximus is aware of the power he has over the public in the arena. To me that wasn't what he was about. It starts in Morocco, when he decides to teach a lesson to the bloodthirsty spectators, during a fight which ends with a decapitation with two swords. Maximus lashes out at the crowd because that is the only way that he can express his disgust and he can't just take each spectator aside and discuss it. He's a gladiator. He is in the arena and he must kill. So, he decides to do it in the most brutal manner possible to get his point across. But after having thrown his sword and hurled his contempt at the crowd, he realises that the public, far from being shocked, adores him. That discovery changes his course . . . it's also at that point that we decided that the character was a farmer, that he came from the countryside.

"He always rubs the dirt between his hands before combat. For me, that was a way of keeping sight of who he was at the moment that he was facing death. And that meant also 'Max is back and he's ready to rumble,' but it's implied, without one of those cliche lines you would find coming out of his mouth, if the film was directed by an American."

RIDLEY WANTED ME BULKY . . .
Gladiator is a work of fiction that doesn't aspire to historical exactitude. But there were indeed gladiators. And an Emperor Commodus, renowned for his cruelty and his madness, who liked to bask in the spectacle of the Coliseum. And Marcus Aurelius, father of Commodus, emperor and philosopher. Concerned with realism and plausibility, Russell Crowe threw himself into history texts and the writings of the stoic philosopher. "History was one of the only subjects I was good at in school. For me, Max is a disciple of Marcus Aurelius. That led me to use his book 'Meditations,' from which certain lines were taken directly. I saw Maximus as a soldier without political attachments, only loyalty for Marcus Aurelius. It's a very strange and very interesting period in history, with a remarkable social and political awareness, and extraordinary inventions, and all that is running parallel to the brutality of their sporting events. . . A lot of things have changed since then. Transportation has changed. We've traded the chariot for a Ferrari. But as for human relationships, and the range of emotion and needs, that has hardly evolved. We've only made progress in that we can bring the spectacle of violence into our homes. More needs of that sort. . ."

After having gained twenty kilos and twenty years to play, at its true core, the character of Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider, Russell Crowe had to change his regimen and submit to rigorous training to attain the right physique for the role of Maximus. "I had done a little fencing before. But the master at arms, Nick Powell, explained patiently to me that fencing hadn't yet been invented in the year 185, so we had to begin from zero. But it's a lot easier than fencing. You can do only a limited number of moves with the sword. What I tried to do, was to be able to use either hand interchangeably: I think that a professional soldier who uses his weapon without a break, would have to change hands to be able to defend himself from every side, because he would never know from where the next attack would come. Nick came to Australia to spend a few weeks with me, and we went to work . . . I wanted a body capable of doing anything that my character had to do, but not like the ones sculpted in a modern health club.

"After our meeting in England, Ridley sent me a message asking me to not lose any more weight. He wanted me bulky . . . filming was a physically trying experience. At the outset, on paper, we had planned a break of around seven days between the combat scenes in order to have time to recuperate and be ready to do it again. But after all was said and done, with all the changes in plans that happen during filming, we found ourselves doing them one after another. I fought tigers during the day, and prepared for the next scene, in the evenings, with the fight trainer, the master at arms, horse trainer . . . physically, it left scars. But looking back, it was also what made it an unforgettable experience. But at the time, when you look at yourself in the mirror and you have your biceps tendon coming out from your shoulder on the wrong side, you ask yourself, 'What am I doing here ?' "

MAX VERSUS THE TIGERS
The question was at its most pointed when he was filming with tigers. "They are magnificent creatures, but they don't always do what you ask them to. Meanwhile, it's been twelve days to film scenes with them when we planned for six. There were some trying moments. They used a chain held by three men to limit their forward movements. That works very well as long as the tiger wants to go forward. One day when the guys were pulling a little hard, the tiger said, 'If you don't want me to go there, I can just as well come toward you.' Two of them did what they had been told to do in that case: stay still and cover your head. But the third one panicked, he got two steps and the tiger was on him. Bang, on the ground! And the tiger was just playing. But you know how cats are . . . he is playing one moment and, the next he can tear your head off. . . Another time, at the moment when the tigers' door opens, I was in the middle of fighting Sven [Sven Ole Thorsen]. He was wearing his helmet, a really heavy thing, without peripheral vision. It appeared to me that the signal for the tigers was given a little too soon and I started to accelerate the rhythm. Our movements are planned like choreography. Because he couldn't see what was happening, when the tempo increased, Sven stopped to ask what happened. And before he knew it, the tiger was on him. It gave him a big swat on the backside. Luckily for him, it was one of the tigers whose claws had been removed. Otherwise, he would have had those scars for the rest of his life. After that, I can tell you that he really learned to work better with the helmet on!"

I KEEP TO MYSELF AND DO MY WORK
Free of his armour, Crowe still doesn't let down his guard and he clams up when the questions become a bit personal. Like when he is asked to compare the power of a victorious gladiator over the arena to that of a movie star over his audience. "To be a star, to have the lead role in a film, isn't the same as people imagine it to be. It isn't a fantasy, it's reality. It's my job. I travel to different corners of the globe, I make films, I play roles. I keep to myself and do my work. I don't get too caught up in the power struggles in this business. I am a little outside that circle. I don't know a lot of people because I don't see Los Angeles. I pass through, on my way to other places where I am working." Places like Poland, England and Ecuador, where he is currently wrapping up filming on Taylor Hackford's "Proof of Life."

"It's the story of a woman [Meg Ryan], who has an affair with the negotiator charged with freeing her husband when he is taken hostage. It's a dramatic role for Meg, not a comedy. . . My next project is a film titled "Flora Plum," directed by Jodie Foster with a small budget, in which I play a furry beast. Small budget means small salary, but that's never my primary concern."

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