| PrimetimeLive Interview with Diane Sawyer Crowe Unleashed Inside Russell's 'Mind' Jan. 17 2002 — Russell Crowe may have a reputation as a wild man in Hollywood, but he says he's not the bad boy that tabloids make him out to be. "If I was my parent, I would be a little concerned," he tells ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer. But, the 37-year-old adds, "I'm actually much more conservative than you give me credit for." While the maverick actor does have "a sense of personal freedom," he says he's not the type of man who'd love and leave a woman. "I'm not a misogynist. I don't have disrespect for females," he says. "I love women, you know? And I find some of the greatest wisdom that's passed on to me is from my female friends." Meg and Russell 'Still Mates' Among the women he considers his friends is actress Meg Ryan. "We were always friends, you know?" he says. "We started off being mates, and we're still mates." The two dated for several months, a romance that made headlines because Ryan was still married to Dennis Quaid when she met Crowe on the set of Proof of Life. "I didn't plan to fall in love with her. You know? It just happened," says Crowe. "I chose to walk toward love instead of walk away from it. And I am, you know, sorry if that offends somebody." Asked if Ryan was the love of his life, he says: "She's a very important person to me … I think she's very special but I don't necessarily think we're there, a hundred percent ready for what being with each other would mean, you know?" Crowe said he felt hounded by the press, which affected his relationship with Ryan. "It's very easily intellectually to stand back and say, 'Well it doesn't matter what such and such says.'… But unless you've been in the environment, then you really don't know what the hell you're talking about," Crowe says. "If you feel you're under siege … that takes away from your ability to see each other simply and clearly, you know? Because every moment has so much baggage attached to it, and that's when it becomes destructive." Ryan, he adds, is "a wonderful girl" who "has to be respected for the strength of character that she's shown." Crowe got his first TV role when he was 6. For years he worked as an actor, trying a little bit of everything, including playing a dancing, singing transvestite — in stiletto heels and fishnet stockings — in an Australian stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. "I kept getting squirted," he said, recalling one performance when he was menaced on stage with a water gun. "At one point I turned around and I said, 'Um, if you squirt me one more time with your water pistol, I shall come off this stage and I shall jam my stiletto in the crack of your a--.' So it stopped." Crowe's star has been rising quickly since his impressive 1997 turn as quick-tempered cop Bud White in L.A. Confidential. He was nominated for an Academy Award for 1999's The Insider and took home the Oscar for last year's Gladiator. Most recently, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for A Beautiful Mind, in which he plays a math genius who struggles with paranoid delusions. Crowe just returned from a tour with his band of 12 years, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, and he recently finished a new movie with Jodie Foster, whom he calls "brilliant." "I covet Jodie Foster's mind," he says. "I always feel I've got to be on my best intellectual behavior with her because I hate that look that she gives me every now and then if I say something stupid." The variety of roles he's taken on, he says, shows that he's more than a mere emblem of masculinity. "I don't think anybody that is simply masculine is actually going to do the types of roles that I do or want to do or am drawn to or compelled to do." Back Home on the Farm In fact, he says, his poetic soul is a source of amusement among his mates back in Australia, where he retreats when the glitter of Hollywood gets too bright. He spends time on his 560-acre farm raising livestock, including more than 100 cows, and riding his horse Honey. "It kind of leads to some kind of silly moments when we're mustering," he says, "because the other guy's going 'Come, Thunder,' and I'm like, 'Come on, Honey.'" Asked why he's not ready to live on his farm and leave Hollywood behind, he says, "I haven't done a performance yet that I really like, so I think I've got to keep going until I at least get something right." |