In their own words
Connelly on meeting Alicia: Connelly made a conscious decision to meet the real Alicia Nash prior to shooting, something Russell Crowe avoided, despite the film being a somewhat fictionalized version of these events. "For my own piece of mind I wanted to go and say 'I'm playing you, more or less. What's your life like? Is there anything that you would really like me to convey about you, or is there anything that is important to you that I don't convey? I will respect that.' But in reality it became just sort of a nice lunch and she wanted to know about Russell Crowe and how movies are made."
Connelly on Russell: As for working with her Oscar winning co-star,
Connelly was impressed by the actor's much publicized intensity on the set.
"I appreciated that. He doesn't let you take anything for granted. He's
also very spontaneous and available as an actor, which I think is great. You
just have to be able to be there and enjoy that kind of work which I really
do."
Russell on John and Alicia: "For me, the relationship between
John and Alicia was so compelling," he says. "It wasn't just a film
that dealt with mental illness or this genius, it was a great romance, this
wonderful, committed relationship that lasted through it all''.
Crowe, with a host of critically-acclaimed performances under his belt, was
immediately attracted to this role because " it was a personal and human
story of triumphing against the odds. Also, Nash had a magnificent romance that
spanned five decades and, in absolute reality, is in existence today. If Alicia
Nash hadn't provided the platform of continuity for John, he probably wouldn't
have been able to get to the point of organising his mind, through the medication,
to put it in perspective what was reality and what were the indicators that
he was slipping into a phase of reasoning that was outside of our physical reality.
For me, as important as his achievements were, it was the romance, the love
between John and Alicia that made the story itself extra special."
Russell´s nightmares: During filming, he hardly had one decent night's sleep. "I had nightmares, lots of them. No matter what I'd done over the weekend, no matter how I'd tried to relax, 1 could not sleep the night before shooting. But I think that's part of the process - you delve into this stuff and you can't help but ask yourself how you'd feel in this situation."
Russell on schizophrenia: "When I was researching the film," he continues, "I examined schizophrenia, got a lot of videotapes from Ron, some great case studies, discovered a whole lot of stuff about the disease which I just didn't know. One of the main problems with schizophrenia is society's misunderstandings about it. You know there are a lot of people around the world who want to talk about this, who have a friend or a family member with schizophrenia. It's not very often they get the opportunity, necessarily, to discuss such a devastating disease. Even though this film is never a medical documentary, it has prompted discussion. And I think that is a positive thing." Crowe appreciated the opportunity to put a face on the serious condition of schizophrenia. " To simply illustrate that a schizophrenic is the same as anybody who has any kind of sickness was important. Their lives are still "normal" in that they still fall in love, have babies and want to achieve things. Nash's mind is much more the way we think of an artist's mind, rather than a scientist's mind. He can look at a series of equations and simply know the answer."
Russell on meeting Nash: Nash is the second real-life character
Crowe has played, the first being the cigarette company whistle blower Jeffrey
Wigand for The Insider. He sought out Wigand, but Nash was a different proposition.
Ron Howard was not keen, though he made videos for Crowe of his subject talking
about mathematics. However, Nash himself had different ideas. "The first
time I met him was about the third day of shooting," says Crowe. "He
just walked up to the set at Princeton, uninvited, unannounced. I mean, how
would you feel if a film was being made about you? You'd be suspicious, wouldn't
you? You'd be anxious. And ultimately he just couldn't keep his curiosity down.
"It was a pretty surreal moment for him. He had been watching television
the night before, some interview I had done, and I think he was like `That's
the person who's going to play me? Is he playing me with a beard and long hair?
That's ridiculous.' So he charged down to the set to find out. "Everyone
was very sensitive on my behalf - `Gosh, how's this going to affect Russell?'
But I wasn't intimidated, just curious. I went up to him
and said, `Hi, would you like a cup of tea or coffee?' And he began to talk.
He was looking at me and said, `You don't look anything like you did last
night.' It was very interesting to come face to face with him. He has a remarkably
analytical mind and even the simplest conversations were quite
fascinating." But did the meeting change Crowe's approach to the character?
"By that stage we had already started shooting, we had made a whole lot
of decisions about how we were going to reconstruct John Nash. When I met him
I simply realised that we were on the right track. But every single part of
that meeting, from
the galoshes on his feet, the red knitted cap that he wore ... it's all in the
film. I do feel a greater degree of responsibility when playing a real person,
but I don't set out to impersonate. If anything I'm trying for some level of
emotional truth."
Howard on casting Russell: For the role of Nash, Howard cast Oscar-winning actor, Russell Crowe. " We were telling the story of someone who was viewed as an Adonis in his field," the director says. " Russell's physicality and charisma were a real asset, as were his intellect, his mental toughness and his "soulfulness". It's a rare blend, and so important for the story of Nash. I wanted the movie to have some edge and not be a sentimentalised look at this man's life. Russell wanted that too. This movie is really a performance piece and very emotionally challenging. We took a life's journey in our three months of filming. Russell's journey as John Nash is complex and emotional, with profound psychological shifts from scene to scene-plus he ages more than 40 years.
Russell on Nash´s way of speaking: The actor acknowledges that he did glean " little gems" from Sylvia Nasar's book on Nash's life. " She says that his mode of speaking was Olympian and ornamental. So I applied Olympian and ornamental to every sentence in the script. I would think " Does this sentence meet the requirement?" If it was a simpler way of saying something, that was probably not going to be the way that John Nash would speak. He would choose a more complicated way of saying a simple thing, because that was his bent."
Russell on Nash´s mind: To give an example of the way Nash's mind works, Crowe explained his first meeting with the Nobel Prize winner. " He popped up unannounced during the first week of shooting. When I met John it was more fascination than anything else. Here was the person I'd been obsessing about. I stood in front of him and asked him a simple question, "Would you like a coffee or tea?". Fifteen minutes later, I got somewhere near an answer from him. Such is the level of examination that he'll place on everything that comes his way. He said " If I have coffee should I have it with milk or with sugar? But if I have it with milk or sugar, would it still be coffee or would it be sugary milk? And if I have a coffee, will that give me more or less pleasure than if I have a cup of tea? And if I have a cup of tea, how can I be sure it's going to be of the density and the fullness of flavour that I actually enjoy, because southern Indian teas are not necessarily to my palette. I prefer northern Indian teas." He went on and on and on, and I ended up using it in the film. So every second that I spent in front of him there was always useful information. I didn't want to inform the younger Nash too much with the old Nash, so by the time I did meet him we were already underway with the younger Nash."
Howard on his challenge: It is undoubtedly, Howard's most challenging project as a director, as he concedes, "It's the first time I've done a film about a person. I usually do films about situations and I try to pump as much character as I can into it. You can't apply a formula to this movie, and that's a little bolder than I've been structurally in the past. So there's definitely a level of complexity in the drama. Even Apollo 13, which I thought had power and was very truthful and I was proud of the direction, the characters and their behaviour were straightforward. So this was an interesting challenge."
Ron, Russell, Brian and Akiva
Russell on Howard: Crowe considers his working relationship with Howard and comments, " Ron's pedigree as a filmmaker is impeccable. It seems to me he's got everybody in the world fooled that he's some sort of simple bloke. He's one of the most intense filmmakers I've ever worked with, but he does it in a gentle fashion and that's because he is organised and he knows what he wants, and that is a great platform for me to start working from."
Russell on Connelly: Actress Jennifer Connolly who received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her haunting portrayal of a drug addict in Requiem for a Dream, plays Nash's wife Alicia. " Jennifer is an extraordinary actress, " says Crowe. " I think she's done a magnificent performance in this film. I think it's possibly an area psychologically that she hasn't been to before. But that's really about the opportunity of playing a role like this, and has done a magnificent job."
Howard on Alicia and Connelly: Howard concurs, adding, " It's a grown-up kind of romance. The relationship was intensely complex, as were the challenges that Alicia and John faced together. John Nash's journey is incredibly heroic, but so is Alicia's. Alicia is very interesting, she's kind of the belle of the ball, you know? Gorgeous, intelligent and very, very interested in John Nash. And what she bargains for is not what she gets. It winds up being an incredible challenge for her. Jennifer has really emerged in the last few years. She's very intelligent, a great beauty and has a lot of integrity. And she's developing this extraordinary screen presence. She had a clear understanding of what made this movie so compelling and involving."
Russell on The Nobel´s scene: Crowe began shooting A Beautiful Mind the day after winning the Academy award for his performance as the Roman general-turned-gladiator Maximus, in Gladiator. During the scene where where John Nash wins his Nobel Prize, the actor found that his Oscar could double as a useful acting tool. " I've done some extra work in my time and I know how tedious it can be," he notes. " We had a thousand people in the room that day and we needed them to be as energetic in their first round of applause as we did in their fiftieth or sixtieth round of applause. So basically I did a stand-up routine in my old man make-up between takes, to keep their energy level high, because obviously we were not going to shoot it once from the front and once from the back, and that would be the end of the day. So I just kept the extras engaged in the process and, later on in the day when the cameras were on them and Ron needed an enthusiastic round of applause, I exchanged the Nobel Prize plaque I was carrying for the little gold statue and we got what we needed. We are mercenaries, we make feature films, we make them anyway we can!"
Russell on the movie´s continuity: Unlike most movies,
A Beautiful Mind was shot in continuity, starting at the beginning and shooting
till the end. "I asked for that before we started rehearsal. Because there
is so much make-up," Crowe explains. "The original idea was to jump
into him as a 40-year-old.
My concern was that we wouldn't be able to go backwards, so when they say we
shot in continuity, it's only in the broadest sense. That is not scene-to-scene.
There were about five major stages with about nine subgroups within those stages."
Howard on Russell and Nash: Howard admits that although he didn't want Crowe to imitate Nash, there was something about the actor's personality that he perceived immediately was similar. " It was Russell's sense of self, that "I am who I am and I'm going to behave as I behave come hell or high water." Nash couldn't change to accommodate. Some people thought he was an extraordinary genius and a fascinating person, and others found him inaccessible and even rude. The other thing that I felt from Russell initially was a very aggressive, ambitious intellect, and that's something you can't fake, it's not a matter of lighting him a little bit better. Either the wheels are turning or they're not."
Russell on Howard: "It's probably one of the best collaborations I have ever experienced, " Crowe said. "We're starting with a great screenplay, and we both really believed in it. Right from the beginning he was open about the fact that if he had a demand, it was for absolute collaboration. I think Ron really appreciates everyone's effort. "Ron has the world totally fooled that he is this easy-going, gentle bloke. Yes, he is gentle and, yes he is easy-going, but he is certainly not casual. He is a very intense filmmaker. He is all over the medium."
Russell on Goldsman: "We had the writer on the set every
day. You would think it would be standard, but that has never been my experience,"
Crowe said. " But, Akiva was hands-on collaboration. Through discussion
we would disagree with something, and we would give that conundrum to Akiva
and get back on to what we were doing."
Russell on the link between genius and madness: Crowe makes short shrift of that one. "I think it is a romantic notion to think there is a connection between genius and madness," he says tersely. "There are many studies which I think indicate to you that whereas intelligence doesn't protect you from madness, a lack of intellect doesn't protect you either. But you can't really take all that stuff in. You can take in as much as you can. But to sit up here and say that you've examined every bit of it and understand the processes of John Nash's mind would be an absolute oversimplification."
Russell on Nash´s looks: I had 17 black and white photos of what he looked like but they were vastly contradictory. Photos of him standing by the pool with his wife, looking broad-shouldered and athletic, a foot taller than his peers -- when you put this broad-shouldered athletic figure against the rest of the people in the mathematics class at Princeton, it's like, "Excuse me. What are you doing here."
Connelly on Alicia and Nash´s love story: "What attracted
me to doing this was that not only did you have a great story of triumphing
against the odds, he also had a magnificent romance that spanned five decades
and is still in existence." In the film, Jennifer Connelly portrays Nash's
wife, Alicia. "For me, the romance was as important as his achievements
as a mathematician and the clarity of his mind."
Goldsman on his first semi-fictional script: For Goldsman, one problem here might be that all his past screenplays have been fictional stories. "This is my first semi-fictional movie. I've tried to say very, very up-front that this not a biopic. You've read Sylvia's book. There is no Charles, there is no Parcher (Ed Harris' character), there are no pens at Princeton." Goldsman made all that stuff up so the movie would work dramatically. Isn't there a risk you run though being selective about adapting a biography? "I say that this is his life but this isn't his entire life. No matter what I included I would have left something else out."
Goldsman on Nash´s childhood: In fact, Goldsman told me something I hadn't heard before. He wrote several scenes pertaining to Nash's childhood, including a sequence in which he loses a close friend. Goldsman was afraid that audiences would connect that loss with the creation of Nash's make-believe friend, Charles. So he dropped all references to the childhood. "It created a kind of inappropriate relationship between childhood loss and the illness."
Goldsman on Nash story: Wouldn't it have been easier to write a screenplay about a fictional person with the same problems as Nash? "You wouldn't have believed it," he said. "There are a lot of truths in this story. There are also consolidations. It doesn't mean that there wasn't a John Nash who suffered from schizophrenia and won the Nobel Prize."
Goldsman on the Nashes: Goldsman says he's been in touch with the Nashes. According to Goldsman, John Nash has seen the "movie several times. I watched it with him once. John and Alicia have been so gracious to me and complimentary. And that's a big deal for me."
Russell, John and Alicia.
Nash on A beautiful Mind: In New York, Ron Howard screened the film for the real Dr. John Nash. "He and his wife had a very emotional response to it. There were some aspects of the movie that quite shocked John. He said to Ron that he wanted to have a conversation with him after the screening. The thing that he had the most problem with was the insulin shock therapy because he had never seen it before," Crowe said. Nash also had another problem with film. In one scene Crowe wears a stocking cap inside the Princeton library where he would study often. Nash claimed he would never wear a hat inside a building. "But," Mr. Crowe says, " the costume in that library scene is what he looked like the first time I met him when he walked out to me unannounced on the set at Princeton University. Everybody else was freaking out. How am I going to react? I was, like, 'Cool!' He was dressed in that kind of raincoat, galoshes on his feet."
Russell on Howard: I didn't finish a day on this movie when I didn't think we've done something important, and that's a great feeling. Ron has got the whole of America and most of the world fooled. He makes you believe he's this easy-going gentle fellow, a simple man. He's one of the most intense filmmakers I've ever worked with.
Russell on Nash´s hands: Crowe also requested that Howard ask certain questions of Nash and record them, so the actor could observe his responses. " I made some decisions from seeing that tape. For example, Ron had him give a Nash´s lecture on a blackboard and I saw the way that his hands moved and I realised that his fingers were long, skinny and tapered. I didn't have long, skinny and tapered fingers, so I started growing my own nails in order to give some length to my hands. That is not something that you see in the movie, but it's something that I used as an actor to make me feel better about the character. As you know, if you've got long nails you become a little bit more careful when you're picking things up, so that gave me a certain level of grace that might have been missing from my sausage-like fingers in the first place."
Howard on telling the story of Nash: "There is a lot of creativity in the story-telling," acknowledges the movie's director, Ron Howard. "We've taken licence to try to condense a lifetime into a film, but we are presenting a real world. We approached this story as truthfully as possible and tried to let authenticity be our guide."
Nasar on Russell and Jennifer: When I watched Russell Crowe
go from genius to madness and back again, I realized that he is one of very
few actors who could have pulled this off. Somebody once said of Nash that "People
considered him a bad boy -- but a great one." Russell Crowe is the perfect
choice. Jennifer Connelly was very real, incredibly moving. Paul Bettany was
delightful.
Nasar on Alicia: Without Alicia, Nash would have perished. There
would be no recovery, no Nobel, no second take on life or the marriage. Even
the latest generation of anti-psychotic drugs, essential as they are in managing
schizophrenia, can't give someone a life or a reason to live. People also need
the support, encouragement and coaching of family, friends, and colleagues.
All this has become standard wisdom, supported by reams of research. Somehow,
Alicia Nash knew it intuitively. She's not only a person of great moral stature,
but one very smart lady.
The Nashes on the film: The Nashes are extremely happy with the movie, especially because, as Alicia put it, "We're going to have to live with it for a long time." Though Nash prefers action movies to dramas, he loved the humor and fast pace, and said, with evident pleasure, that he thought Russell Crowe looked a lot like him.
Nasar on Goldsman: It really works dramatically. Akiva Goldsman has invented a narrative that, while far from a literal re-telling, is true to the spirit of Nash's story. By concentrating on Alicia's loyalty and the kindness of fellow mathematicians, Akiva has focused on those things that really made a real difference in how Nash's life turned out. It's a very moving script.
Nasar on her first approach to Nash´s story: While working on an economics piece for the Times, about a year and a half before Nash got the Nobel. I heard a rumor that a mathematical genius who had suffered from schizophrenia for three decades might be on a short list for the prize. I thought, "Oh my God, this sounds like a Greek tragedy, Shakespeare play and fairy tale rolled into one."