Crowe in love with Hathaway, admires Jackman
By Ruben V. Napales
Philippine Daily Inquirer January 25, 2013 | 9:55 pm
CROWE. A profoundly enjoyable experience with Les Miserables.
LOS ANGELESRussell Crowe was in a good mood in our latest interview with him. Smiling often, and engaging in joking banter, the actor was effusive in praising his Les Miserables co-stars.
While Russell stressed the heavy preparation that he and the cast did for director Tom Hoopers adaptation of the popular musical, mentioning that lead star, Hugh Jackman, led a monkish lifestyle to preserve his voice, he also recounted fun times during the London shoot.
With this group of people, it doesnt take a second suggestion that we should have fun together, said Russell who sipped coffee every now and then during our talk. So, when it was allowable in everybodys schedule, we would get together on Friday nights. We behaved like a group of actors in musical theater (laughs). We sang songs until the sun came up. It was during those sing-alongs that I fell deeply in love with Anne Hathaway.
Apart from what she was doing on the set, shes a very entertaining young lady with a magnificent voice!
The Aussie star admitted that hes a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen. Big time!, he exclaimed with a laugh. Its probably to an embarrassing degree that Ive seen everything hes doneDa Ali G Show, Borat, of course, and Im one of the few people who think Bruno is the pinnacle of his work.
He rhapsodized about the opportunity to witness Hughs performance, his leadership and artistry every day, the exquisiteness of Annes performance, and those of Samantha Barks, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit and the rest of the wonderful cast.
Russell saved his highest praise for Hugh: Working with Hugh was a joy, he gushed. Weve been friends for quite a whilebut, you never know what thats going to be like on a set. It was fantastic! I was impressed by him every dayhow he prepared himself physically, and how he prepared his voice.
Critics
While many knew that Russell sang, recorded and toured with a band, some werent aware of his musical side until Les Miz came along. Since the film came out, critics generally loved it (and eventually won the Golden Globe Best Picture-Comedy or Musical award), but panned Russells singing prowess.
But, we understood Tom Hoopers reason for casting Russell when he explained it to us in a separate interview: This was my challengeI had cast Hugh. To me, its all about storytelling. Theres a confrontation, rivalry story between Jean Valjean and Javert. Youve got to believe that whoever you cast as Javert can get the better of Jean Valjean. Youve got to believe that Javert can vanquish Valjean for the story to have any suspense at all. How many actors out there, if you put them head to head with Hugh, you think are going to win? I felt that if youre going to put Wolverine in the ring with Gladiator, its a fair fight!
Tom added, So, the question then is, can Gladiator sing? I knew about his rock band. Russell came over to London. We talked about it. I discovered that he actually started in musical theater in Sydney. But, still, I said, Russell, youre going to have to prove it to usyoure going to have to audition.
In September 2011, he came to New York to a rather intimidating room with me, the creators of the show, Claude-Michel Schonberg and Cameron Mackintosh. In that room, Russell proved to us that he could do it. He sang The Confrontation. He was concentrating so hard on his singing that his eyes were shut. I said, You also have to act, as well as sing. You cant just be so concentrated on your singing. He looked at me. Then, the next time he did it, his eyes opened and engaged the full Russell Croweand it was amazing!
Russell admitted that it took a lot of hard work to prepare for the actual filming. My last major tour was way back in 2006, although I have been doing shows, he shared. So, when this opportunity came up, I wasnt really in a state of preparedness. There was a lot of work involved reclaiming a voice that I once had when I was a younger man.
He explained how challenging and elaborate the setup was to implement Toms idea that the actors sing live, not lip-sync the musicals beloved pieces: It was a learning process because it was not only just learning to open up your voiceto increase your range and build the stamina youre going to need to be on a film set singing, Russell said. I give as an example Fantines arrest. You have four principals singing in thatJean Valjean, Fantine, Javert and the fourth guy is the fellow who comes looking for a prostitute. Then, you also have the pimp and the ****e, so you actually have six principals singing that piece of music!
Choice
The nature of a film set is that you have to cover in wide, medium and close shot each aspect of whats going on. The director may make a choice that he wants to group some characters together, so he might want two or three shots. So, if you do that multiplication, you end up singing a lot. In Fantines arrest scene, we sang about 48 times. So, that stamina aspect was one of the things that Tom Hooper was looking for in people when he started doing auditions.
It appeared to be a difficulty in the beginning that everybody would be singing, but the first time everybody tried it, they realized that the lyrics of the songs that they were singing were simply their dialogue, and that they could be imbued with many meanings and shades, just the way any dialogue could. It was that realization that made everybody relax.
Despite the hurdles, Russell seemed to savor his Les Miz experience. I had such a profoundly enjoyable experience with Les Miz that, for the rest of my career, whenever I start another movie, there will be some part of me wishing that I was starting Les Miz again, he remarked. Thats how much I enjoyed being on this film set.
So, if the singing part did not scare Russell, what scares him? Im not scared of spiders or snakes, he said with a smile. But, he brings up a co-stars name in Noah, his coming epic biblical drama with director Darren Aronofsky, whom he praised as an auteur of the highest level, and shot by Filipino-American Matthew Libatique.
Crowe recounted, I did a fight sequence with Ray Winstone on Noah. It was scheduled for one day. Five days later, I still hadnt gotten around to killing him yet. Hes a tough man to get down. Usually, when it comes to my work, if theres fear involved, thats actually the fun of it. I get butterflies whenever Im about to go onstage to perform, or when Im walking toward the cameras. But, to me, thats not a negative. It just means that I know within myself that I want to do my best!
