Russell Crowe, an Academy winner for his
brilliant performance in Gladiator,
is known for his total commitment to a role, whether it’s playing a boxer (Cinderella Man), a Roman general/ slave
(Gladiator) or a tortured mathematics
genius (A Beautiful Mind). Les Misérables was no different. He
threw himself into the project with typical gusto.
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| Photo courtesy of UIP |
Crowe was born
in New Zealand and raised, mostly, in Australia. He first acted as a child, appearing
in an episode of the Australian TV show Spyforce
when he was 6 years old. His first musical was Grease at the Independent
theatre in Auckland and he won various acting awards in Australia before making
his first Hollywood film, The Quick and
the Dead, with Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman and Leonardo DiCaprio in 1995.
In 2000 he received the first of three
consecutive Oscar nominations for playing tobacco industry whistle blower
Jeffrey Wigand in Michael Mann’s The
Insider, his second came for Gladiator
and the following year he was nominated again for his portrayal of troubled
mathematics genius John Nash in A
Beautiful Mind.
His
forthcoming films include Man of Steel,
Broken City and Noah.
Q and A follows:
You’ve been a
musician and singer all of your adult life. But was Les Miserables different?
Yes, it was. It wasn’t something that I
knew. I knew of the show but I had never seen the show. The type of singing
style was just not in my field of experience. This isn’t at all about being a
bloke who sings songs.
Did
you see the show?
I went to see the show in London
and what struck me was that it was a really stirring performance and an
inspiring evening in the theatre. It's an unusual piece because it’s not
broken down into hit songs, it’s a
series of beautiful melodies that evolve into and out of songs and those
songs became standards immediately as opposed to having radio success or
chart success. In a way part of it is
because it’s operatic, it’s like one piece -Les
Miserables, as epic and heart breaking as it is, it’s a beautiful long
breath. People that tend to like Les
Miserables like it from start to finish, you know, and they love the
experience of it. And you find people who are obsessed with this musical in a
way that I’ve never known people be obsessed by a musical before.
Had you met Cameron
Mackintosh before this project?
Sometime over the years I must
have met Cameron. When I was doing musical theatre in Australia we had a number
of friends in common and stuff but the first serious conversations I had with
Cameron about work was last year when we started talking about Les Mis. I had a friend from
primary school, Matthew Dalco
and he was just one of those kids I
was very close with and he always believed in me, we were just mates. His Mum
worked for the Australian opera, and he ended up working for Cameron and
becoming very successful in Australia and then went to London to work for
Cameron. And Matthew was just one of those guys who believed in me and he would
contact me about the possibility of me doing one of their shows – usually
entirely unsuitable (laughs), but he was always thinking of me when auditions came around. And tragically, Matthew died very
young. Very sad. He was a lovely guy. So there has been a connection with me
and Cameron going back a long way, a kind of back of the mind thing.
Cameron said that at
one point he thought you would have been a great Valjean and Hugh Jackman would
have been a perfect Javert. What do you think?
I don’t think that would have
worked. I’m a natural bass baritone with a couple of extra notes on
top but I don’t think I could do Valjean the service he requires. Hugh has
a different voice. He has a beautiful voice - so expressive and controlled.
This way round is the right way. This is the way it should be. Hugh is going to
be magnificent in this role. I was constantly impressed with him every day –
his level of preparation, his concentration, his commitment, what he did
physically to transform himself. It was a very pleasant experience for me and I
was so impressed with the way that Hugh led the actors and set the right tone
and example. I was proud to be on the same set with him because he was doing
the job and doing it very, very well.
So when they first
approached you for the role of Javert what did you think?
After I had seen the show I sat
down with Tom and to be honest, I was thinking, ‘it’s not for me..’ And I was
thinking of the politest way to bow out. As much as I loved it, it wasn’t for
me. And Tom and I went for a walk in Hyde Park and we started breaking the
character down and talking about the limitations of the theatre in terms of the
characters’ journey. And we talked in some depth about how he would
approach the film. You have to find a basis for the way in which the character
makes decisions. And I was really impressed with Tom - he didn’t have all the
answers but he had a determination and a clear commitment.
And you know, it’s a massive ask
because this much loved musical is so successful and the transition to a
completely different medium requires complexity and vision. He had that. He was
really open too, and I liked the guy.
He threw me into the deep
end and I was engaged intellectually and it became important to me. And it’s
funny, because it switches then, from them pursuing you for the role and
you are now pursuing the part. I really wanted to do it.
How did you prepare?
I started working with singing
teachers – in Sydney, LA, Illinois, Vancouver wherever I was, I aimed to sing
every day. Singing teachers are a breed unto themselves and each one has a
different way of working. They have a language of their own - a shorthand you
need to learn. One of them was Roberta and we just clicked. Roberta Duchak
has a long career as a performer and she is a gifted teacher. Hugh started
working with her too when we started shooting, so we shared her, she worked
like a Trojan and never complained. I was really lucky to find Roberta - she
just made it all seem possible.
And then you
met up with Tom and Cameron for the audition in New York. What was that like?
You have to
get yourself in the right sort of Zen place for an audition like that – you
have to channel your nerves and your adrenaline and it’s kind of like you have
to meditate to the point of clarity. You have to use it. And it had been a long
time since I had faced that kind of auditioning process where there was a lot
on the line for something that I had really engaged with. I went into the
audition having worked for months on two songs, The Confrontation which comes at the end of Fantine’s death, and is
a duet with Valjean, and Stars, the
principle ballad of the Javert character and I had never, ever sung Stars properly. So I was walking into
that room knowing that I hadn't yet sung that song properly.
How did it go?
You know, all
those months of preparation, the belief that Tom had in me, it all paid off.
And the song came out exactly as I hoped it would. I got all the notes down and
I was flying. And then they said, ‘OK, let’s do it again..’ And I did. I sang
it a third time, a fourth time and it was there every time. Tom was making me
use my voice over and over again and although I’m not sure that the others knew
at the time, stamina was part of what he was looking for. Not only did he want
to know that I had the ability to sing it, he wanted to know that I could sing
it over and over again.
Because he
knew you would have to sing it live on set?
Yes and it’s not like doing a
Broadway show. You do a Broadway show and you might sing seven minutes, you
might sing 21 minutes if you are a leading character, and you’ll sing your song
and you’ll hit your notes once, but on a film set, we’re talking about
being on a film set singing a very challenging song 23 times from beginning to
end - or a group of us sing Fantine's
Arrest 40 something times. It was rock n roll kind of stamina, where you
are singing the full concert everyday. At odd times too, sometimes you'd be
singing at 7am at the beginning of a day, or 2am at the end of a day.
And what was it like
when you all gathered at Pinewood to start filming?
There was uniformity to the way
people approached this as they arrived on set – everybody was terrified but
everybody was prepared to claim it. We had an unusually long rehearsal time and
that gave us opportunity to get to know each other, to chill out in the
environment and understand what was required. What Tom is doing with this is
engaging the heart, not just engaging the mind. There is no way in the world
that anything I say will prepare you for what Anne and Hugh are doing in
this movie. They will blow you away.
It sounds like a
great experience?
I have to say it was the most
fully absorbing experience right from the time of the auditions, working with
the voice coach, rehearsals, doing the movie, and there’s part of me that in
the future whenever I’m starting a movie I’ll wish that I was starting Les Mis again. That’s how big that
experience was.
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