Academy
Award® winner RUSSELL CROWE is considered one of the finest
actors of his generation. Originally
from New Zealand, he started making waves in the Australian film industry with
his performance in the controversial film Romper
Stomper—for which he became critically acclaimed around the world. He has received three consecutive Academy
Award® Best Actor nominations for his performances in The Insider
(1999), Gladiator (2000) and A Beautiful Mind (2001)—taking home
the Oscar® for his performance in Gladiator.
Photo courtesy of UIP |
Cast as Jack Knife in the action-adventure in
Universal Pictures ‘The Man With Iron Fist’, who has been friends with director
RZA since they met on the set of the 2008 blockbuster American Gangster. During
his time on set, he discussed the path to playing a roguish mercenary who has
his own interests at heart: “Bobby and I
did pretty much every working day together on American Gangster and got to know
each other well. We connected mainly
through song lyrics, and he’s talked about this project since I met him. It’s one of those things where you have mates
that have their dream gig—the thing that they’ve been thinking about for a long
time. You learn about it, but it’s not
often that they end up doing it. When it
was looking more and more real, Bobby and I were coincidentally on set of
another movie, called The Next Three Days.
He calls me his big brother, and he said I really needed to be there, so
I’m here.”
Crowe’s character shares a name with his
unique weapon. He tells a bit about the
mystery man: “Jack Knife has come to
China as a soldier, and he’s become enraptured by the country. Part of that is due to the fact that he’s
addicted to opium.” As the performer dug
deeper into the period of the 19th century that RZA and Roth were
using for the film’s backdrop, he became more disturbed by the events of the
day. “I was quite frankly disgusted with
what I found. I’d no idea that the
British Empire flooded China with opium in order to control the populace and
get a better trade balance. That was a
bit of a shock, and I brought that to his attention.”
Proud to see his friend excelling in a new
role as a filmmaker, Crowe reflects: “Bobby’s
understood it more himself as he went on, day to day. You see him dealing with the cultural
differences and language differences.
He’s been cool, calm and collected.
He still has the respect of everybody.”
RZA returns the compliment with a story that
describes his level of respect for Crowe.
He says: “One of the people we
used for the character study of Jack Knife was Ol’ Dirty Bastard—so Russell
Jones/Russell Crowe.” Of infusing one of
Wu-Tang Clan’s founding members’ attitude and mind-set into the movie, RZA
reflects: “My cousin’s not here anymore, but I wanted his spirit in the
film. Russell and I talked about it, and
he loved the idea.”
“The
Man With The Iron Fists”
is released and distributed by
United
International
Pictures through Solar
Entertainment Corp.
Showing
on January 30.
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