|
The world was a very different place back in November 1999. Al Gore was just gearing up for a cake-walk of a presidential campaign. The dot-com boom was still booming, sort of. The world was excited about Y2K, but jittery about the Y2K bug, which was going to shut down our cities, launch ballistic missiles, and cause planes to nose-dive into the sea. And Russell Crowe had an approximate level of fame equivalent to Bill Pullman.
In other words, Crowe was a well-respected but relatively marginal actor just coming off Mystery, Alaska and just about to star in The Insider, and who seemed like he deserved to be a lot more famous than he was. Well, as you no doubt recall, he grabbed an Oscar nomination for that movie. Then he starred in an unpromising sand-and-sandals epic called Gladiator. Then he stole Meg Ryan. Then he won an Oscar. Then he got another Oscar nomination. Then he started running around Hollywood goosing women, quaffing ale, and setting things on fire. Oh, and Proof of Life was somewhere in there, too.
Russell Crowe didn't just get more famous; he got super-famous. He got Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise/Harrison Ford famous. And what's worse: he can actually act. In fact, he actually seems to enjoy acting. He seems determined to continue actually acting now that he's a household name and fantasy fodder for millions of men and women worldwide. He seems, for now, resolutely unwilling to switch the locomotive of his career from the Serious Actor track to the Sex Symbol Action Superstar track.
Don't get us wrong: there are reasons to have misgivings about Russell Crowe. Number one: Vanity rock group side-project. Number two: BAFTA producer beat-down. Number three: For those of you unfamiliar with the nuances of Hollywood euphemisms, the word "perfectionist" can be translated roughly as "unrepentant asshole." The word "driven" can be translated roughly as "obstinate prick." And the phrase "dedicated to his craft" translates roughly as "stubborn asshole who'll keep the crew up until 4 AM because he didn't like the way his eyebrows twitched in the sixty-third and most recent take."
Russell Crowe is often described as a driven perfectionist who's dedicated to his craft.
But ask yourself: would you rather he be a driven perfectionist, or the second coming of Nicolas Cage? Sure, Crowe's role in A Beautiful Mind was overly actorly, but would you rather he was carjacking Ferraris with Giovanni Ribisi to a Limp Bizkit soundtrack? Or would you rather he was a squeaky smooth, non-BAFTA producer beating, non-Meg Ryan-stealing, Scientology-espousing, Oprah-visiting, sham-marriage entering kind of movie star?
For once, here's an undeniably skilled actor (who's also sexy and charismatic to boot) who's actually risen to the top of his profession. And isn't that how the whole thing is supposed to work, anyway? And if not, how is it supposed to work?
It's hard to suggest that Russell Crowe should be even more famous than he already is, but we're going to do it anyway. Just a top-up, really -- from "really famous contemporary movie star" to "really famous movie star for the ages." Because as far as movie stars go, sure, just like you, we'd rather have Russell Crowe minus self-righteous acceptance speeches and Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. But just Russell Crowe is a pretty damn good deal, too.
|
