Becoming an Outlaw
It took months of longbow training, horse riding and sword fighting to turn Russell Crowe into nottingham`s most famous hero: Robin Hood. and this time his kids were there to see it
INTERVIEW | MARTYN PALMER
Image – Corbis
RUSSELL CROWE DOESN’T LIKE LETTING HIS CHILDREN see most of his films. “No, not really,” he smiles. “Maybe when they’re a bit older but right now the boys are not about to sit down and watch Romper Stomper or LA Confidential on DVD.”
He’s got a point. In Romper Stomper he played a neo-Nazi with a shaved head and a hideously tattooed body and in LA Confidential he was a thuggish cop who handed out beatings faster than speeding tickets.
Both were powerhouse performances and paved the way to where he is now – the actor regarded as arguably the most talented of his generation, an Oscar winner with a formidable reputation for immersing himself into a role in much the way that, say, a Robert De Niro or an Al Pacino did in the past.
But Robin Hood is different. He was able to take his sons, Charlie, six, and three-year-old Tennyson, on set and let them see first hand what Dad does for a day job.
“You know, one of the great pleasures of making this film has been having the family with me in England while we did it,” he says. “And for a couple of young boys, watching their dad ride around on horses, fire a longbow and have a few sword fights with the bad guys, well, that’s been a bit of a thrill, for them and me.
“I remember we were filming one scene on the Nottingham set, which was the most incredible piece of design – a whole medieval village with a pub, a corn exchange, a church, houses, everything. Just beautiful.
“Anyway, the scene involved me riding through on a horse and fighting several people along the way – lots of choreography, lots of things that could go wrong, but we nailed it.
“And the boys were watching behind one of the cameras and at the end I pull out my sword and hold it high in the air and I look right at them. They were there in their little Robin Hood outfits that we had made for them, with their little swords and they both pulled out their swords and saluted me right back. It was priceless.”
Crowe has been entranced by the Robin Hood legend since he was a little lad himself, growing up in New Zealand and Australia.
“I remember the Richard Greene TV series, which when you watch it now is hokey as hell and pretty much the same story every episode.” His Robin Hood, he promises, will be different – a reimagining of the myth that blends historical fact with fiction to tell the story of how the man became the outlaw.
“For every Robin Hood that has been made there has never been a Robin Hood that could be. Everybody falls into the trap of, ‘Well, if you’re doing Robin Hood you have to do this or that.’ No, you don’t have to hit the same notes. You can take the time period, you can take the core message and put a different take on it.
It’s the fifth film he’s made with his favourite director, Sir Ridley Scott; following blockbuster hit Gladiator – a blistering performance that earned Crowe his Oscar – A Good Year, American Gangster and Body of Lies. Their friendship has been forged on film locations all over the world and Crowe clearly regards Scott as a mentor and father figure.
“He suits me. I like to go to a set and work.
I like to finish a day feeling like I’ve done a man’s work. And Ridley likes to work like that too. Plus he’s one of the greatest directors in the world and if he wants me to work with him, then I’m there.”
Months before filming began in England, Crowe started intense preparation for the role on his farm in New South Wales. Two of the three actors who would be his Merry Men – Kevin Durand (Little John) and Alan Doyle (Allan A’Dayle) – joined him there. The third, Scott Grimes, who plays Will Scarlet, couldn’t make it because of commitments to the TV series ER.
“What did we do? Well, we did a lot of physical stuff – bike riding, gym work, running, weights, that sort of thing. It was fun. And obviously we needed a lot of weapons training for the film. For me, specifically, it was working with the bow. Actually, archery is a bit like learning golf, which I did for The Insider. And man, I loved it. It’s great. I said to the guy who was teaching me, ‘I’m in love with the flight… I just love it when the arrow is released from the bow…’ and he was like, ‘Well, it’s your sport then.’”
Scott and Crowe both agreed that their version of Robin Hood would tell the story of how the myth began – how Robin Longstride, a warrior who has been away fighting in the crusades, becomes Robin Hood. Longstride returns to find England on the verge of civil war and under threat of invasion. A land where the downtrodden people are on the brink of starvation and in need of a leader who will fight for their rights.
“If you look back through the history of Robin Hood – and I’m a bit of a student of Robin Hood – there’s a thousand years of history and more and it’s probably one of the oldest fictional tales in the English language,” says Crowe.
“And down the years it’s been told as ballad, legend, a political tool, a tool of the Church, a parlour game. But what we have tried to do is a different thing. The central conceit – robbing the rich to give to the poor – remains the same but it’s how you achieve that.
“In our story we’re looking at the metaphor of that rather than, ‘Here’s 10 gold coins, go and buy yourself a sheep, have a good life.’ We’re saying that Robin may take some of the freedoms and rights of the monarchy and aristocracy and give them to the people.”
There’s romance too. Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett plays Lady Marian Loxley, who gradually falls for the battle-hardened soldier.
Crowe has wanted to work alongside Blanchett for years and wasn’t disappointed. “Cate’s been fantastic. She’s real and that obviously works so well in her performance because she hasn’t been overtaken by who she is as a famous person. And she has a skill level that is second to none in my experience. All of those things come together and that’s an amazing combination.”
The production was based at Shepperton on the outskirts of London and Scott settled on locations within a 30-mile radius of the studios, including building a village on the 2,000-acre Hampton estate in the heart of the Surrey countryside. The area is studded with ancient oak trees – a hallmark of the Robin Hood legend.
The one exception took them to the beautiful Pembrokeshire coastline in Wales where Scott filmed a key battle scene. “It was incredible,” says Crowe. “We had 130 horses going at full gallop on that beautiful beach and 500-odd extras on foot. The adrenaline rush was extraordinary.”
They also returned to a location that they used to great effect in Gladiator – Bourne Wood in Surrey, which is where Crowe’s character Maximus rallies his troops before going into battle against the Germanic hordes.
“It was crazy being back there,” says Crowe. “From the moment we turned into Farnham, it was like, ‘Yeah, here it is. Here’s this place where the big part of my public life began.’ I mean, LA Confidential was great and it got me into sleazy nightclubs for free but it didn’t really change my life. Gladiator changed my life completely. It all came back to me, mate, and they are great memories.”
There will, inevitably, be comparisons between the two films – they are both historical epics with heroes who face terrible odds. Robin even has a strikingly similar haircut to Maximus. But the comparison between Robin Hood and Gladiator is “not a bad thing at all,” says Crowe.
“We’ve done some things in this where we knowingly go into that territory but as Ridley has said, if you are going to doff your cap to an influence it’s OK that it’s yours. It’s been 10 years. Other people have tried to do it and not come up anywhere near it so I don’t have a problem with us doffing that cap.”
We meet on the Nottingham set while Crowe takes a break between scenes. He’s in full Robin Hood garb with battered leather boots and a tunic underneath chain mail. “Yeah, and not a pair of tights on the set,” he laughs.
I’ve interviewed Crowe many times over the years and shared a beer with him on several occasions. He has a reputation as a man who doesn’t suffer fools – and journalists – too well but I’ve always found him engaging, ferociously bright and passionate about what he does.
He’s a perfectionist and fastidious about the details, whether it’s creating a character or running a rugby club – he’s now co-owner of South Sydney Rabbitohs, the rugby league club he’s supported since he was a boy.
“It’s a wonderful feeling, being so closely involved with the team that you loved as a kid,” he says. “But there are frustrations too. As much as you would love to be able to run out there and play – and God, I wish I was anything like as gifted on the field as our players are – you can’t. And it takes a long time to build a team. But we’re getting there. And I love that team.”
Sport has been an abiding passion in his life. He was a talented cricketer and rugby player as a youngster, and his cousins, Martin and Jeff Crowe, both played cricket for New Zealand.
Russell chose another route, making a name for himself with Australian films like Proof and Romper Stomper, and then in Hollywood, working alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Quick and the Dead and establishing his Stateside reputation with LA Confidential.
It was the start of a remarkable run of success, including The Insider, playing a paunchy tobacco industry whistle blower, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind as tortured maths genius John Nash – earning him three straight Best Actor Academy Award nominations.
Along the way, he has pushed and pulled his body to the absolute limits – playing boxer Jim Braddock in Cinderella Man, a role he describes as “physically the toughest” of his career, piling on the pounds to play a corpulent CIA officer in Body of Lies and a British sea captain in Master and Commander.
“I’ve changed my weight so many times I sometimes wonder what my normal weight is,” he grins. “But you know, I happen to believe that if you are playing a boxer, you should look like a boxer, if you’re playing a heavyset CIA guy then that’s the way you should go. It’s all about paying respect to the role, paying respect to the people who go and watch the films. But really, it’s no big deal.”
Having a family has changed him, calmed him down, he says – it’s more than five years since he was fined for throwing a phone at a hotel receptionist in the US – and these days, wherever possible, he tries to take them with him when he’s away filming.
His wife is the singer and actress Danielle Spencer, who released her latest album, Calling All Magicians, to good reviews in February. They met when they were cast together in 1990’s The Crossing.
“Family is important,” he says. ”And I don’t like being away from them a day longer than I have to. You miss so much because kids grow up so fast. Having kids changes the balance of your life. Dani and the boys are my priority. Everything else, including making movies, is on the next level.”
While making Robin Hood, he was able to combine the two. Staying in a rented house in Surrey, the family explored London and the countryside on days off.
“It was perfect, actually, and we all had a great time. And I had a great time making Robin Hood. And I think Ridley has done justice to a great story and that’s what we set out to do. We wanted to make the best Robin Hood there’s ever been. If you don’t aim for that, there’s no point in doing it.”
Robin Hood is released in the UK on 14 May. www.robinhoodthemovie.com
