Russell Crowe, the Australian actor who
plays tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider,
lovingly touches his pack of Benson & Hedges and strikes a match.
"After The Insider, I know the exact chemical compounds
in a commercial cigarette, but I've been smoking since I was 10,"
he says, inhaling deeply. "I know it's terrible, but
I'm a great fan of irony."
Thanks to The Insider, Crowe's
career is also-- if you'll pardon the expression-- smokin', as the
handsome 35-year-old generates Oscar buzz for his transformation
into the paunchy, graying Wigand. Meanwhile, Crowe's next
metamorphosis may transform him into an action hero. He'll
star as a courageous roman warrior in Ridley Scott's costume epic
Gladiator. While the virile actor enjoyed the role's
physicality (Crowe spends his free time tending cattle on his ranch
in the Aussie outback), he admits that playing a gladiator isn't
easy. "You're dealing with going from one 10-day fight
sequence to immediately rehearsing for the next 10-day fight sequence,"
he says. "In between, I'm wrestling with a tiger."
Crowe grew up on film sets in New Zealand
and Australia, where his parents ran a movie catering business.
After establishing his career Down Under, Crowe played a dusty gun-slinger
in The Quick and the Dead, and a serial killer in Virtuosity.
His Hollywood breakthrough, however, was his acclaimed turn as police
officer Bud White in LA Confidential. But as Crowe
drew rave notices, he also earned the dubious label of being "difficult
to work with." He shakes those accusations off with a
flicker of his cigarette.
"I love searching for the absolute
right nuance in my work," he says. "And I don't
equate being intense with being difficult."
Russell Crowe