If the "Harry Potter" saga started again today, it wouldn't be surprising if
Russell Crowe
took on the role of the giant Hagrid : with his thick beard, massive physique, sweet expression that contrasts with the grandeur of the character , the popular actor that Rome has chosen as its testimonial in the world certainly no longer resembles the centurion Massimo Decio Meridio who gave him an Oscar and worldwide popularity in "Gladiator" (2001). More than 20 years have passed since then and the most famous Australian star of all time seems to be a man at peace with his body and his passions. Ultimately he prefers to play live, perform with his band rather than indulge in the splendor of the red carpet, show himself in public with shortsighted glasses and a big body so different from the athletic boy of his early days, joke on the stage of the Sanremo festival, travel incessantly and then returned to his home in Los Angeles where he remained after his divorce from singer Danielle Spencer. He won't be in the sequel to "Gladiator" (which ended with his death), but he has an upcoming film in store ("Sleeping Dogs"), another one for the summer ("Kraven - the Hunter") and at least four projects in production.
His is the photograph of an irregular star who seems to take his work as a hobby and his true passion (music) as his dream profession, aware that in the first case he is a star, with all the privileges of the case, and in the second who will not enter the Musicians' Hall of Fame.
Born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 7 April 1964, he has always been proud of his Maori origins (on his mother's side), of a cocktail of races that have merged over the centuries (Irish, German, Welsh, Scottish, even Italian) , of his having made himself from nothing and having learned to act as a self-taught out of passion and determination. He frequented sets from a very young age (his parents worked in catering for productions), left home at 16 and moved for years between his home country and Australia, often earning a living as a street musician, cutting his teeth in soaps -operas until he snatched his first role in 1991 ("Crossing") and success with "Skinheads" and "Romper Stomper" the following year.
In 1997, having arrived in Hollywood, he joined the cast of "LA Confidential" and earned his first nomination in the Actors' Guild. The role of the investigator without illusions, bent by the ghosts of his profession, suits him perfectly and he will repeat his success, with many variations, throughout his career. But it is the new century that made him a star with the three subsequent Oscar nominations for "Insider" by Michael Mann, "Gladiator" by Ridley Scott, "A Beautiful Mind". Twice he was defeated by Denzel Washington despite having given life to memorable everyday heroes, but with the blockbuster paeplum he took revenge and a star on the Walk of Fame.
Although not as successful, "Master and Commander" (Peter Weir, 2003) remains one of his most intense and favorite roles. In the role of naval officer Jack Aubrey, in command of the frigate Surprise, Russell Crowe displays a variety of attitudes and feelings that quickly remove the film from the stereotype of the war period film to make it a fantastic journey to discover the world between Cape Horn and the Galapagos Islands in that 19th century which saw England dominate the seas of the world and discover new borders. With the same naturalness he would then wear the gloves of a defeated boxer ("Cinderella Man"), of a tormented Robin Hood (again with Ridley Scott), of the patriarch Noah (directed by Darren Aronovsky), even of the implacable policeman Javert in the adaptation of "Les Misérables" as a musical. He often returned to the police, the perfect incarnation of a "Marlowe model", a disenchanted investigator faithful to his principles, even if recently the public remembers him for a naturalistic "Pope's Exorcist". At each stage he denotes an instinctive and rebellious curiosity that makes him unclassifiable and unexpected. At the age of 60 he seems ready to write an artistic path yet to be traced, but it would not be surprising if he swerved to the side once again, as if chasing an inner dream that he projected in his unique and intense directorial, "The Water Diviner " of 2014.
Set between Gallipoli and Anatolia at the end of the First World War, it is the travel story of the Australian farmer Joshua Connor who crossed the world to find three sons who had officially fallen on the beach of Gallipoli (indirect homage to the film of the same name by his teacher Peter Weir) having promised his wife to bring the bodies home. Joshua is a natural dowser, but beyond the water under the earth this time he must find the dead of him. He will discover that his elder is still alive and will manage to bring him to safety with the help of a Turkish boy and his mother. The film is so unusual and personal that it deserves to be recovered even today. Because it is precisely in this difference from the roles that Hollywood has tailored for him that today and tomorrow perhaps Russell Crowe will revive his myth.
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