Many Hollywood stars claim that ‘method acting’ is the only way to property portray a character on screen.
But Russell Crowe has proven that this isn’t the case.
Speaking on the Today show on Tuesday, Russell revealed what was actually going through his head while he was playing a man blinded by road rage in his new movie, Unhinged.
‘It could be, ‘I forgot to pick up the limes for the mayonnaise”: Russell Crowe, 56, spoke to the Today show on Tuesday about what he was thinking about while playing a man blinded by road rage in his new movie Unhinged (pictured in Unhinged)
‘It depends. It could be planning my bike road that I’m going to do the next morning,’ the Oscar-winning actor admitted.
‘It could be, “I forgot to pick up the limes for the mayonnaise for the coleslaw dressing.” It could be many things,’ he added.
Lifting the curtain on the filming process, Russell explained: ‘Quite often what you are doing is about where the camera is.
Tricks of the trade: Lifting the curtain on the filming process, Russell explained: ‘Quite often what you are doing is about where the camera is’
‘And, you know, it appears to be you are a man alone in a car, but you might have 100 people surrounding you and lights and all that sort of stuff.’
Of his acting method, Russell didn’t give much away and simply said: ‘You do learn over time to refine and distill how you get to things.’
It comes after Russell revealed he found it ‘amusing’ to play a character with extreme rage issues in Unhinged, 15 years after his notorious phone-throwing incident.
Practice makes perfect: Discussing his acting method, Russell said simply: ‘You do learn over time to refine and distil how you get to things’
‘I actually saw that as kind of amusing’: It comes after Russell revealed he finds it ‘amusing’ to finally play a character with extreme rage issues in Unhinged, 15 years after his notorious phone throwing incident
‘I actually saw that as kind of amusing,’ Russell told The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday, when quizzed on how it feels to finally embrace the ‘angry man’ trope in his career, after being accused of having a temper for years.
Clarifying that he doesn’t actually have anger issues in real life, Russell continued: ‘But in reality if you look at my work life, I go from one set to another set, I do the work that I want to do.’
‘That cliched description that is applied to me isn’t any level of my truth,’ he said.
Infamous incident: The Cinderella Man star allegedly threw a phone at a New York hotel worker in 2005 after being unable to place a call successfully to Australia. Pictured in 2002 with ex-wife Danielle Spencer
The Gladiator star went on to explain that, as a result of his fame, he has lost control over what is said about him in the media.
As a result, the false idea that he has a bad temper has become an important ‘asset’ to the media’s ‘broader phenomenon’, he argued.
Russell has famously been accused of losing his temper on several occasions.
Claims: The Kiwi-born star was also accused of losing his cool again while filming movie The True History of the Kelly Gang in Victoria, Australia in August 2018, when he discovered that ‘catering had run out of rice’
In one of his more memorable incidents, the Cinderella Man star allegedly threw a phone at a New York hotel worker in 2005 after being unable to place a call successfully to Australia.
In 2014, Russell defended the alleged assault during an interview with Channel Seven’s Sunday Night, claiming: ‘I never touched him, mate. Never touched him, never laid a finger on him.’
The Kiwi-born star was also accused of losing his cool again while filming The True History of the Kelly Gang in Victoria, Australia in August 2018.
Claims emerged from the set that a frustrated Russell lost it when he discovered that catering had run out of rice and had ‘stormed off’.
Upcoming: Unhinged will be released in Australia on July 30, and July 31 in the UK and US