Crowe's journey to the dark side

Ben Affleck and Crowe in State Of Play. Photo / Supplied

Russell Crowe is renowned for his fiery encounters with journalists so I am a bit concerned when something comes hurtling across the Dorchester Hotel table towards me.

Fortunately, it only turns out to be the South Sydney Rabitohs cap that was formerly perched upon his head. "We've got the best part of the New Zealand forward pack in our side," he says of the NRL side that he owns. "And it's funny, but there are more Queenslanders in the Warriors' starting XIII than New Zealanders."

The Mount Roskill Grammar School old boy is in London to promote State Of Play, the Hollywood remake of the critically acclaimed 2003 BBC miniseries to be released here May 28. Crowe stars as Cal McAffrey, a veteran journalist forced to reconsider his loyalty to his old friend Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) after the politican's pretty young researcher dies in suspicious circumstances.

Despite keeping the gathered members of the worldwide press waiting for nearly three hours, the 45-year-old is in a buoyant mood, joking and cheerfully answering questions. He is happy particularly because the film, directed by The Last King of Scotland's Kevin McDonald, gave him the opportunity to take on one of his biggest bugbears, the fourth estate. "I told Kevin early on that if you're expecting me to play a journalist as a hero, you're talking to the wrong man," says Crowe, who has shorn the long locks that he grew for the part.

"But I will if you want me to play a journalist as a human being with all the foibles, quirks, preferences and predilections that we all have as humans and in that find a way through this journey to possibly rediscover the set of ethics that this man once had." Crowe drew on observations that he has made during his numerous meetings with reporters over the course of his three-decade career.

"The fact that I harbour disappointments and anger about journalists in certain situations I've been in or certain things that have been said to me does not preclude me from having a deep, personal opinion that it is a noble profession," he says. "But it has to be ennobled by the people in it. It's like anything; if you want to make a great film you've got to have elbow grease, focus and commitment. These things don't just pop out of the microwave."

Crowe was a last-minute replacement for Brad Pitt, who pulled out just before filming was about to commence after failing to resolve his creative differences with McDonald. As well as Affleck, State Of Play also stars Helen Mirren as McAffrey's editor Cameron Lynne and Rachel McAdams as young blogger Della Frye. "I wasn't predisposed to this film in any shape or form," admits Crowe. "I had just gotten back to Australia from Europe.

The sun was shining and I was looking forward to a very long summer at home. I got a call from Universal Studios, who explained the situation that they were in and 'would I please look at this project'." Initially determined to continue his holiday, Crowe was compelled to reconsider by the quality of the screenplay. "I have a rule that I've always used since I was a kid," he reveals. "If I have a physical reaction to the script, if I get goosebumps, if I shed a tear then that's the job I have to do. It's respecting the gods. It's why I got into this job in the first place: to explore the emotional journeys of human beings is very important to me and if I start making decisions in another way then I really should stop making films.

So Kevin flew down to Australia, and we talked and disagreed for 18 hours. But that doesn't mean you can't create something together, just because you have a slightly different perspective." Crowe is in Britain to begin work on Nottingham, his old Gladiator collaborator Ridley Scott's highly anticipated reinvention of Robin Hood. "I've worked in a visual medium since I was 6 years old and Ridley is the only director who sees the painting in the same way that I do," says Crowe, who will co-produce for the first time.

"It represents a large step in my career as a certain reliance and trust has been placed in me by the studio." He is relishing the chance to stamp his mark on the classic folk tale. "I've read around 30 or 40 books on Robin Hood," he says. "Some of them are frivolous, some of them are fictional, and some of them are studious academic examinations of the mythology. I know the story from a myth to a legend to a political fable to a religious tool or a parlour game.

This is a fictional story that has lasted 1000 years; it's probably the oldest fictional story in the English language." He admits that he is not fond of any previous film incarnation of the perennial outlaw, although he has a sneaking admiration for The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1950s television series that starred Richard Greene. "With the cinematic history of Robin Hood, names and places have gotten into the minds of people which have got absolutely nothing to do with what it was like 1000 years ago," he says. "Robin Hood is probably a combination of around 30 people over time.

The core value of the story is that there's somebody out there who is prepared to rob the rich and redistribute that wealth to the poor. I think that is what has kept it alive. It's an incredible privilege to make a movie that has this sort of history as a narrative." He is also candid about why he dropped out of Baz Luhrmann's film Australia. "I didn't turn it down," he insists. "I read the original draft which was the most splendid story I'd read in many years.

Then over time it was rewritten and rewritten and changed. I didn't understand where the changes were coming from. We'd agreed on the rules of engagement and they kept changing them. I was ready to make the film in November 2005 but Baz didn't start shooting until April 2007. I can't hang around and wait; I'm a working actor. If I had done what Baz had asked me to do, which was to sit and wait for him, I would have not made American Gangster, Body of Lies or this film."

Crowe believes that the role of the Drover, eventually taken by Hugh Jackman, would not have offered much of a challenge. "It would have been a really simple character for me to play," he says. "I wouldn't've had anything to learn, no accent, no skills. I have a cattle property and I ride horses all the time. So it had to be about that pure love and when the story started changing for reasons that I didn't understand that is obviously going to affect your attitude. I'm a straight-shooting man. If you look me in the eye and you shake my hand over something, I expect you to keep your end of the bargain."

* State Of Play is in cinemas from May 28.