Russell back in the day.
Last week I saw the film, State of Play, which I was a bit dubious about as I had so enjoyed the TV version and also because it has Russell Crowe in it and he arouses strong feelings in me. I can admit to a major crush on him when he was in Gladiator and LA Confidential and pretty much anything before he porked up. But it is painful for me to see the transformation. So, State of Play starts with Russell driving in his car and looking like, well, a trucker! He has long hair, chubby cheeks and he is eating some kind of horrible snack that looks like it could be wotsits. I am forced to console myself with Cherry Garcia, thinking that by the time the film finishes I will have porked up as much as Russell. But as the film develops something happens – almost imperceptibly a bit of the old magic comes back and I’m back to loving him for being, so well, MANLY! And I now I see that he is getting buff for Robin Hood, so I can look forward to that confident that there will be no wotsits or hamster cheeks.
As a writer I tend to use actors or models as the basis for many of my heroes. My son was appalled when I had the American actor Paul Walker [Into the Blue, The Fast and the Furious] as my screen saver, as he was the inspiration for the hero in one of the novels I’ve ghostwritten. Son then got his revenge by then making my login icon a dog [which I still can’t work out how to change]. But apart from outraging minors, the leading man thing does have unforseen consequences. Josh Harnett was the basis for Jack in Valentine, well bits of him anyway, and so to get him in my head I ended up getting out lots of Josh Harnett movies from LoveFilm, without really bothering to check what they were about. Which is why I found myself watching his vampire film, 30 Days of Nights. Husband, half way through, ‘Why are we watching this?’ ‘ Oh it was recommended, I say breezily, not wanting to admit that I needed to ogle Josh, who let me down badly by wearing an enormous puffer jacket throughout. I know it was minus 20 but really! Then there was my emotionally shattering Mark Ruffalo experience [the only man who can look sexy in a moustache if you ask me]. I decided he was good leading man to have in my head, did the usual mass order from Lovefilm. And so it was that I ended up watching My Life Without Me – yes, I know the clue was in the title – a heart wrenching film about a young mother with two young daughters who is diagnosed with cancer and has just two months to live and decides as well as recording messages for her daughters’ birthdays [are you crying yet?] she will do ten things she has never done before, including sleep with a stranger. So yes, she gets to sleep with the lovely Mark’s character, but it was just the once and nothing could make up for the rest of the film which traumatised me for days. It was a lesson. Now I always the check the plot of films I’m about to order…
