Russell Crowe talks about creative journalism and his role as a morally challenged reporter in State of Play

Why did you want to make State of Play?
I wasn’t predisposed to do this film. I was back in Australia. The sun was shining. I was looking forward to a very long summer at home, and I got a call from the studio with which I had worked on Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and American Gangster.
The first thing I did was to look at the work of Kevin Macdonald, and my absolute desire was to dismiss it completely. Do it quickly. Do it in a day and get on with my holiday. But you can’t dismiss Touching the Void and the Last King of Scotland. They’re both great pieces. Then I read the script, and I have a rule that if I have a physical reaction to a script – goose-bumps, a tear to my eye, then that’s the project I have to do. Read the rest of this article »