There’s such a great understanding between director and actor that when Ridley Scott asks Russell Crowe to make a movie with him, Rusty says yes, and delves into the plot and character later.
So Crowe didn’t hesitate when Scott approched him to star in the spy thriller Body of Lies- even though the actor would have to gain 22kg to play the portly, slow-moving CIA veteran Ed Hoffman.
Or that the character is far removed from the kind of forceful, dominating type that Crowe usually embodies: he’s charmless, ruthless and ultra-cynical.
Body of Lies screenwriter William Monahan describes Hoffman as “the American bureaucrat who never does anything right and never gets punished for it…one of those guys who manages to rise and rise while never actually accomplishing anything.”
But Hoffman does manipulate Leonardo DiCaprio’s CIA agent Roger Ferris, despatching him to the Middle East to trap a terrorist leader, and has no qualms about putting Ferris’ life in danger.
“This is a film about betrayal and seduction and deception,” says Crowe. How did he put on all that weight? Simple– lots of hamburgers.
This is Crowe’s fourth collaboration with Scott following Gladiator, An American Gangster and the misfire A Good Year.
Despite their rapport, Russell says, “People make the assumption that we agree on everything. That
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