Russell Crowe puts acting first

Often what an actor needs more than talent, luck, a network of contacts, a luxury car and an influential agent is good taste.

It seems we are living in an era of movie-making dominated by deals and scripts by committee, by marketing barrages and by sky-high concepts.

But more than anything else, Hollywood is, and always has been, driven by stars. Corporate money is the goal. Stars generate it. And they eagerly stuff their pockets with it.

The rare few, however, do so in discriminating fashion.

Russell Crowe is one of the rare few.

No superhero tights in Crowe's future
You won’t see Crowe taking $20 million and a whopping percentage of the gross to play a villain in the “X Men” series. You won’t see him as “Superman” or “Batman.” You won’t see him as the grizzled veteran detective opposite Ashley Judd in a woman-in-peril thriller.

Crowe’s greatest gift is using his gift wisely. It’s applying his instrument to projects that aren’t designed to win the weekend and spawn action figures.

His latest, “Cinderella Man,” is more evidence of that. Crowe again teams with Ron Howard, who directed him in his Oscar-nominated turn in “A Beautiful Mind,” in the story of boxer James Braddock, who rose from dirt-poor circumstances during the Depression to win the heavyweight boxing title in 1935.

Boxing pictures rarely smash box-office records. They don’t work as date movies. They lure sports-oriented audiences and put off those with little or no interest in the genre.

Yet Crowe is obviously banking that there is still room on the cinematic landscape for good stories. Box office is currently mired in a 14-week slump. Distributing garbage doesn’t seem to be working like it once did.

Crowe’s approach is to shoot for greatness, knowing if he falls short he’ll still be bankable because he maintains an aura of integrity that is often squandered by fellow thespians in the same position.

Stars for sale
Nicolas Cage is a prime example. In 1995, he entered the pantheon of Hollywood A-list actors when he won an Academy Award for “Leaving Las Vegas.” Instead of using that cache to strengthen his standing in his profession, he fell into the trap. He appeared in a series of regrettable projects, including “Con Air,” “Snake Eyes,” “8MM” and “Gone in Sixty Seconds.” He was paid handsomely, but his reputation almost was bankrupted. In recent years, he has rallied with “Adaptation” and “Matchstick Men,” but he’s still misguided enough to throw a “National Treasure” in there occasionally.

Angelina Jolie followed her Academy Award victory for 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted” with such knuckleheaded choices as “Without Evidence,” “Original Sin,” “Life or Something Like It” and the lifeless “Lara Croft” films.

But Crowe’s filmography, while not impeccable, illustrates his desire to explore challenges rather than simply cashing in.

His breakthrough came in 1997 with his electrifying performance as the brutal but honorable Officer Bud White in Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of novelist James Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential.” Certainly Crowe had been on the radar before; he earned acclaim in 1992 for playing a skinhead in the Australian film, “Romper Stomper.” But “L.A. Confidential” made him a movie star.

After that, he had three pictures in rapid succession that he likely either committed to before “L.A. Confidential” or had already shot: an Australian thriller called “Heaven’s Burning”; an unfortunate romantic comedy, “Breaking Up,” with Salma Hayek; and the hockey comedy, “Mystery, Alaska,” written by TV mogul David E. Kelley and directed by Jay Roach (“Meet the Parents”).

A more accurate measure of Crowe’s career vision comes after, when he had power to pick and choose. He then made five pictures, which brought him three Academy Award nominations, including one Oscar: “The Insider” (1999); “Gladiator” (2000, for which he snagged the best actor statuette); “Proof Of Life” (2000, a decent action-thriller overshadowed by reports of romance between Crowe and Meg Ryan); “A Beautiful Mind” (2001) and “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” (2003).

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