---
title: "Serious"
date: 2005-02-26
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# Serious

‘Journey to the (Revolutionary, Evil-Hating, Cash-Crazy, and Possibly Self-Destructive) Center of Google’. That must go down as the silliest title for a tech article this year, nevertheless [GQ’s profile of Google](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064319/http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_422) was an interesting read. After that I happened to browse around the GQ website and saw [an interview with Russell Crowe](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064319/http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_442). He was named by GQ as the [greatest actor of our generation](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508064319/http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_482). Johnny Depp and Nicholas Cage were 2 and 3 (personally I’d rate Cage number 2, based mainly on his performance in *Vampire’s Kiss* – one of my favourite movies).

I read the long interview with Crowe and particularly enjoyed these quotes:

“If it’s not going to be that serious, I don’t want to do it. It’s a personal taste. I don’t like watching an actor have the same fucking hairdo from time period to time period, from character to character—I just think it’s bullshit. It’s a waste of money and a waste of my time as an audience member.”



And a bit later…

“I get a very deep sense that the generation after Generation X is a very conservative generation, and I’m not sure they understand the commitment part of what I do.”



Crowe goes on to talk about how he wanted to play Shakespeare in the movie *Shakespeare in Love*:

“It was a 100 percent fucking home run, except the central character of William Shakespeare was not a fucking writer—he was not smelly enough, he was not unshaven enough, and obviously hadn’t had enough to drink. He was some prissy pretty boy. What the fuck? That’s so disrespectful.”

*And you had in mind a smelly, unshaven, drunk guy you thought could do it?*

“Yeah, I wanted to see that grizzly fucker. I wanted to see him flower. I wanted to see him blossom under the fact of love. I wanted to see where the sonnets came from. They came from the same pen of despair that wrote Timon of Athens—I wanted to see that guy. I wanted to see that guy with the sensibilities of a man that could create a body of work that would last century after century. I wanted to see that.”

*And you wanted to be that?*

“I wanted to play that character. I loved the script. I mean, it was an incredibly well observed script about actors. That’s why I thought it was so cool.”

*Do you still think your version would have been better?*

“\[laughs\] By fucking miles, mate. What are you *talking* about?”



Fantastic interview…

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/serious.php))*