| RON
HOWARD:
"With A Beautiful Mind I never felt that what we were doing was
reenactment. This is much more symbolic of John Nash's life, and yet I really
felt that we had to be true to one goal, and that was to try and authentically
capture and present the spirit of their lives and their journey, otherwise the
story would be preposterous. If it were fiction, you'd give up on it and just
think that it was contrived. If it weren't based on actual events, I don't
think it would have been worth making. We weren't doing a biopic, it was a very
creative interpretation but in the hopes of capturing the truth as much as we
could in a couple of hours."
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BRIAN GRAZER:
"We treated Russell as a partner on this film. He's really smart,
and I don't mean in a pretentious way. I think that of all the actors (I know)
he understands screen impact extremely well, and he understands how to achieve
it in a real way without making a lot of noise."
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JENNIFER
CONNELLY:
"In talking to Ron I realized that we were not doing a documentary, and
his intention was not to have me play the real Alicia Nash. He wanted a
character that was inspired by her, just as the film is inspired by the events
of their lives. He really wanted me to create my own version of her. I went to
meet with her anyway, just for my own peace of mind. Just to be able to say,
'I'm going to be playing you in this movie, so is there anything that you want
me to say about you in my portrayal?' But ultimately it was more of a friendly
lunch chat, and she was more like, 'What's Russell Crowe like?' It didn't
become the in-depth experience that I was hoping it would be!"
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RUSSELL CROWE on the
day he brought out his Oscar and surprised a lot of extras:
"I've done some extra work in my time and I know how tedious it can be. We
had 800 to 1000 people in the room (when we were doing the Nobel Prize ceremony
scene), and we needed them to be as energetic in their first round of applause
as we did in their fiftieth or sixtieth round of applause. Later on in the day
when the cameras were on them, and Ron needed an enthusiastic round of
applause, I exchanged the Nobel plague I was carrying for the little gold
statue and we got what we needed. We are mercenaries, we make feature films, we
make them anyway we can!"
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JENNIFER CONNELLY on a scene where she
gets hysterical with frustration:
"I think it's human, that's why I liked the way Ron handled the character
and the way he let me explore that in her. Otherwise, who cares if she's this
infallible heroine who rides through it all with her husband and never
dissolves into self-pity, doubt and rage - that's what makes her human. I think
all of us can relate to those frustrations."
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RON HOWARD on
whether the movie, because it's more of a character piece, is a hard
sell:
"I'm not much of a prognosticator in this regard. I've been so wrong about
the movies that I've done. I was so fearful that Apollo 13 was going to
follow the path of The Right Stuff, which was a wonderful movie that
found no audience. The entire time I was making Apollo 13 I was
thinking, 'I'm going to enjoy every minute of making this movie because I don't
know what to expect when it comes out.' But I think that this movie offers
suspense, tension and surprise.
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