Download he is a golden god

HE IS A
GOLDEN GOD
Almost Famous is the name of one of Billy Crudup’s most successful movies,
but it could also be an ironic epithet for his career. And despite what you
might think, there is no criticism or disparagement implied in saying so,
for the American actor has dedicated his life’s work to craft, not fame.
It shows a rare integrity. In fact, when he says he wants to make
people believe he is someone else ‘ for the sake of a story’, it sounds
to us like nothing less than a revolutionary hymn…
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I
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f you long for the limelight, hanker for celebrity, or ache for time this year, he has led an intentionally low-key career. In the
the glamour of a large Instagram following, don’t do what same vein as Edward Norton, all projects are considered carefully
Billy Crudup has done with his career. But if you’re keen to and his choices have led to a career that has generated fantastic
get your 10,000 hours under your belt, to master your craft by performances without the sort of public profile that can damage
performing work by the likes of Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter one’s independence. He says: “L.A. is claustrophobic for me as
and Samuel Beckett, and to become one of the most respected an industry town. I really like so many aspects of it but I do enjoy
and accomplished stage actors — all the while dipping into being a part of the theatre community [in New York], and that’s a
Hollywood to extend your filmic work when it takes your fancy — big part of my working life and extra-curricular life, too.”
then Crudup’s example is exactly the one to follow.
His approach to the profession isn’t inconsistent. He fell
Personally I would choose the latter. Let’s leave aside the fact into acting by accident, some might say — a result of not feeling
that the former is the most cynical approach to a calling in the “useful” elsewhere and acting becoming his way of standing out.
arts. Fame is a driver for many people, and never has being so “I remember when I was in Florida and I saw a production of
vacuous become so lucrative.
Romeo and Juliet, and whatever
Billy Crudup has, even at
actor was doing with
“I was kind of a class clown, that
48 years of age, the sort of
Mercutio was a shit-load of
a bit of a ham, and I guess
cheekbone-and-wide-smile
fun,” he says. “I was kind of
handsomeness that would make that was my way of fitting in.” a class clown, a bit of a ham,
Rob Lowe feel insecure (with
and I guess that was my way of
all due respect to the great Rob Lowe). Crudup’s marketability is fitting in. I went to a lot of different schools as we moved and so I
not in question, nor is his talent, and his career has demonstrated had to make new friends, and performing came naturally to me. I
that it is his talent that he has wished to exploit. All power to him.
didn’t have any problem making a complete ass of myself, which
His nomadic childhood started in Manhasset, New York, I kind of guess you have to have in your DNA to become an actor.
a suburban haven where his mother, who was a Broadway Not a terribly dignified profession often. For me it was just a way
fanatic, inspired an enthusiasm for the theatre in young Billy, of feeling useful, and people encouraged me to keep doing it.”
who left before he was 10. He then spent time as a child in
Though the desire to turn this social tool into a profession
south Florida, Dallas, Texas, and North Carolina, only to did not kick in immediately, it did begin to clash with his
return to New York to study at Tisch, the arts wing of New York family’s expectations, so Crudup was forced to consolidate his
University that counts Pedro Pascal, a former cover star of The ambitions — and with pretty laudable diplomacy. “I am skinny
Rake, among its illustrious alumni.
and feisty, I wasn’t going to be a great sportsman,” he says. “My
Crudup’s early cultural exposure was always the New York dad encouraged me to do lots of sports. I was fine at everything
theatre scene. “New York has always been a feature of my life,” and not great at anything. I think performing was an outlet for
he tells The Rake. “Even after we moved to Florida and Texas, me. When I went to [the University of North Carolina], my first
my mum and my dad romanticised the city. We would take trips major was business, for no apparent reason other than my dad
occasionally up here, and my mum always liked seeing Broadway was a businessman. So it seemed to me that that was a kind of
shows, and that was really my introduction to acting in the theatre. reasonable degree for me to pursue. I think it was my second
So the city always had a charmed aura for me.”
semester, after doing miserably in my first academic semester, I
After leaving N.Y.U. it appears Crudup never truly left New took a class that looked easy and might boost my G.P.A. called
York. His East Coast allegiance seems to have overcome the ‘Oral Interpretation of Prose and Poetry’, which I assumed
attractions of La La Land despite the tough reputation of the Big was just performing poems — which it was — but what I didn’t
Apple. His lyrical description of his home city sounds like it might assume was that I was going to take to it in the way I did. So I kept
have been different to his parents’ version, more like the sibling he signing up for all these classes in the speech and communications
loves but sometimes doesn’t like: “It will beat the shit out of you, department, which had a more narrow concentration for
it is a pain in the ass sometimes, and managing it as an adult is performance studies. I could tell my dad and grandfather that I
different from romanticising it as a young adult, but I can’t imagine was a communications major, and who the fuck knows what that
being anywhere else. The energy of the city, the diversity of the is, but what I was really doing was taking performance classes.”
community, the fact that you have to navigate so many different
Despite the self-confessed ‘class-clown’ aspect of his
personalities, you get told to fuck off a couple of times a day and that nature, undergrad Billy demonstrated a maturity that you may
keeps you nice and humble. Plus, I love that it isn’t an industry city.” not associate with college fraternity life, should the stereotype
Here we get one of the most notable personality traits of mean anything to you. Indeed, his fraternity was Delta Kappa
Billy Crudup. Despite starring in two separate but similarly Epsilon, the requirement for membership of which was to be
acclaimed movies, Jackie and 20th Century Women, at the same someone “who combined in the most equal proportions the
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Chocolate brown Vitale
Barberis Canonico
worsted wool three-piece
suit with silk grosgrain
lapels and ivory cotton
pleat front shirt, all
Chester Barrie for
The Rake; black dress
socks, Pantherella;
black patent slippers,
Christian Louboutin;
yellow gold Royal Oak
extra thin timepiece,
Audemars Piguet.
gentleman, the scholar and the jolly good fellow” — brilliant and sue him and he’s in court representing himself, and he says, ‘Your
most rakish. Crudup says: “I remember it vividly. It was pretty Honour, if these people didn’t want people going through their
funny driving up to college with my mum and dad, because my garbage or accusing them of being gay, they should have never
dad was in a fraternity and my mum was in a sorority, and that’s tried to express themselves creatively’.”
how they understand how to socialise and how to relate to people.
Crudup believes the reality of a high public profile is
My dad was in D.K.E., and at a certain point my mum says, ‘Now, counterintuitive to life as an actor. “The exposure of your private
Billy, I want you to understand it’s fine with your dad and I if you life is something that for me is anathema,” he says. “To me I want
don’t join that fraternity, if you want to join a different one’. And I to make people believe that I am someone else for the sake of a
was like, ‘Mum, I’m not really a fraternity guy’. The weight of the story. So a lot of the beginning part of my career was bobbing and
silence that fell on that car was unforgettable. Needless to say, weaving through the responsibility of selling a product and trying
several months later I was being welcomed into that fraternity, and to remain hidden in some way, not to have a public persona. I
for sure the only reason they let
always thought that my best
me in was because my dad and “They don’t tell you in school, shot was going to be playing
my grandfather were in that
character parts.”
‘Hey man, if you do this really different
fraternity, at that same school,
On beginning his career
well, people are going to dig after college, he hit the
but I ended up making a couple
of really great lifelong friends.”
through your garbage’.”
ground running, appearing
He made the most of
as Septimus Hodge in the
his time there and was unashamed in eschewing the blazer- Lincoln Centre Theater’s 1995 production of Tom Stoppard’s
and-chino formality of such a club and used it instead for Arcadia, a play he reprised on Broadway 16 years later, this
enlightenment purposes. “I felt that I was a bit of a diplomat — I time as Bernard Nightingale.
was the only guy in the fraternity who was acting and I was one
His early career, up to 2000, blended stage and screen,
of the only guys who acting people knew from a fraternity. I kind and he was picking up decent notices while getting experience
of got to expose them both to each other and hopefully bring with names such as Woody Harrelson and Patricia Arquette in
them together a little bit, because they are oppositional forces on The Hi-Lo Country and with Joaquin Phoenix and Liv Tyler in
a college campus. So I did count that as a mild victory — being Inventing the Abbotts. It was in 2000, however, when Crudup
part of the system and getting some of my old southern gentleman made his moustachioed mark and became one of the more
blue-blood frat members to come see some weird-ass play I was exciting young actors of his generation.
doing at the black box theatre, that was a pretty cool thing.”
Almost Famous is the semi-biographical ‘I’m with the band’
He was remarkably prescient in his understanding of celebrity. comedy-drama that calls to mind Hard Day’s Night and touches
He was always wary of it. This was a time before sex-tape scandals on the whimsy of Spinal Tap but without the parody. It won the
could get you much more than social ostracisation, and it wouldn’t BAFTA and Academy Award for best original screenplay for
have made you a millionaire. Then again, the tabloid press was writer/director Cameron Crowe. Crudup was largely missing
well established and potentially damaging, too, and Crudup was from the slew of award nominations despite being the most
cautious, to say the least. “Learning about the craft is very different charismatic character; his ‘I am a golden god’ line — supposedly
to pursuing a career,” he says. “I can’t say that I’ve revelled in the stolen from Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant — became the most
career aspect more than in the training. You have to be quite thin- memorable moment of the film. In an interview with Jimmy
skinned to be a good actor, I think, in terms of paying attention Fallon he revealed that one day he met Plant on an airplane and
to the other actors you are working with, telling the story, the way discussed the fact that it’s Billy’s line now.
that your voice and body moves through space, motivation — it
After Almost Famous, his career would still involve appearances
requires a thin skin. But when you deliver it to the public, you need in highly acclaimed or big-budget movies, such as Big Fish and
a thick skin, and I don’t have a thick skin. One of the reasons I am Mission Impossible III, but the bulk of his output was focused on
an actor is because I am quite sensitive. So that’s been an ongoing the theatre. His work spanned Brechtian epic-theatre, notably
challenge. They don’t really tell you in school, ‘Hey man, if you the fourth wall-breaking Hitler parable The Resistible Rise of
do this really well, people are going to dig through your garbage’. Arturo Ui and The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, a fantastic
You aren’t really prepared for that aspect of it when you are being but frightening play about child abuse and censorship. Crudup’s
taught to control your breathing or how to have a motivation. One performance as the lead, Katurian, secured a Tony nomination,
of my favourite quotes I love to refer to, because I am a big Simpsons his second for lead actor. He would continue to dip in and out of
fan, is when Homer is assistant to Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, movies, such as Stage Beauty, a film not dissimilar to Shakespeare
and at a certain point he realises he can make some money on the in Love but morally a more wholesome film, one that discusses the
side by selling salacious details of their lives to the tabloids, so they shift in the reign of Charles II that allowed women to act on stage
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Midnight blue wool
suit with silk lapels
and navy and white
polkadot silk pockethandkerchief, both
Edward Sexton;
navy pleat front linen
shirt, Pal Zileri.
“The exposure of your
private life is something
that for me is anathema.
To me I want to make people
believe that I am someone
else for the sake of a story.”
Navy cotton jersey
jacket, bespoke Kent
Haste and Lachter;
navy linen shirt and
navy linen trousers, both
Anderson & Sheppard
Haberdashery; tan
brown suede loafers,
John Lobb; midnight
blue knitted silk tie,
Drake’s for The Rake.
Opposite, clockwise from top left: Crudup alongside Joaquin
Phoenix in Inventing the Abbotts, 1996; in character as
Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, 2000; as Will Bloom
in Tim Burton’s Big Fish, 2003; in Public Enemies with
Christian Bale, 2009; with the rest of the cast in the 2013
production of No Man’s Land; in a scene from 20th Century
Women with Annette Bening, 2017; playing the journalist
in Jackie alongside Natalie Portman, 2016; charming Laura
Mennell on screen as Jon Osterman in Watchmen, 2009;
opposite Claire Danes in Stage Beauty, 2004.
REX FEATURES, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION
This page: as Christopher Oram in Alien: Covenant, 2017
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and the impact it had on the men who had made careers out of
playing female roles, exemplified by Crudup’s Edward Kynaston.
In 2013 he performed twice with Sir Patrick Stewart and
Sir Ian McKellen in No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot. His
decision to take the roles says a lot about his artistic credibility.
“We did No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot in repertory on
Broadway, just the four of us, Patrick, Ian, myself and Shuler
Hensley,” Crudup says. “This is the kind of thing that drives me
out of my mind when I try to explain why I’m not doing a certain
movie, because I want to do this theatre project — it’s Patrick
Stewart and Ian McKellen and Shuler! It’s Beckett and Pinter in
repertory on Broadway, go fuck yourself! Of course I’m going
to do that — it’s like your head is going to explode if you get
that opportunity, which is going to come round, like, once in a
career, and I’ve had a handful of those.
“They were the guys I grew up watching on the BBC. The
Royal Shakespeare Company used to put out these videos, Ian
Holm and Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren and McKellen
and Stewart — they were all part of it. My association with serious
actors who were trying to be part of this lineage of storytelling was
watching those guys. So to get to be in some classic material with
them was a one-of-a-kind experience. Also, getting the roles of
Lucky [Waiting for Godot] and Foster [No Man’s Land] was a killer
challenge. The director, Sean Mathias, did the production of
The Elephant Man 15 years ago, and I love his ambition. We make
some weird, cool shit together. That was an incredible experience
for me. Also exhausting. It’s horrifying to admit that, because
Patrick and Ian were on stage the entire time for both plays —
those motherfuckers are like, just beasts. It’s incredible. To bear
witness to that was phenomenal, but I’m ashamed that it was
exhausting to me when I was in a supporting role.”
Billy Crudup is a bona fide storyteller, and loves platforms
to perform great work. The plays he takes on show an academic
approach to theatre. Many actors will be able to say the word
Stanislavski without having ever worked on a Chekhov play.
Working professionally with texts by Bertolt Brecht requires
further reading than An Actor Prepares. Crudup developed his
talent and theatrical intellect, in the process turning himself into
the complete actor. He worries, however, that theatre in America
faces challenges, and fears the National Endowment of the Arts,
a federal agency, is being undermined. “The budget cuts have
been a pretty steep downward trajectory,” he says, “and I have a
suspicion with the administration that’s currently in power, and
the Congress we have, it’ll only diminish more.”
He also laments what he believes to be a dumbing down
of his industry, and how theatre’s authority has waned, even
among people he naturally considers to be colleagues and
contemporaries. He says: “I get annoyed as fuck at going out to
L.A. and having to explain the value of theatre to people who are
supposedly in the creative arts.”
He sees a similar thing in movies, and the way in which
television now rivals the silver screen. “[Movies have] always
occupied some huge part of my brain,” he says. “As an American
you grow up watching movies, it’s part of your weekly schedule.
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“I get annoyed as fuck at
going out to L.A. and having
to explain the value of theatre
to people who are supposedly
in the creative arts.”
Ivory Vitale Barberis Canonico
worsted wool jacket, Chester
Barrie for The Rake; chocolate
brown silk shirt, Cerruti; beige
linen trousers and forest green and
burnt orange printed wool pockethandkerchief, both Anderson &
Sheppard Haberdashery.
82
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GROOMING: KUMI CRAIG
You bond with your family and friends over the experience of
“Because Billy is of a theatre background, he had a very
going to see movies, and maybe there comes several moments fast start into film, almost immediately after drama school.
in your life where you refer to them, so I recognise the power of He went into the theatre in a big way and became one of the
that. I think if you stop having a vivid and ambitious American more important theatre actors, and he loves it. He loves the
cinema, then the people who are interested in that kind of process, and that becomes an amazing platform for you to do
storytelling are just going to go another place for it. That’s anything when you’re doing the film world. In film you’re very
happened with television right now; people aren’t producing fragmented; in theatre, which is fundamentally very much the
big movies or attaching a lot of money to movies that don’t have actor’s medium, once they walk on they’re in charge, and it’s
some kind of franchise potential.
very much uninterrupted. I found it very comforting with his
“Movies like The French Connection, Kramer vs. Kramer, Dog confidence and his capabilities as an actor.”
Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter, and stuff like that, they don’t
Scott is candid about Crudup’s approach to his work,
have the potential to be made
confirming Crudup’s insistence
with the kinds of budget
that he prefers to dwell on craft.
“You bond with family and
and half the kind of press.
“My own definition of an actor,
friends over the experience
There’s not much of that
they are their own virtuoso
of going to the movies... I
potential in cinema because
of who they are,” Scott says.
film companies are purchased
recognise the power of that.” “He’s very decisive. I think he’s
by conglomerates, you have
decided where he wants to be
shareholders who want a bottom line, and frankly the movie always, and I think that’s what he does. I don’t think he thinks about
business is a terrible way to make money — you have to want stardom. He doesn’t think about that. The best usually don’t. They
to be a storyteller. There’s a great scene in Hail, Caesar! where don’t care about that, it’s all about the work, and I love that.”
Josh Brolin describes how imperative it is to tell stories. That’s
Crudup says of his experience working on Scott’s film: “To
different to making money — you hope to make money while be honest, that first Alien movie is one of my favourites. Not least
you’re doing it and you hope that the storytelling reaches a wide because of the acting. To tell a supernatural story or futuristic story
audience, but I think television, cable in particular, has become with such expertly and subtly crafted realistic performances was
a more robust channel for creative storytelling, and the writers mind blowing to me. Ian Holm in that, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean
have adjusted to it and discovered that they no longer have to be Stanton, obviously Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt — it’s just
confined to a two-hour narrative; now they can have a six-hour spectacular acting. The fact that it’s just such a fucking nightmare
narrative, so there’s some really great writing there.”
of a movie and also so thrilling and terrifying, that’s a rare piece of
Nevertheless, Crudup’s ability and reputation have meant work. That’s the legacy I was most interested in. Certainly, with the
that he has been on something of a hot streak recently. As well as actors they hired [for Alien: Covenant] — Michael Fassbender, who
Jackie and 20th Century Women, he has a Netflix show in production is just spectacular — I think Ridley had that kind of ambition, and
with Naomi Watts called Gypsy and is starring in Alien: Covenant, that’s like a total dream for me and really unexpected.
which is released on May 12 in the U.K. It’s a hot streak he takes
“Ridley was enormously encouraging for me in trying to find
both in his stride and with great humility. “I’ve been around long the reality in this character. The fact that he was making space
enough to know that that doesn’t happen a whole lot,” he says. “It for that while we were amid this enormous production that had
definitely feels like I’m enjoying my acting life right now, which is some of the most spectacular production design you can imagine,
a really, really nice and fortunate feeling.”
it was a one-of-a-kind experience and surpassed all of my
He is starring as Christopher Oram in the next chapter of the expectations. Danny McBride [his co-star] and I would sit on the
fabled Alien franchise, directed by Ridley Scott. In a demonstration spaceship and be like, ‘Holy shit, dude, we’re in a fucking Alien
of how well liked and respected Crudup is, Sir Ridley took the time movie, look around… ’ We were like… giddy! The experience of
to tell The Rake why he chose Billy, and how delighted he was with doing it was everything I could have hoped for and more. Ridley
his decision. “Nobody could be more together than our man we’ve was just beyond masterful, I felt crazy lucky to be a part of it.”
come to talk about,” Scott says. “He was great, better than I ever
You might be forgiven for being distracted from this actor’s
imagined. I thought he was going to be good fun, but he’s one of artistic credentials by his charm, his smile and his fluent
the most positive people I know now. Positivity when you’re making conversation. Crudup is discerning, quietly so, and the fact
films is tricky. It’s wonderful when you get an actor who’s also a the planets have aligned in such a way that sees him on screen
team player. I tend to bear that in mind when I’m casting, talking more than most actors this year suggests that when art faces an
to people that I want a team player, I don’t want an individual, existential threat from outside forces, pulling together the finest
someone who will go down the field with the ball by themselves. talent in the world to show how things should really be done is an
Making movies is a tricky process, so the more ‘the team’ the better. urgent necessity. In this, you can always rely on the golden god.
Mink brown doublebreasted linen jacket,
Brunello Cucinelli; white
linen shirt, Anderson &
Sheppard Haberdashery;
taupe and white paisley
print silk tie, Emma
Willis; yellow gold Royal
Oak extra thin timepiece,
Audemars Piguet.