November 29, 2025 • 16 mins
Kiwi born Hollywood star Russell Crowe has played many intense roles in his career.
But his latest might be his most intense yet.
Heading back to world war 2, Russell plays Hitlers right hand man Hermann Goring in ‘Nuremberg’, the film focusing on the duel between psychologist Douglas Kelley and Goring, in the lead up to the post war trial.
Crowe told Francesca Rudkin that he had to do a lot of background reading before playing the part.
'So you have to find those moments of what I call quiet contemplation, where you get to really think through and learn about what you're doing.'
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb key We born Hollywood star Russell Crowe has played
many intense roles in his career, but his latest might
be one of his most intense yet. Heading back to
World War II, Russell place Hitler's right hand man, Herman
Goring in Nuremberg, the film focusing on the duel between
psychologist Douglas Kelly and Goring in the lead up to
the post war trial. I'm gonna put Herman Gerry on
(00:33):
the stand and I'm gonna make.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Him tell the world what he did.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
How are you going to defend yourself? What would you
have me said?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
How about the truth?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
For one, I am a prisoner because you've gone and
feel lost, not because you are morally superior. I don't
morey about this man than anyone else on the planet.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You're walking into a trap. He's absolutely fabulous in it,
and I'm delighted to have Russell Crowe with me. Good morning,
good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Um.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You know I can't speak any more Italian than that.
Like your stick to get.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
On the plane in time. You have a holiday and
you should go to Italy. And you should glory in
your name.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh look, you can imagine what it was like being
called Francesca in the seventies in New Zealand, Russell, everyone
got to fran and then just stopped. But you know,
there we go. Now I want to talk about this
film of yours. What did you learn about the man
you played?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, that's a gigantic question. So this interview is going
to be going for two weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
The point of the thing that you might not know
in this particular instance, you know, because what you're always
looking for as an actor when you're signing on to
do something, that there's going to be enough time for
you to prep properly. You know, traditional rehearsals are a
thing of the past. Production companies just won't pay for
that anymore. So you have to find those moments of
(01:55):
what I call quiet contemplation where you get to really
think through and learn about what you're doing. And I
signed on to do Nuremberg in twenty nineteen. I was
doing the TV show The Loudest Voice in New York.
I was playing Roger Ailes and the script came and
I read it and I just responded to it straight away,
and I started, as I have a habit of doing,
(02:16):
I start making decisions very quickly, you know, about what
I'm going to do, what I'm going to look like,
how it's going to feel, you know, blah blah blah,
and thinking that we would be making the film within
six or seven months. But we didn't actually start shooting
the film until twenty twenty four, so I had five
years of that quiet contemplation. And there is a lot
to learn about home and because he was a massive
(02:37):
figure in history way before we in the West kind
of knew about him, you know, in Allied countries, because
he was a genuine war hero from the First World War,
and it was fascinating for me to learn that. As
a child growing up in a castle, he was a
(02:58):
terrible student at school, bottom of the class, so as
a punishment he was sent to military school. But at
military school he became the valedictorian. He was first in
his class. Because now he was interested in something as
a hobby. As a young man in his late teens,
he was a mountain climber and there are traverses in
the Austrian Alps where Hermann Goering was the first person
to do so that's something very interesting to learn about
(03:19):
a man. If he will stand at the base of
the Austrian Alps and look up and say I'm going
to the top, you're dealing with a very formidable and
strong personality. He goes into the First War in the
infantry to start as an officer, coming straight out of
military college, and doesn't like that experience, gets wounded in
battle straight away, and while he's recovering, hatches a plan
(03:42):
to get himself into the air force, makes himself of
great use to the local era, inculcates himself into their
daily life, does not return to the job he's supposed
to be doing the infantry, but as they begin to
lose pilots because he's been picking up that skill as
he goes very soon they put him in the air
and he finishes the First World War with twenty two
(04:02):
confirmed airtwear kills. That's three times a fighting ace. So
when you ask me a broad question like what did
you learn about the character? We can talk for days.
There's so much learn I was actually I was able
to access the full transcript of what happened in you,
every single question and answer of an eleven day cross examination.
I was able to access the German equivalent of Hansard,
(04:26):
so I could read what he would say in the
German Parliament as the reichs Marshal, and how he would
interact with the other people within the Nazi Party. I
found a sequence where he calls Goebels a moron. Goebels
had made some presentation about how you distinguish somebody who
is German who was not, and he's in parliament. He goes,
(04:49):
you're a moron. If we follow what you're doing, we
have to drag every creature from the forest. And Carl
lemments it was like fascinating. It's like, oh my god.
You know. So you're reading this thing and you're seeing
his rise to power. You're seeing how he connects politically,
that his patriotic fervor, how it's corrupted by that power
because he has that you know, military arrowhead of that
(05:12):
as a desire. You know. So it's fascinating man, fascinating man.
And you know, I tried to bring to the character
some form of understanding of why German people would respond
to him that the way that they did, because he's
a charming man. You know, he will he is available
(05:33):
to you, he will listen to you, he will advise you,
he will be your friend. And so it was really
interesting to understand how much charm can become a weapon
of evil. So fascinating journey for me.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And you did that so beautifully, just to show us
many different sides to him and how complex he was.
Did you always imagine that you would speak German? Your
German is very good, Your accent is very good in
this film. And I believe he learned the language for
the film.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I learned the language.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I have to say, I'm not feeling so bad about
my Italian now.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know that the German language kept growing. At first
we weren't going to do any and then it sort
of changed and we were going to do lots, and
then we sort of reached a balance. I had Normally
on a set, you have like a dialect coach, and
on this particular occasion, I knew I needed somebody who
(06:30):
was a German speaker, and I wanted somebody who would
just talk directly to me. You know, sometimes you get
in a situation and people will kind of be too kind,
you know, But you know, when I'm performing, you know,
a valid direction to me is slower, faster, you know,
(06:50):
It's like whatever is practically required in the moment. So
I thought through things, and I have a friend, a
person I met in the early two thousand. She was
a media figure in Germany. But for the release of
Beautiful Mind and Mastering Commander and few things, i'd met
her talk to become friends. Right, I hadn't talked to
her for a decade, you know, I call her up
(07:10):
out of the blue, say, because I knew she was
very smart, and I knew she would just be straight
with me and say that was bullshit. Do it again.
So I called her, said, any desire to ever be
a dialect coach on a feature film set? And she
took some time off her normal jobs and stuff and
came to Hungary and did that job for me. And
(07:32):
I know that she's done a very good job on
my behalf because I watched the movie with a room
full of German speakers in Zurich, and there are some
German asides that I do that an English audience doesn't
necessarily pick up because it's not subtitled or anything. But
the Germans laughed and I bang, okay, cool, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It's a brilliant performance. And there's a bit of Oscar
buzz around it. Do you think about that at all?
Does that kind of recognition mean me? Think to you?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You know what, when I was younger, I actually thought
it was the most important thing in the world. Now
I know because I've been around and around that sort
of situation a few times. It's a popularity contest and
I don't care for it. You know, I'll just get
about doing my job. You know, I live a lot
(08:26):
of the time, either in Sydney or in the Bush,
and I go overseas and I work. Sometimes I go
to Los Angeles, but less and less as the year's
gone by. There was one period of time it didn't
go for about five years. So yeah, Look, you know,
I work in the film industry, in the film business.
But you know, I don't require other people's judgment to
(08:50):
tell me whether I'm not, you know, putting effort in
a given work day, because I know what I do.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Do you rate your own performances? Do you have performances
that you're particularly proud of?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
For sure, But it's usually wrapped around it's not just
about me. It's like what was the experience, Like what
was the collaboration, Like how connected with the cast? And
those are the films that are memorable to me, and
quite often from performance point of view, it's the ones
(09:22):
that were essentially ignored. You know. One of my favorite performances,
for example, is as James J. Braddock and Cinderella. Man.
I couldn't do any more than I put into that,
and that wasn't even that wasn't nominated, So you know,
what's what's the point of the ship. There's another film
called Broken City, which is a Mark Wahlberg film, and
I play the mayor of New York and that guy
(09:44):
is an absolute reptile and such a political weasel. You know.
That's you know, There's there's a whole bunch of a
movie called Fathers and Daughters totally got ignored, me and
Amanda Seyfrid with an Italian director, Gabrielle Muccino. It's a
beautiful movie, you know that. You know, I've done sixty
plus seventy movies. I'm not sure anymore. But here's the
(10:07):
bottom line. I love the job. You know, I did
the job originally because I loved the job. I loved
the whole idea of, you know, taking on a character
and pretending it's something else. One of the first things
I did as a you know, in professional theater, was
play Eddie and Doctor Scott and the Rocky Horror Tour
in New Zealand, you know where at the age of
twenty twenty one or something. Part of the show, I'm
(10:27):
coming back on the stage in a wheelchair as a
sixty five year old man. You know. That kind of
that stuff thrills me, you know, And it's always been
that way. So I didn't get into the job because
I thought it was pretty. I didn't get into the
job because I needed attention. I got into the job
because I want to entertain people and that's my basic
care love and I still work from that perspective.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Are you still singing? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, yeah. We've just released an album last year called
Pros and Cons. The new band is called Indoor Garden Party.
We're two years into, sorry, two albums into our journey.
Some of these relationships in this band go back thirty years.
But the new album pros and Cons. Like last year
twenty twenty three, we toured Australia, but at the end
(11:13):
of the tour we then went and we did some
shows in Italy and then in the Czech Republic, and
then that created a bunch of interest in Europe, so
we went back. Last year we did twenty nine shows.
We played in the Coliseum, We played in the ancient
Ampitheatre in Pompeii. We played in the Piazza del Popolo
in Asclipacinna. We played for twelve thousand people in the
Piazza del Campo in Siena. We played at the Glastonbury Festival.
(11:36):
We played at Las Degal and Paris. We played at
the Gayety Theater in Dublin for a huge audience, great night.
Then where else did we go? We played the Whiskey
a Go Go in Los Angeles. You know. The tour
finished in Tipotinas and Ormands. So twenty nine shows, six countries,
sixty five thousand kilometers. But this year we've only got
one show such as like the Heaviness of My Day
(11:58):
Job schedule this year one show enmar Theatre December twentieth
and Sydney. We've got a whole bunch of guests like
Troy Cassa, Daily, Marsha Hines, this kid from America or
break who's like does these sort of bluesy pop songs.
He's fantastic. Lorena Riley is from Ireland. She's got a
voice like Bonnie Raich's amazing. And the show is going
to be opened by Danniel Spencer, my ex wife, So
(12:21):
it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
A great night, a family affair. I love goodness, mate,
I can't You're incredibly busy and I can't let you
go without also just sort of touching on the NRL,
because of course you're a part owner of your beloved
Rabbito's what place does the NRL have? What is it
you love so much about this game and this club?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Well, the club connects to me as a kid, you know,
and it's not sort of overstated. You know, I like
a lot of sports, you know. I mean I grew
up in a cricketing family, for example, and you know,
as a New Zealand born person, I will one thousand
percent claim connection to the All Blacks. You know, the
question never comes up. So but what the club meant
(13:06):
to me as a kid was, you know, they were
a champion club. And my dad had a business in
South Sydney on Botany Road and every weekend when it
came around, the streets would be festering with red and
green streamers. So I thought everybody in the world loved
this club when I was a little boy, you know,
because my whole world was surrounded by those colors. So
when the club started to fail, and you have to
(13:27):
understand that this is a working man's club, and you know,
for a long long time was based in Redfern, which
is an area that has probably the largest urban population
of Aboriginals in Australia, you know, and the geographic area
of South Sydney is so diverse. It goes from some
(13:48):
of the most expensive real estate in the country to
government housing and beautiful beaches and the airport, you know.
So seeing that club fail year after year, I knew
because Australia is so focused on sport as you know,
just a part of enjoyment, but also as a motivation,
(14:10):
you know, and I knew that something had to change.
So I opened my big mouth. Ended up spending a
lot of money at the time buying the club, took
over seventy five percent ownership of it, but just started
operating the club on a very simple basis. You know,
we have one job to do. We win football games. Therefore,
lift trophies. That's what we do. That's what South Sydney's about.
(14:32):
And you know, we had a bad, bad year last year.
But if you look at the success that the club's
had in the eighteen nineteen years that I've been in
control compared to the eighteen nineteen years of absolute failure beforehand,
it's a very big difference. When people ask me why
I did it, and you know, and I did say
at the time, you know, there will be a certain
point of time where I just sort of fade back
(14:52):
a little bit, and so I'm now in that place.
I hardly ever go to the football anymore. I just
let the club operate. But the club is now valued
in excess of one hundred million dollars. So it's you know,
and that success, it's brought about a different mindset to
the kids who grew up in that area. You know,
you think about it. Somebody's a ten year old when
(15:14):
I buy the club, They've seen year after year their
team be beaten. Right eight years later we lift the trophy.
So that ten year old is eighteen, they're going into
university and they have seen a pure example of something
grab itself, buy the bootstraps and pull itself up to achieve.
So it's not that I did this to make more
(15:36):
footy players. It was to make the kids in South
Sydney that I used to be one of, just to
let their ambitions have some air. So, you know, the
success of the football team because of the way Australia works,
it doesn't just lead to more football players. It leads
to more artists and songwriters and doctors and lawyers and
people who will go I can do.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
This, Russell Crowe. It has been an absolute delight to
talk to you. Thank you so much, and thank you
so much for the performance. And the film really enjoyed
it that we were talking about is called Nuremberg. It
is in cinemas this Thursday, the fourth of December.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks A B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb key We born Hollywood star Russell Crowe has played
many intense roles in his career, but his latest might
be one of his most intense yet. Heading back to
World War II, Russell place Hitler's right hand man, Herman
Goring in Nuremberg, the film focusing on the duel between
psychologist Douglas Kelly and Goring in the lead up to
the post war trial. I'm gonna put Herman Gerry on
(00:33):
the stand and I'm gonna make.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Him tell the world what he did.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
How are you going to defend yourself? What would you
have me said?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
How about the truth?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
For one, I am a prisoner because you've gone and
feel lost, not because you are morally superior. I don't
morey about this man than anyone else on the planet.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You're walking into a trap. He's absolutely fabulous in it,
and I'm delighted to have Russell Crowe with me. Good morning,
good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Um.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You know I can't speak any more Italian than that.
Like your stick to get.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
On the plane in time. You have a holiday and
you should go to Italy. And you should glory in
your name.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh look, you can imagine what it was like being
called Francesca in the seventies in New Zealand, Russell, everyone
got to fran and then just stopped. But you know,
there we go. Now I want to talk about this
film of yours. What did you learn about the man
you played?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Well, that's a gigantic question. So this interview is going
to be going for two weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
The point of the thing that you might not know
in this particular instance, you know, because what you're always
looking for as an actor when you're signing on to
do something, that there's going to be enough time for
you to prep properly. You know, traditional rehearsals are a
thing of the past. Production companies just won't pay for
that anymore. So you have to find those moments of
(01:55):
what I call quiet contemplation where you get to really
think through and learn about what you're doing. And I
signed on to do Nuremberg in twenty nineteen. I was
doing the TV show The Loudest Voice in New York.
I was playing Roger Ailes and the script came and
I read it and I just responded to it straight away,
and I started, as I have a habit of doing,
(02:16):
I start making decisions very quickly, you know, about what
I'm going to do, what I'm going to look like,
how it's going to feel, you know, blah blah blah,
and thinking that we would be making the film within
six or seven months. But we didn't actually start shooting
the film until twenty twenty four, so I had five
years of that quiet contemplation. And there is a lot
to learn about home and because he was a massive
(02:37):
figure in history way before we in the West kind
of knew about him, you know, in Allied countries, because
he was a genuine war hero from the First World War,
and it was fascinating for me to learn that. As
a child growing up in a castle, he was a
(02:58):
terrible student at school, bottom of the class, so as
a punishment he was sent to military school. But at
military school he became the valedictorian. He was first in
his class. Because now he was interested in something as
a hobby. As a young man in his late teens,
he was a mountain climber and there are traverses in
the Austrian Alps where Hermann Goering was the first person
to do so that's something very interesting to learn about
(03:19):
a man. If he will stand at the base of
the Austrian Alps and look up and say I'm going
to the top, you're dealing with a very formidable and
strong personality. He goes into the First War in the
infantry to start as an officer, coming straight out of
military college, and doesn't like that experience, gets wounded in
battle straight away, and while he's recovering, hatches a plan
(03:42):
to get himself into the air force, makes himself of
great use to the local era, inculcates himself into their
daily life, does not return to the job he's supposed
to be doing the infantry, but as they begin to
lose pilots because he's been picking up that skill as
he goes very soon they put him in the air
and he finishes the First World War with twenty two
(04:02):
confirmed airtwear kills. That's three times a fighting ace. So
when you ask me a broad question like what did
you learn about the character? We can talk for days.
There's so much learn I was actually I was able
to access the full transcript of what happened in you,
every single question and answer of an eleven day cross examination.
I was able to access the German equivalent of Hansard,
(04:26):
so I could read what he would say in the
German Parliament as the reichs Marshal, and how he would
interact with the other people within the Nazi Party. I
found a sequence where he calls Goebels a moron. Goebels
had made some presentation about how you distinguish somebody who
is German who was not, and he's in parliament. He goes,
(04:49):
you're a moron. If we follow what you're doing, we
have to drag every creature from the forest. And Carl
lemments it was like fascinating. It's like, oh my god.
You know. So you're reading this thing and you're seeing
his rise to power. You're seeing how he connects politically,
that his patriotic fervor, how it's corrupted by that power
because he has that you know, military arrowhead of that
(05:12):
as a desire. You know. So it's fascinating man, fascinating man.
And you know, I tried to bring to the character
some form of understanding of why German people would respond
to him that the way that they did, because he's
a charming man. You know, he will he is available
(05:33):
to you, he will listen to you, he will advise you,
he will be your friend. And so it was really
interesting to understand how much charm can become a weapon
of evil. So fascinating journey for me.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And you did that so beautifully, just to show us
many different sides to him and how complex he was.
Did you always imagine that you would speak German? Your
German is very good, Your accent is very good in
this film. And I believe he learned the language for
the film.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I learned the language.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I have to say, I'm not feeling so bad about
my Italian now.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know that the German language kept growing. At first
we weren't going to do any and then it sort
of changed and we were going to do lots, and
then we sort of reached a balance. I had Normally
on a set, you have like a dialect coach, and
on this particular occasion, I knew I needed somebody who
(06:30):
was a German speaker, and I wanted somebody who would
just talk directly to me. You know, sometimes you get
in a situation and people will kind of be too kind,
you know, But you know, when I'm performing, you know,
a valid direction to me is slower, faster, you know,
(06:50):
It's like whatever is practically required in the moment. So
I thought through things, and I have a friend, a
person I met in the early two thousand. She was
a media figure in Germany. But for the release of
Beautiful Mind and Mastering Commander and few things, i'd met
her talk to become friends. Right, I hadn't talked to
her for a decade, you know, I call her up
(07:10):
out of the blue, say, because I knew she was
very smart, and I knew she would just be straight
with me and say that was bullshit. Do it again.
So I called her, said, any desire to ever be
a dialect coach on a feature film set? And she
took some time off her normal jobs and stuff and
came to Hungary and did that job for me. And
(07:32):
I know that she's done a very good job on
my behalf because I watched the movie with a room
full of German speakers in Zurich, and there are some
German asides that I do that an English audience doesn't
necessarily pick up because it's not subtitled or anything. But
the Germans laughed and I bang, okay, cool, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It's a brilliant performance. And there's a bit of Oscar
buzz around it. Do you think about that at all?
Does that kind of recognition mean me? Think to you?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You know what, when I was younger, I actually thought
it was the most important thing in the world. Now
I know because I've been around and around that sort
of situation a few times. It's a popularity contest and
I don't care for it. You know, I'll just get
about doing my job. You know, I live a lot
(08:26):
of the time, either in Sydney or in the Bush,
and I go overseas and I work. Sometimes I go
to Los Angeles, but less and less as the year's
gone by. There was one period of time it didn't
go for about five years. So yeah, Look, you know,
I work in the film industry, in the film business.
But you know, I don't require other people's judgment to
(08:50):
tell me whether I'm not, you know, putting effort in
a given work day, because I know what I do.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Do you rate your own performances? Do you have performances
that you're particularly proud of?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
For sure, But it's usually wrapped around it's not just
about me. It's like what was the experience, Like what
was the collaboration, Like how connected with the cast? And
those are the films that are memorable to me, and
quite often from performance point of view, it's the ones
(09:22):
that were essentially ignored. You know. One of my favorite performances,
for example, is as James J. Braddock and Cinderella. Man.
I couldn't do any more than I put into that,
and that wasn't even that wasn't nominated, So you know,
what's what's the point of the ship. There's another film
called Broken City, which is a Mark Wahlberg film, and
I play the mayor of New York and that guy
(09:44):
is an absolute reptile and such a political weasel. You know.
That's you know, There's there's a whole bunch of a
movie called Fathers and Daughters totally got ignored, me and
Amanda Seyfrid with an Italian director, Gabrielle Muccino. It's a
beautiful movie, you know that. You know, I've done sixty
plus seventy movies. I'm not sure anymore. But here's the
(10:07):
bottom line. I love the job. You know, I did
the job originally because I loved the job. I loved
the whole idea of, you know, taking on a character
and pretending it's something else. One of the first things
I did as a you know, in professional theater, was
play Eddie and Doctor Scott and the Rocky Horror Tour
in New Zealand, you know where at the age of
twenty twenty one or something. Part of the show, I'm
(10:27):
coming back on the stage in a wheelchair as a
sixty five year old man. You know. That kind of
that stuff thrills me, you know, And it's always been
that way. So I didn't get into the job because
I thought it was pretty. I didn't get into the
job because I needed attention. I got into the job
because I want to entertain people and that's my basic
care love and I still work from that perspective.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Are you still singing? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, yeah. We've just released an album last year called
Pros and Cons. The new band is called Indoor Garden Party.
We're two years into, sorry, two albums into our journey.
Some of these relationships in this band go back thirty years.
But the new album pros and Cons. Like last year
twenty twenty three, we toured Australia, but at the end
(11:13):
of the tour we then went and we did some
shows in Italy and then in the Czech Republic, and
then that created a bunch of interest in Europe, so
we went back. Last year we did twenty nine shows.
We played in the Coliseum, We played in the ancient
Ampitheatre in Pompeii. We played in the Piazza del Popolo
in Asclipacinna. We played for twelve thousand people in the
Piazza del Campo in Siena. We played at the Glastonbury Festival.
(11:36):
We played at Las Degal and Paris. We played at
the Gayety Theater in Dublin for a huge audience, great night.
Then where else did we go? We played the Whiskey
a Go Go in Los Angeles. You know. The tour
finished in Tipotinas and Ormands. So twenty nine shows, six countries,
sixty five thousand kilometers. But this year we've only got
one show such as like the Heaviness of My Day
(11:58):
Job schedule this year one show enmar Theatre December twentieth
and Sydney. We've got a whole bunch of guests like
Troy Cassa, Daily, Marsha Hines, this kid from America or
break who's like does these sort of bluesy pop songs.
He's fantastic. Lorena Riley is from Ireland. She's got a
voice like Bonnie Raich's amazing. And the show is going
to be opened by Danniel Spencer, my ex wife, So
(12:21):
it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
A great night, a family affair. I love goodness, mate,
I can't You're incredibly busy and I can't let you
go without also just sort of touching on the NRL,
because of course you're a part owner of your beloved
Rabbito's what place does the NRL have? What is it
you love so much about this game and this club?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Well, the club connects to me as a kid, you know,
and it's not sort of overstated. You know, I like
a lot of sports, you know. I mean I grew
up in a cricketing family, for example, and you know,
as a New Zealand born person, I will one thousand
percent claim connection to the All Blacks. You know, the
question never comes up. So but what the club meant
(13:06):
to me as a kid was, you know, they were
a champion club. And my dad had a business in
South Sydney on Botany Road and every weekend when it
came around, the streets would be festering with red and
green streamers. So I thought everybody in the world loved
this club when I was a little boy, you know,
because my whole world was surrounded by those colors. So
when the club started to fail, and you have to
(13:27):
understand that this is a working man's club, and you know,
for a long long time was based in Redfern, which
is an area that has probably the largest urban population
of Aboriginals in Australia, you know, and the geographic area
of South Sydney is so diverse. It goes from some
(13:48):
of the most expensive real estate in the country to
government housing and beautiful beaches and the airport, you know.
So seeing that club fail year after year, I knew
because Australia is so focused on sport as you know,
just a part of enjoyment, but also as a motivation,
(14:10):
you know, and I knew that something had to change.
So I opened my big mouth. Ended up spending a
lot of money at the time buying the club, took
over seventy five percent ownership of it, but just started
operating the club on a very simple basis. You know,
we have one job to do. We win football games. Therefore,
lift trophies. That's what we do. That's what South Sydney's about.
(14:32):
And you know, we had a bad, bad year last year.
But if you look at the success that the club's
had in the eighteen nineteen years that I've been in
control compared to the eighteen nineteen years of absolute failure beforehand,
it's a very big difference. When people ask me why
I did it, and you know, and I did say
at the time, you know, there will be a certain
point of time where I just sort of fade back
(14:52):
a little bit, and so I'm now in that place.
I hardly ever go to the football anymore. I just
let the club operate. But the club is now valued
in excess of one hundred million dollars. So it's you know,
and that success, it's brought about a different mindset to
the kids who grew up in that area. You know,
you think about it. Somebody's a ten year old when
(15:14):
I buy the club, They've seen year after year their
team be beaten. Right eight years later we lift the trophy.
So that ten year old is eighteen, they're going into
university and they have seen a pure example of something
grab itself, buy the bootstraps and pull itself up to achieve.
So it's not that I did this to make more
(15:36):
footy players. It was to make the kids in South
Sydney that I used to be one of, just to
let their ambitions have some air. So, you know, the
success of the football team because of the way Australia works,
it doesn't just lead to more football players. It leads
to more artists and songwriters and doctors and lawyers and
people who will go I can do.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
This, Russell Crowe. It has been an absolute delight to
talk to you. Thank you so much, and thank you
so much for the performance. And the film really enjoyed
it that we were talking about is called Nuremberg. It
is in cinemas this Thursday, the fourth of December.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks A B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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