RUSSELL IRA CROWE: THE ZEALANDER WATER DIVINER

Russell Crowe

Today is the last day in New Zealand. Tonyi Tamaki has been the best guide in the country and now she's going to join to the rest of the group in their flight back to Europe. Everyone has a special moment to be remembered but they have enjoyed every day they have been in this wonderful place.

Now, they are in Auckland's Airport waiting the departure of their flight to Dubai where they are going to take another flight to Barcelona. It's a long 25 hours-flight and every member of the group is trying to have enough leisure to not spend all the flight sleeping.

The Grandma has chosen two activities for the flight. She's going to study a new lesson of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Grammar 32), and she's going to read the biography of Russell Crowe, the most famous Kiwi actor, most known since he played the role of Gladiator and won an Academy Award for it.

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Russell Ira Crowe (born 7 April 1964) is an actor, film producer and musician. Although a New Zealand citizen, he has lived most of his life in Australia. He came to international attention for his role as the Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which Crowe won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, an Empire Award for Best Actor and a London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.

Russell Crowe in Gladiator

Crowe appeared as the tobacco firm whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand in the 1999 film The Insider, for which he received five awards as best actor and seven nominations in the same category.

In 2001, Crowe's portrayal of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John F. Nash in the biopic A Beautiful Mind brought him numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.

Crowe's other films include Romper Stomper (1992), L.A. Confidential (1997), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Cinderella Man (2005), American Gangster (2007), State of Play (2009), Robin Hood (2010), Les Misérables (2012), Man of Steel (2013) and Noah (2014).

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In 2015, Crowe made his directorial debut with The Water Diviner, in which he also starred. Crowe's work has earned him several accolades during his career and including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three consecutive Academy Award nominations (1999–2001), one Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, one BAFTA, and an Academy Award.

Crowe has also been the co-owner of the National Rugby League (NRL) team South Sydney Rabbitohs since 2006.

Crowe was born on 7 April 1964 in Strathmore Park, Wellington. Son of Jocelyn Yvonne and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were film set caterers; his father also managed a hotel. Crowe's maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who was named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's paternal grandfather, John Doubleday Crowe, was from Wrexham, Wales, and one of Crowe's maternal great-great-grandmothers was Māori.

Russell Crowe in The Water Divine

Crowe also has English, German, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Scottish, Swedish, and Welsh ancestry.

He is a cousin of former New Zealand cricket captains Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe, and nephew of cricketer Dave Crowe. Russell has built a cricket field named for his uncle. When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Sydney, Australia, where his parents pursued a career in set catering.The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson. Crowe also appeared briefly in the serial The Young Doctors. 

Crowe was educated at Vaucluse Public School but later moved to Sydney Boys High School. When he was 14, his family moved back to New Zealand where, along with his brother Terry, he attended Auckland Grammar School with cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He then continued his secondary education at Mount Roskill Grammar School, which he left at the age 16 to pursue his ambition of becoming an actor.

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Crowe began his performing career as a musician in the early 1980s, under guidance from his good friend Tom Sharplin, when he performed under the stage name Russ Le Roq. He released several New Zealand singles including I Just Want To Be Like Marlon Brando, Pier 13, Shattered Glass, none of which charted. He managed an Auckland music venue called The Venue in 1984. When he was 18, he was featured in A Very Special Person..., a promotional video for the theology/ministry course at Avondale College, a Seventh-day Adventist tertiary education provider in New South Wales.

Crowe returned to Australia to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. I was working in a theatre show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA, Crowe has recalled. I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits. 

Russell Crowe in Master and Commander

From 1986 to 1988, he was given his first professional role by director Daniel Abineri, in a New Zealand production of The Rocky Horror Show. He played the role of Eddie/Dr Scott. He repeated this performance in a further Australian production of the show, which also toured New Zealand.

In 1987, Crowe spent six months busking when he could not find other work. In the 1988 Australian production of Blood Brothers, Crowe played the role of Mickey. He was also cast again by Daniel Abineri in the role of Johnny, in the stage musical Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom in 1989. 

After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast by Faith Martin in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protégé of Ogilvie, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990), which was released a month earlier than The Crossing, although actually filmed later.

In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second series of Police Rescue. Also in 1992, Crowe starred in Romper Stomper, an Australian film which followed the exploits and downfall of a racist skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by Geoffrey Wright and co-starring Jacqueline McKenzie. For the role, Crowe won an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award for Best Actor, following up from his Best Supporting Actor award for Proof in 1991.

In 2015 it was reported that Crowe had applied for Australian citizenship in 2006 and again in 2013 but was rejected because he failed to fulfill the residency requirements. However, Australia's Immigration Department said it had no record of any such application by Crowe. 

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Crowe says he follows New Zealand's rugby union team, the All Blacks, and Australia in any other sport. Two of his cousins, Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe, captained the Black Caps New Zealand international cricket team.

Crowe watches and plays cricket, and captained the Australian Team containing Steve Waugh against an English side in the Hollywood Ashes Cricket Match. On 17 July 2009 Crowe took to the commentary box for the British sports channel, Sky Sports, as the third man during the second Test of the 2009 Ashes series, between England and Australia.

Crowe & Sam Burgess, South Sydney Rabbitohs

He is friends with Lloyd Carr, the former coach of the University of Michigan Wolverines American football team, and Carr used Crowe's movie Cinderella Man to motivate his 2006 team following a 7–5 season the previous year. Upon hearing of this, Crowe called Carr and invited him to Australia to address his Rugby league team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, which Carr did the following summer. In September 2007, after Carr came under fire following the Wolverines' 0–2 start, Crowe travelled to Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Wolverines' 15 September game against Notre Dame to show his support for Carr. He addressed the team before the game and watched from the sidelines as the Wolverines defeated the Irish 38–0.

Crowe is a fan of the National Football League. On 22 October 2007, Crowe appeared in the booth of a Monday night game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Crowe is also a soccer fan supporting Futbol Club Barcelona and Futbol Club Internazionale Milano. 

Crowe has appeared in 43 films and three television series since his career began in 1985. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Gladiator (2000) and was nominated twice more for The Insider (1999) and A Beautiful Mind (2001), making him the ninth actor to receive three consecutive Academy Award nominations. He has also received five Golden Globe Award nominations (winning one), three BAFTA Award nominations (winning one), and three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations (winning one).

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When I read The Water Diviner, I was having the same kind of visceral reaction that I would normally have acting in something.

I believed that I was the only person that could tell this story

the way it needed to be told. That's the real arrogance of a director!

Russell Crowe

COLIN FIRTH: ENGLISH SMARTNESS AND DISTINCTION

Colin Andrew Firth

Colin Andrew Firth, born 10 September 1960, is an English actor. He has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup. 

Firth's most notable and acclaimed role to date has been his 2010 portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, a performance that earned him an Oscar and multiple worldwide best actor awards.

Firth was born in the village of Grayshott, Hampshire, to parents who were both academics and teachers.

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As a child, Firth travelled a lot due to his parents' work, spending some years in Nigeria. He also lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11, which he has described as a difficult time. 

Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice

On returning to England, he attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School, which at the time was a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire. He was still an outsider and was the target of bullying. To counter this, he adopted the local working class Hampshire accent and copied his schoolmates' lack of interest in schoolwork.

By the time he was 14, Firth had already decided to be a professional actor, having attended drama workshops from the age of 10. Until further education, he was not academically inclined, later saying in an interview, I didn't like school. I just thought it was boring and mediocre and nothing they taught me seemed to be of any interest at all. 

However, at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh, he was imbued with a love of English literature by an enthusiastic teacher, Penny Edwards, and has said that his two years at Barton Peveril were among the two happiest years of my life.

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After his sixth form years, Firth moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre. There, he made many contacts in the acting world, from which he got a job in the wardrobe department at the National Theatre. From there, he went on to study at Drama Centre London.

Colin Firth winning an Oscar

Identified in the late 1980s with the Brit Pack of rising, young British actors, it was not until Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that he received more widespread attention. This led to roles in films such as The English Patient, Bridget Jones's Diary, Shakespeare in Love, and Love Actually. 

In 2009, Firth received widespread critical acclaim for his leading role in A Single Man, for which Firth gained his first Academy Award nomination, and won a BAFTA Award. Firth starred in the action spy movie Kingsman: The Secret Service in 2014, which was a commercial success and received generally positive reviews.

In 2011, Firth received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was also selected as one of the Time 100. He was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Winchester in 2007, and was made a Freeman of the City of London in 2012. 

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He has campaigned for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples, and is a member of Survival International. Firth has also campaigned on issues of asylum seekers, refugees' rights, and the environment. He commissioned and is credited as a co-author on a scientific paper on a study into the differences in brain structure between people of differing political orientations.

I feel more comfortable in drama. Comedy is a high-wire act. 

I find it stressful. It's a precision science in a way. 

Colin Firth

MORGAN FREEMAN: THE GOD'S VOICE FOR SCIENCE

Morgan Freeman (June 1, 1937) is an American actor, producer and narrator. Freeman won an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor with Million Dollar Baby (2004), and he has received Oscar nominations for his performances in Street Smart (1987), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Invictus (2009). He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the son of Mayme Edna, a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. He has three older siblings. 

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Freeman began playing prominent supporting roles in many feature films, earning him a reputation for depicting wise, fatherly characters. As he gained fame, he went on to bigger roles in films such as the chauffeur Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy, and Sergeant Major Rawlins in Glory, both in 1989. In 1994, he portrayed Red, the redeemed convict in the acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption. In the same year he was a member of the jury at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.

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He also starred in such films as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, Seven, and Deep Impact. In 1997, Freeman, together with Lori McCreary, founded the film production company Revelations Entertainment, and the two co-head its sister online film distribution company ClickStar. Freeman also hosts the channel Our Space on ClickStar, with specially crafted film clips in which he shares his love for the sciences, especially space exploration and aeronautics.

Morgan Freeman in his role of Nelson Mandela

After three previous nominations, a supporting actor nomination for Street Smart, and leading actor nominations for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby at the 77th Academy Awards. 

Freeman is recognized for his distinctive voice, making him a frequent choice for narration. In 2005 alone, he provided narration for two films, War of the Worlds and the Academy Award-winning documentary film March of the Penguins.

Freeman appeared as God in the hit film Bruce Almighty and its sequel, Evan Almighty, as well as Lucius Fox in the critical and commercial success Batman Begins and its sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. He starred in Rob Reiner's 2007 film The Bucket List, opposite Jack Nicholson. He teamed with Christopher Walken and William H. Macy for the comedy The Maiden Heist, which was released direct to video due to financial problems with the distribution company. In 2008, Freeman returned to Broadway to co-star with Frances McDormand and Peter Gallagher for a limited engagement of Clifford Odets's play, The Country Girl, directed by Mike Nichols.

He had wanted to do a film based on Nelson Mandela for some time. At first he tried to get Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom adapted into a finished script, but it was not finalized. In 2007, he purchased the film rights to a book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation. Clint Eastwood directed the Nelson Mandela bio-pic titled Invictus, starring Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as rugby team captain Francois Pienaar.

In 2010, Freeman co-starred alongside Bruce Willis in Red. In 2013, Freeman appeared in the action-thriller Olympus Has Fallen, the science fiction drama Oblivion, and the comedy Last Vegas. In 2014, he co-starred in the action film Lucy.

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I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. 

So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring. 

Morgan Freeman

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... LAURA COLLINS!

The Oscars

The first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people, although the names of the winners were already known since February 18 that year.

The first film that received the Oscar for best film was Wings by William A. Wellman and the first best Actor awarded was Emili Jannigs for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh.

The awards ceremony was televised in 1983.

The Oscars is also the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre and the Grammy Awards for music an recording.

The Academy Awards are considered to be the most prestigious cinema awards ceremony in the world and is an annual in the film industry.

OSCAR STATUETTE

Made of gold-plated Britannium on a black metal base, it is 34 cm in tall, weighs 3 kg and shows a naked knight which arms crossed holding a sword on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers and Technicians. 

The sketches of statuettes were made by Cedric Gibbons and were performed in 1928 by the stenographer of the Metro Goldwyn Mayer. 

THE NAME

The origin of the name is disputed. One biography of Bette Davis affirms that the statue was named in honor of her first husband Oscar Nelson.

Another claimed origin is that the Academy’s Executive Secretary, Margaret Henrick saw the award in 1931 reminding her of her “Uncle Oscar”.

STATUETTES OWNERSHIP

Since 1950, the statuettes have been legality protected by that neither winners nor their heirs can sell the statuettes without first offering them to the Academy for the price of “1$”.

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