Look busy, because there is news of Russell Crowe: an actor who just doesn't take himself seriously enough. Remember when he read a lengthy piece of doggerel upon receipt of the Best Actor Bafta for his role in A Beautiful Mind? When the producer faded him out for the TV broadcast, Russell grabbed him at the after-show party and slammed him against the wall, demanding: "Who on earth had the fucking audacity to take out the Best Actor's poem? You fucking piece of shit, I'll make sure you never work in Hollywood!"
Anyway, it turns out Sienna Miller will star alongside Mr Crowe in Ridley Scott's new skew on the Robin Hood story, in which she will play Maid Marian, and Russell will give us a sympathetic Sheriff of Nottingham. Apparently the movie's going to be called Nottingham, but let's just give it the working title: "Russell Crowe: Thieftaker."
Thrillingly, it should give Russell the chance to reprise the hilarious English accent he deployed previously for Ridley, in Gladiator. "Are you nut entertained? Are you nut entertained? Is this nut why you are here?" Yes. It was exactly why Lost in Showbiz was there, and the cinema rang to the sound of its cackles.
How the director will make this "good sheriff" thing work remains to be seen. Presumably, it will be a simple matter of inserting a scene in which Nottingham's wife and kid are lynched in a Merry Men crime-spree-gone-wrong for us to immediately accept that the sheriff is basically just one hard-bitten good guy trying to keep order in a rough town. A bit like Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse.
Of more pressing concern for the project, of course, is the director. Where are we in Ridley's one-on, three-off cycle, the immutable law that decrees any good movie he makes is followed by three howlers? (See: Blade Runner's being succeeded by Legend, Someone to Watch Over Me, and Black Rain. Do you remember Black Rain? Sweet Jesus! See also: Thelma and Louise yielding to 1492: Conquest of Paradise, White Squall and GI Jane.) According to my calculations, the relative strength of his recent American Gangster suggests . . . well, it suggests the producers of the 2010 Baftas can probably afford not to factor in space for The Best Actor's Poem.
