Comedy Tonight: Crowe, DiCaprio, Scott Talk ‘Body of Lies’

Leo looking all serious and professional.

ComingSoon has a transcript of the press conference Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ridley Scott did for Body of Lies. I can’t copy and paste all of it here as it’s rather long, but it’s a good read–Crowe must have been in some kind of court jester mood and is silly throughout. They all know each other really well and have a lot to say about making the movie. Here are a few cuts:

Q: Was it for you that you had such a great relationship with Ridley that you would do pretty much anything that he wants you to do?Crowe: I went through a period of time where even after the great relationship we had on “Gladiator,” I didn’t fully realize that that was probably a unique situation that will come along in your performance life, and so we went through a thing where he asked me to do “Black Hawk Down,” but I’d just done a movie where there was a helicopter in the background and I wasn’t interested, then he wanted me to do “Kingdom of Heaven,” but I was in the middle of doing something else, and I said, ‘Oh you’ll have to wait a year,’ and he said, ‘F**k off, who are you?’

DiCaprio: That was a great impersonation.

Crowe: With the last three things we’ve done together it’s basically, “Right, this is what we’re doing,” and I’m like, “Okay, cool,” and I’ll say yes first with him and then work out why I want to do it afterwards.

Q: Leo, you did most of your own stunts.

DiCaprio: Most of, yes.

Crowe: I’ll give you an example of most of his stunts. (pretends to dial a phone)

DiCaprio: That I didn’t do, I didn’t do any dialing, I refused. We got beautiful hand doubles we got for this movie.

Scott: He doesn’t like dogs either.

Q: Did that building really blow up behind you?DiCaprio: What building?

DiCaprio: Right at the beginning.

Crowe: Oh, you didn’t notice it got blown up behind you?

DiCaprio: I didn’t notice that part.

Crowe: By the time you turned around it wasn’t there anymore.

DiCaprio: I haven’t even seen this movie, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What building?

Scott: The shepherd’s stone house, yeah that was blown up.

DiCaprio: Oh yes, yes, that was a big explosion. (everyone laughs)

Crowe: The key for any young player if they want to go and work with Ridley, you have to be prepared to bleed. It’s as simple as that.

Q: You two as actors and performers in this film look like you’re at either end of the spectrum, Russell you look like you’re having the time of your life, and Leo, you look like you’re a guy in the middle of the worst day of his life - how was that a challenge for each of you to come at that differently?

Crowe: I definitely was having the time of my life, because I knew that ultimately I’d be out of there in five weeks, it wasn’t going to be my responsibility, somebody else was going to get blown up this time and I was perfectly happy with all that.

You get the idea. Again, I encourage you to read the whole thing.