Who says he can't sing "Stars"?

In Iceland, with friend Alan Doyle (Robin Hood's Merry Man Alan A'Dale)- on a break from filming Aronofsky's "Noah."

Ann

And if that doesn't convince you...from earlier the same night.

Very good singer, actor and human being!

He did an interview recently with Entertainment Weekly, and talked about what he had to do to get the role of Javert - two three-hour auditions, his first since he auditioned for The Insider in '99. Hugh Jackman had to go through them, too, along with every cast member.

The Les Miz director, Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) has come up with something never done in a movie musical before. All of the actors had to sing live - all through the filming. And since the movie is sticking to the original libretto, there are no spoken lines - everything is sung, all the way through. Until this movie, the actors have always prerecorded the songs in a sound studio, and lip-synced during the filming. But there have been some advances in sound technology that Hooper chose to use. He wanted the actors to focus on their immediate emotions, and on their acting, in each scene, rather than be distracted by working to keep their words in sync with the pre-recorded songs. And just like in all movies, the scenes were all shot several times over, so the actors had to be able to sing in their best voice for hours at a time - every day, through the six to eight weeks of filming. Hugh Jackman has had a lot of experience singing on stage, night after night, but this was challenging, even for him. Crowe had not sung in a stage musical (which is where he got his start, actually) since his early twenties. And since then, when he did sing, he has written and sung his own folk/rock songs - nice, but a much more simple sound. So, as soon as he learned that the musical was going to be filmed, he started working with a voice coach, and kept his singing lessons going even after he won the audition, all through the filming. He said, "Building up to [the auditions], I started to get more and more nervous. I still couldn't hear the sound I knew I wanted to hear." As a result, he over-worked his voice to the point that it broke down a few days before the main audition. "But I just kept thinking the song through," he told the interviewer. "On the day, it just came out, that sound I'd been looking for. Whether it was adrenaline or whatever,...the sound was there. It filled the room and Tom made me sing over and over, and every time I sang it, I felt a little more in control and a little more capable." "As for Crowe," Dave Karger (the interviewer) wrote in his conclusion to the article, "he says the experience [of actually filming the sequences] was equal parts rewarding and terrifying. 'I have never sung anything as challenging as the songs in Les Miz, never pushed my voice to that place. I'm still not sure I can do it. I guess I'll know when the movie comes out.' We will be storming the barricades right beside him." (Dave Karger)

It seems to me that it took a lot of courage to go through that, and when you listen to his voice in these latest little just-for-fun gigs in Iceland, you can really hear the result of a lot of hard work.

It's a big part of why I admire him, and sometimes use him as a model for my heroes.

Ann

It's what all the greats do, Alice; they work at their craft. I've set myself a challenge that I'm not sure I can meet. Time will tell.

Shelagh,

Now you have me curious:)

Here's Christopher Lee (Saruman, Dracula) singing a duet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93SdirnzTw

Crowe and Lee have more in common than great voices. It looks like Mr. Crowe is going to try his hand at playing Count Dracula in the first of the Harker series.

Can't say I'm excited; I'm not at all into vampires. I liked it better when he was rumored to play the title role, as Harker, the vampire hunter.

There is also a good chance that he will be playing Roland Deschain, Stephen King's Dark Knight. King is not my bag, either, but I have been learning that, if Crowe is involved in a film, there is an important message involved somewhere.

Ann

He's also going to be playing Noah, in a new interpritation of Noah's Ark. It's being directed by Darren Aronofsky.

Yes, I think I mentioned that in the OP. That's why he's in Iceland - filming.



That bit he directs to the audience at the end of the Molly Malone clip?

"Good night, Skylar; good night, Logan; goodnight Gavin."

He is talking to the actors who are playing his "children" in the film, and who were apparently in the audience.

Aronofsky seems to have an interesting interpretation going, to say the least.

There is a fascinating (I think) image from the graphic novel that is the basis for his version of the story in the Writer's Cafe, in my thread on Joseph Campbell quotes, here.

Ann