CROWE TAKES COMMAND

‘At times I will go into a very dark place. Don’t get sucked into my vortex when that happens.’

– Russell Crowe

Patrick O’Brian’s novels about the British naval hero Captain Jack Aubrey were hugely popular, so it wasn’t surprising that Hollywood tried to sail the series onto the big screen. Charlton Heston was O’Brian’s first choice when talk of a movie started in 1995, but by the time Peter Weir had joined the production years later, times had moved on.

Tom Rothman, the Twentieth Century Fox chairman, asked, ‘Who today is “Lucky” Jack Aubrey? There was only one name on the list.’

‘Russell Crowe was always my first choice to play Jack Aubrey,’ said Weir. ‘Russell had that natural energy and authority and he took command of that ship from the beginning.’

Russell, however, had his doubts after reading the script, as Weir recalled. ‘Russell’s firsts words to me were, “This character, there must be more to him than what’s in this script or the book.” I said to him, “It’s true. But it’s not on the page. Aubrey is a little limited. What you see is what you get.” In my experience, when you have a less than full character, it’s the casting that is the secret.’

Some fans of the books were critical of casting Russell as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Aubrey’s confidant, Dr Stephen Maturin. Not because of their talents but because in the book Aubrey’s weight at its highest is 17 stone, while Maturin is stick thin. While Russell would bulk up, he was never going to get that big.

Weir defended his decision to cast Russell and Bettany, saying, ‘There was the danger, physically, of Stephen and Jack looking like Laurel and Hardy, such is their disparity in appearance in the novels. When casting I ended up with people who accurately fitted the physical description, and that left them open to parody. Paul didn’t fit that description, but his reading was so impressive that it led me to think I would share a long voyage with Paul.’

One obvious benefit of casting Bettany alongside Russell was that they had experience of working together.

‘Paul and I developed a kind of creative shorthand in A Beautiful Mind that I thought would serve us well in establishing the Jack-Stephen dynamic. I was glad that Peter cast Paul. With another person, you might actually have had to break down a scene and explain it. Paul and I were able to get to a point of depth that you might have to work ten times harder with somebody else to even touch on,’ said Russell.

On paper at least, Weir himself was an odd choice to bring the books to the big screen. He told Empire, ‘Action is a new route for me. And Patrick O’Brian’s prose is dauntingly magnificent. When I first shook the books and the prose fell out on the desk, I must admit I had a moment of doubt: you have to replace that with imagery. But I’ve always had an interest in the historical fiction of this period and would look forward to the next instalment from O’Brian, when he was alive, like people would with film-makers they admire.’

A huge fan of the books, Weir had turned down the chance to helm the movies twice when the rights were in the hands of Sam Goldwyn and Disney respectively. However, he agreed to make the movie with Twentieth Century Fox – with Universal and Miramax co-producing – because he could make it less about how Jack and Stephen first met and more about the journey.

‘I said if I was to do one of O’Brian’s books, I’d want it to be about the ship and a mission, not when the characters first meet. A film of the first novel was in danger of lending itself to parody. Two friends meeting, one’s a spy, the other’s having an affair with an admiral’s wife… all very rollicking but it’s too tongue and cheek.

‘My favourite O’Brian stories are when it’s a long journey, and in particular the middle to later section of Far Side of the World. And that’s what I offered as a script. I could only focus on that part and had to omit all of Maturin’s espionage.’

Weir also explained why they used the name from the first book – Master and Commander – when most of the film is based on the tenth instalment Far Side of the World. ‘I never agreed with the decision to use Master and Commander. I wanted to call it Far Side of the World. But the studios found the title tested effectively. People liked the idea of Russell Crowe as Master and Commander. Far Side of the World sounded too arty.’

For several days Russell visited Dorset, where Aubrey hailed from, in a bid to get the accent right – only to be told by a linguist that a Dorset man in the 18th century would have sounded Australian!

Asked about his character, he said, ‘I loved the image that Peter put in my head when we talked about this man – a sailor with calluses on his hands, who has grown up in the navy and knows every part of his ship. If the sails aren’t going up fast enough, he will jump down and grab the rope and see what is causing the problem. And those same callused, thickened hands then pick up this delicate feminine instrument, the violin, and he will play from his heart the things he can never say.’