Russell Crowe

And I got this phone call.

go and meet Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director who won the Oscar for The Last Emperor.

Fantastic director.

He also did Last Tango in Paris and a bunch of other films.

And I was really excited.

I was like, wow, fantastic.

So I get to Bernardo's house.

And he's watching a football game.

It's Italy versus Brazil, right?

He's got a bunch of people over to watch the football.

So I'm sort of just, oh, you know, because I thought we were having a meeting.

I didn't realize there was a football game on.

And Italy didn't do very well.

They got beaten by Brazil.

So I never had a conversation with Bernardo because after the game...

He just went off to his room or something to have a cry.

I'm not sure.

But I met his wife and her name was Claire Peplow and she was a film director.

And, you know, she said, look, you know, I encourage Bernardo to, you know.

invite you to the house because you know I know he wants to talk to you about something but I want to talk to you as well I've had this script and she gave me the script and it was called Miss Shumway Waves a Wand and I was you know very much in the independent film world at the time so that sounded like a good title for an independent film you know and I read it and it was pretty good it was based on this book and I liked the character so I sort of you know responded to it and