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Nor can Crowe. He's a good singer, and he savors the every-dude camaraderie shown on the band's DVD, Texas, in which the members of TOFOG drink, fart and strum their way through the Lone Star State. But TOFOG is not Crowe's reality so much as his escape from reality. "The subject of his celebrity never really comes up," says Kelly. "Like that kidnapping thing: I don't think we found out about it until we heard about it on the news. He tends to keep those kinds of troubles to himself."
While his screen characters are magnificently nuanced, Crowe seems paralyzed by the thought of integrating his various selves into an honest public persona. "It is strange," says Weir. "Just when you think you see him as a kind of an Aussie simple man--you know, what you see is what you get--there'll be a flash from those eyes, he'll say something penetrating or precise, and you'll remember that he is a savant of some kind. It reminds you how little you know the man."
On the second day of our acquaintance, Crowe pulled some strings and arranged for us to chat on the stage of Sydney's famed Opera House. It was a grand and generous gesture--a movie-star gesture--but like the boat and kayak it seemed designed to simultaneously impress, overwhelm and create some distance. Still, Crowe was interested in discussing how the game of celebrity hide-and-seek is played by others. Staring at the acoustical tiles he asked me, "Do you ever ask, when you're doing interviews with musicians, the what-are-your-influences question?" I do. "Because it's one of the most tedious questions to have to answer." He caught his tone and changed it. "It's just the funniest question, because you're supposed to take it seriously, but music is influenced by many other things. It's just such a gigantic question. I've never found a satisfactorily glib answer that can deal with it and put it away."
Outside, a phalanx of paparazzi had gathered. With Nicole Kidman living in New York City, Crowe is the biggest local meal ticket, and long lenses follow his every move. Gamely, he tried to affect the air of a man enduring a comic nuisance, like birds he just can't seem to shoo off his lawn. He didn't quite pull it off. "I really try not to think about these f______ c__ks," he said while settling in for a coffee at an outdoor cafe. "We could go, but they've already got me. I should--no, I won't. There's been too many photographs of me giving people the finger."
Inevitably the conversation turns to the fact that a lot of people are interested in seeing photos of him sipping a macchiato and that there are worse problems in the world. "Yes, you've got to be philosophical about it to a certain degree," he says. "You can bang your head against the wall for a long time, but it feels really good when you stop." Then he heard a shutter click--"Oh, this one thinks he's being sneaky, f______ c__k!"--and the mood shifted. "But should I be hounded because I don't see it's my gig to live up to what I do on the screen? I mean, that's what a lot of people hound me for, right? Because I won't become an icon or a block of wood and behave at all times like a movie star." Then: "I think the most interesting thing about Daniel Day-Lewis is that he's strong enough as a man to say, 'Uh, I'm not going to make a movie for a few years. Let all this die away.'"