MANILA, Philippines—Don’t let the tabloids fool you. Russell Crowe is not an angry man.

“It is so convenient to take my sense of humor and pretend that it’s anger. Because in black and white, my kind of level of dry humor doesn’t go across very well. Sarcasm doesn’t work on the page. I assure you, I’m not an angry man,” he said.

But Crowe no longer lets what the tabloids say get to him. “I think I’m beyond caring about misconception. I will just get on with my day and I’ll get on with my life and I will prioritize my life. It’s basically wife, kids and everything else,” he added, during an interview at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills.

Crowe was there to promote “Body of Lies,” the latest in a string of movies (“American Gangster,” “Gladiator,” “A Good Year”) he’s done with director Ridley Scott. The actor and director have a special working relationship. Crowe said, “I made a decision three years ago that from now on, instead of trying to fit his complications with my complications in terms of what’s the best thing we could ever do, if Ridley wants to do a particular film, if he calls me up, I’ll just say yes and then I’ll work out my reasons for doing it later.”

Gratifying

And on top of that list of reasons is the director himself. “I love working with Ridley. I like all the aspects of what he does. The energy with which he works, the focus with which he works, the speed with which he works and the artistry. (With Ridley) I’ll finish every single shooting day feeling like I’ve done a day’s work and that is a really gratifying feeling to have as an actor. That doesn’t always come along.”

The love is clearly not unrequited. When Scott was asked why he keeps making movies with Crowe, the director said, “He’s just one of the best. It’s just a lot easier for me. I like him.”

But this Crowe-Scott project is a bit different. Because this time, the movie’s success isn’t riding on Crowe’s shoulders. “The lack of responsibility was refreshing. Somebody asked me at a press conference before, ‘You seem to be having a great deal of fun making this movie,’ and I said ‘Yeah, because it’s not my responsibility. 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.’”

But it doesn’t mean Crowe didn’t take his role seriously. He gained 50 pounds to play Ed Hoffman in “Body of Lies.” He plays the CIA veteran who fights terrorism from the comforts of his suburban life.

Big man

“Ridley wanted Ed to be a big man. He wanted me to put on a lot of weight and he asked if I was into that and I said, yeah whatever. But the key thing that he said to me was that Ed was an ex-football player with bad knees but he still moves with a certain grace. And that grace is an indicator of a certain femininity which is why he’s such a good multitasker.”

To gain the weight, Crowe made changes in his active lifestyle. “What I did was relaxed the lifestyle, I relaxed what I might relaxed what I might eat for breakfast to go up to that size. You can put on 50 pounds by doing nothing. But the day we started shooting, I started exercising. So I’m not losing weight but I’m gaining strength. I’m riding my bike to the set instead of being chauffer-driven, blah blah blah, doing all that sort of stuff so I’ll know that when I finish the movie, I’ll still be the same weight but I’ll be stronger. If my muscles are strong and if I’m aerobically strong, then it’s a simpler process. But like I said, I didn’t want to come down in a rush. I discussed that with the wife.”

Grinding away

At the interview, Crowe was still noticeably heavier than usual. “I’m about 95 kilos now, probably 92 but I was at 117 at the beginning of shooting. That’s a huge difference. I actually did another movie quite large too because it came out of the blue. Oddly enough it really suited the character. I said to myself when I did ‘Body of Lies’ that when I come down I’ll come down gradually and simply.”

He doesn’t want to rush things. “I’m taking my time. I’m slowly grinding away. Every now and then I’ll do a period of time when it’s all about calorie counting and then I’ll do a period of time when it’s about getting your body to behave in a certain way in terms of what it’s burning and how it’s burning. I know from experience that trying to get rid of it quickly out of vanity just ends badly.”

Unlike other actors in the movie who had to do stunts, Crowe’s character spends a lot of time talking on the phone. But he said shooting those scenes was not strange for him. “It’s not weird to be in a blue screen room pretending you’re in the middle of an ocean. It was just part of the film.”

On the other end of the line was usually Roger Ferris, the CIA operative played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Crowe and DiCaprio first worked together over a decade ago, on the film “The Quick and the Dead,” and Crowe says not much has changed. “It was the same as it was working with Leo in 1993, easy, easy and fun. We spent a lot of combined rehearsal time together in that time that I was on the set.”

For Scott, it’s the roles of Crowe and DiCaprio that make the movie what it is. He said, “What I’d emphasize is the fascinating two characters that are walking through this piece. In a nutshell, it’s about trusting no one and believing no one,” he said.

‘Ed Hoffman’

When asked if Crowe liked his character Ed Hoffman, he said, “I don’t need to like him. I’ve always had that thing against the traditions of theater where you must love your character. I always find that love will destroy your objectivity. There’s only one character I’ve fallen in love with and that was James Braddock in ‘Cinderella Man.’ But did I enjoy performing this role? Hell yeah. Later in the film, when ad-libbed lines started coming out, it was really enjoyable.”

He may not like Ed Hoffman, but Crowe certainly understands him. “He doesn’t face any of the pain. He can take his kids to school, he can go to the supermarket, he can go to a ball game. He’s not actually on the ground doing it. It’s an insulated life. He doesn’t feel the pain of what he’s done. It’s a complexity that he has to deal with but it’s all function. For Ed Hoffman, it’s not a matter of being a chess player. It’s about being able to see seven different chessboards situated on seven different planes, and manipulating all those multiples of seven simultaneously.”

For Crowe, “Body of Lies” is about seduction and deception. “The movie very clearly says there is no good guy or bad guy. This is how spies live.”

Soon, Crowe will learn how outlaws and law enforcers live when he plays both Robin Hood and the Sheriff in Nottingham, his next project with Scott.

Will he be wearing tights? “No, I will not wear tights because according to our research they weren’t invented for another 300 years. I apologize to everyone and to Sienna Miller.”

“Body of Lies,” which is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, is currently showing in theaters across the country.