Episode 56: Sir Elton John and Oscar Winner Russell Crowe
Oprah says that it’s 9am live in Chicago so the audience have had a lot of sugar. She asks Elton if it still feels great after all these years, coming out to that applause. Yes. He played last night in Chicago and he said then that it has been 40 years since he first played here and it gets better and better, and it is the people. After every utterance, the crowd cheer. Oprah gives some stats. Elton has sold more than 250 million albums worldwide, won five Grammys, earned a Best Song Oscar for The Lion King’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and has the best-selling single of all time, “Candle in the Wind.” His Broadway hit Billy Elliot earned him a Tony and continues to sell out theaters, and he has been knighted by the Queen.
Growing up in the London housing projects, Elton says he never could have dreamed of such success. “Music was something I grew up with and I loved passionately and I always wanted to be involved in,” he says. “I never really imagined being a singer. I was an organ player in a band, and I got fed up while doing that.” Elton says he then auditioned at a record company, which was also looking for songwriters. “I said I couldn’t write lyrics and they said, ‘Well, there’s some lyrics from a guy from Lincolnshire,’ who turned out to be Bernie Taupin,” (the crowd roar) he says. “I started writing songs for other people and nobody recorded them, and so in the end I recorded them myself and became a recording artist, which wasn’t on my radar. Everything that happened after that was the biggest surprise.”
Oprah says that the world views Elton as a music legend, how does he see himself? “I see myself as someone who’s taken a long time to get where I am personally,” he says. “I’ve got now balance in my life, where the first 30 years of my success—or maybe 20 years of my success—I had a great time and then I took a lot of drugs, drank a lot of alcohol and lost my way.”
Elton says he was inspired to seek sobriety by a very special person, Ryan White, the Indiana teen who was infected with HIV after a blood transfusion. He died in 1990 at age 18. “I was at his funeral, and I spent the last week of his life in Indianapolis with [his mom] Jeanne and his family,” he says. “The way they handled themselves pointed out to myself that I was a self-obsessed, not very nice person, and I hadn’t become the person I wanted to be.” After Ryan died, Elton got sober, and it has been 20 years this week. The crowd cheer and Oprah says wow.
Listen to this, says Oprah; Elton’s Broadway smash hit is the musical Billy Elliot and it has just opened in Chicago. Oprah was so excited to get the opportunity to see it- she says that it is so exhilarating you can feel every note of Elton’s passion with every song. Here is a brief look. Critics are calling Billy Elliot seductive and smashing, the best show you will ever see. Before it was a play, it was a small British movie about a boy with a passion for dance. Elton premiered the play in the UK where it received rave reviews and moved to Broadway where it won an astonishing 10 Tony awards, including best musical. Now it is on stages all over the world and just this week Oprah was Elton’s guest at the big Chicago premiere. After the show Oprah says she love, love, love loved it and she cried three times. Elton was proud of everyone, the first night went great.
Oprah was sitting next to Sir Elton who had seen it about 30 times, but they cried together. The role of Billy is so demanding that it requires four actors to rotate in and out. The Chicago Billy’s are introduced to a screaming crowd. Oprah says that people come away feeling so exhilarated, all the audience will get a copy of the soundtrack and tickets to go see Billy Elliot, The crowd stands and screams, Oprah and Elton hug.
Hanging out with the Music Man, Elton John, says Oprah. Oprah asks him what he thinks when he sees himself in all those outrageous outfits. He says that he wishes that he could still fit into them. Oprah says that she knows how that feels. “It was a part of my life which I had so much fun,” he says. “I lived as a teenager and I didn’t really have the ability or the chance to wear what I wanted to as a kid. So I think when I became successful in 1970, the just all hell broke loose.” He just wore what he wanted. “When you’re sitting at the piano, you’re not David Bowie, you’re not Mick Jagger, you’re not Rod Stewart, you’re not Freddie Mercury,” he says. You’re not running around on stage or the skinny kid in jeans, he was the guy at the piano. “So I just needed to put some attention on me.” The crowd cheer. The piano is just a 9 foot plank, you can’t make it fly, at least not back then. In those days he wanted to have fun. Oprah asks what happened to the costumes. Many were sold for charity, a lot are still at the storage place. “We sell clothes every two years,” he says. “David and I take our personal wardrobe, sell them all and give the money to the AIDS foundation, and then sometimes we sell a couple of stage outfits as well.” Oprah asks if Elton is comfortable in his own skin at this point in his life. “I am so comfortable. I’ve been with David for 17 years,” he says. He has balance in his life now. “It’s important that you have someone really wonderful to share your life with.”
Oprah asks if the fame got to be too much. Elton says that he didn’t know how to be himself off stage. Elton says “There’s so many artists that we can look through the history books and say, ‘God, they were so brilliant onstage and then they had so many problems off,’” he says. “I became one of those people.” Elton says that he came to Chicago to detox. The crowd cheer. That’s a great claim to fame says Oprah, that could be a play, “I got sober in Chicago” says Oprah. Elton says that Chicago will always have a special place in his heart “It’s been 20 years this year,” he says. ” the best six weeks I ever did for myself. Then all things happened for me—The Lion King happened. David happened. We formed our own movie company. The charity—the Elton John AIDS Foundation, we produced a play on Broadway.”
Oprah asks if it is true that Elton and David are trying for a baby. Elton says he and David tried to adopt two Ukrainian boys. “Unfortunately, it was so complicated that we couldn’t do it. There were too many laws that said we couldn’t do it in Ukraine,” he says. “It broke our heart because we fell in love with these kids. One was 15 months; one was 3. They were brothers. One was HIV-positive, and one wasn’t.” Oprah asks if he’s ready to be a Papa. “I said until that point no- because I’m too old,” he says. “And I thought: ‘You know what, Elton? You’re not too old. You’re still very young at heart. You’ve done everything you possibly can in your career—the only thing you haven’t done is be a good parent. I think that life’s all about learning. It’s all about as you get older trying to learn a little bit more, trying to change the way you are. And I think that a child probably would be the icing on the cake.” After their disappointment, they are still talking about adoption.
Oprah asks what advice Elton would give to his younger self. “Don’t go out with the feathers,” he jokes. “I learned so much in my life, and even the drug use got me to where I am now. But I would definitely say to people and looking at myself then: Be true to yourself. Be honest. Be loyal. And stay away from those bloody drugs for Christ’s sake.”
Oprah says that those of the audience who have seen the play, and they will all see the play, the message of Billy Elliot is be true to yourself. That was what made Oprah cry when she first saw it. Oprah asks how much of the story resonates with Elton growing up. He says that it was a different time, the 50’s, rock and roll was seen as evil. “My father never really encouraged me. Even when I became successful as Elton John, he never came to see me,” he says. “At the end, the father comes to the opera house in London and sees Billy come onstage and dance Swan Lake. It made me cry because my dad never, ever saw me.” Still, says Elton, “I wanted to prove a point,” he says. “I just wanted him to say: ‘Good, well done. I was wrong.’ But, no, that never happened.” That was why you were crying, says Oprah. Exactly, says Elton. Thank you Elton, he’ll be back to sing, says Oprah.
Russell Crowe has made a name for himself playing a slew of fascinating characters, from a hard-nosed boxer in Cinderella Man to a schizophrenic mathematician in A Beautiful Mind. In his latest film, Russell reunited with Gladiator director Ridley Scott and draws his bow as the legendary hero Robin Hood. There’s only one way to describe the results- epic. Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett plays the beautiful Maid Marian, who is anything but a damsel in distress. The story tells how the man became the legend.
Come on out Russell Crowe, shouts Oprah. The crowd scream. They hug. He waves to the crowd. Oprah whoops and says mmmmm. Oprah says “May I say you are so good at this” and Russell thanks her. Obviously he learned to shoot a bow and arrow well, says Oprah. He spent some time on it and did his best, says Russell. Oprah says that she heard that he read 30 books to prepare for the role. “We wanted to really understand where the mythology had started from,” he says. “It became apparent to us that the difference between the hundred years of cinema and the previous 800 years of story being handed down from mythology to legend to a political tool to a tool of the church to a parlor game when King Henry VIII was in power, you know, it just seemed to us that there was something intrinsic about that story that we should maybe wipe away all that other stuff and get back to the core.” Oprah asks if he is a perfectionist. He thinks that is a silly word, he tries his best. What he can do on a day is what he can do. “That is a central tenet,” he says. “Every single day on a movie set I just get up and I try to do something special.” Oprah asks how long shooting Robin Hood took. It took 100 days, but Russell says it was a lot of fun. He says that he has been instructed not to swear on the show. Yes, because we are live, says Oprah. As soon as he is told not to do something, that is what he wants to do, he says. Now he has so many swear words running around in his head that wouldn’t have been there otherwise… “You sort of get beaten up a lot, but I love being on Ridley Scott movies because they work well,” he says. Oprah interrupts to say, “That Ridley Scott, can we just give him a round of applause” The crowd cheer. “He’s so well organized, and that’s one of the things people don’t understand, because I come from a simple, working-class background and he has the same background that, you know, yes, he makes expensive movies, but he ensures that they don’t cost a dollar more than they should cost. And I like that about him. I like that he’s not cavalier. I like that he knows exactly how many severed heads he has in the effects department.” They laugh.
Oprah says that there is a lot of severed heads in this movie. Russell says that actually there is none. In case you wanted to take kids to the movie, it is PG13 which is probably the first one Scott has made. Russell says Ridley made the decision early on to make Robin Hood appropriate for younger audiences. You don’t see the sword in the skin, there is no blood spewing everywhere. You get the impression, says Oprah. Yes, says Russell, he is the one that made an alien come out of someone’s chest, it gets pretty gnarly. Russell even took his two sons, 6-year-old Charlie and 3 1/2-year-old Tennyson, to see it. He took them to a special screening, “They were so jazzed because this has been in their life for two and a half years, so the nervous energy was pumping,” he says. But it took about 35 minutes for the film to start and the kids were running around everywhere. Russell thought that this probably wasn’t going to go so well. “So we sit down, the movie finally starts. Within five minutes, my oldest boy, Charlie, goes, ‘Oh Dad, can we go now?’” Oh no, says Oprah. Then the little one says, Dad, when do you get a horse? And the oldest is going can we go now, and the little one is saying Dad, when do you get a horse? And then the little one says Dad, now you’ve got a horse, and then they say, ok can we go now…
Oscar winner Russell Crowe is here. There’s a key saying in Robin Hood, “Rise and rise again until lambs become lions,” Oprah asks what that means. Russell says that he basically ad libbed what it means, saying it means “Never give up.” Ridley said he would never use that, but it is in the movie. Russell says that it is really applicable to Oprah, and that the sword from the film is centrally important in the film. He brings out the sword which has the saying engraved on it. Russell says that Oprah can keep it by her bed, just in case. Oprah’s jaw drops and she asks if he is giving it to her? She repeats the question. To be completely truthful, Ridley Scott is giving it to her, it’s his possession, says Russell. He also gives her a long-bow. Russell explains how the English worked out how to use wood with flexibility at it’s heart. He shows her how to string it, They decide not to shoot any arrows. Oprah asks how much practice he did. Quite a lot, says Russell. Oprah loves the phrase on the sword. Russell says. “It’s applicable to anybody in any pursuit,” he says.
Oprah asks what has been the biggest misconception about him. “Probably that I’m an angry person. I’m not really,” he says. Oprah says that isn’t it true that once something happens it gets printed over and over again. “I played a lot of angry men when I was young. I played skinheads and disgruntled cops and all this sort of stuff. And, quite frankly, I think the problem was I’m not a very interesting person. I’m just not. I play interesting roles and I put a lot of effort into the roles and stuff, but I kind of left a big gap between who I really was and the characters that I was playing and, over time, that area just got filled in.”
Oprah asks him if he thinks the less interesting you perceive yourself to be means that the more you can fill yourself up with other people, like a chameleon? Russell says. “Anthony Hopkins, when I was a young fellow, he put it to me that, in fact, you come to the gig as a vanilla slice, and you don’t say, ‘What is it that’s special about me that I can bring to the character?’ You say, ‘What is it that the character needs?’”
Oprah asks abut Cate Blanchett. “When we started to reshape the story, we needed a Marian who had to be an individually strong woman,” he says. “The thing about Cate, you see the characters that she plays and I think the assumption about Cate is that for some reason she’s not a warm person. But I can tell you that that’s not true.” After a hard day’s work she is the first person to put her feet up and grab a vodka and have a chinwag. This is essential in a job like this, it informs the collaboration, talking about what you are going to do next. Their love on-screen took some time to build, based on Robin passing the tests that she sets for him.
Speaking of love, says Oprah, Russell has been married to his wife, Danielle, for seven years, and they have two little boys who didn’t exactly love the movie. They haven’t see the movie, says Russell. They laugh. Oprah says that every father has a dream for his family, what is Russell’s?”The father’s job.. ultimately, apart from loving them and taking care of them, is to fill them full of the confidence that they need to deal with the world by themselves,” he says. You have to set them up for the time when they are not with you. Bit for him really, “It’s whatever makes them happy. That’s what it’s got to be. You try and provide for them, be there for them, you give your time over to them. In fact, you be the person that they want you to be.” You do give your time over to them, says Oprah. They are spectacular kids, he says. Oprah asks what have they taught him lately, other than humility? “Just the other day, I was doing Lego with my son Charlie, and it was a Lego piece that was actually his little brother’s, and I watched him get impatient with his little brother and start putting the thing together himself. So I kept going: ‘Hey, Charlie, this is Tenny’s thing. We’re helping him, but we’re not making it,’” he says. “And only a few minutes later when both of them were distracted I found myself putting the thing together and I went: ‘Oh! He gets it from me.’” They laugh.
With a chorus of real people ready to sing their hearts out, here is the one and only Sir Elton John. He sings Tiny Dancer. The crowd sing and sway with glow sticks. The lyrics are shown in the studio on monitors and are displayed on the TV screen. The crowd cheer when he finishes. Oprah stands alongside Elton at the piano on stage and says very nice up there. Am I on TV now she asks? Oh I am, how happy are we? Sir Elton has agreed to sign the No Phone Zone Pledge, thank you Sir Elton. Go see Billy Elliot. Being the music man that he is, Elton says that he can turn any words into music. Let’s see him do that with the No Phone Zone Pledge, says Oprah. He takes the pledge and plays the piano, singing the lyrics to the pledge. He stops to say that he can’t see it because he doesn’t have his reading glasses.
WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:
Oprah and Elton John sat together at the Chicago premiere of Billy Elliot and cried.
Elton John got sober in Chicago twenty years ago.
Elton John feels that having a child would be the icing on the cake of his life.
Russell Crowe thinks that the term perfectionist is silly.
Russell Crowe considers himself to be uninteresting and not angry.
A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:
Elton John and Russell Crowe are Oprah’s special friends.