Russell Crowe on playing Glastonbury: ‘Forget the other job – this is a band of monster musicians’

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1 year ago

June 22, 2024

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Russell Crowe has the war wounds of an actor who has completed his own stunts, including several “that didn’t go fully correctly”, over the years. “A whole screed of injuries,” is how he describes it.

So, the thought of a potential Glastonbury mud-fest after weeks of rain? The man who played Maximus Decimus Meridius will be able to handle it.

Well… “Probably,” he laughs. “We’re in the acoustic tent, which is a large tent with a covered stage, so we’ll be okay.”

Crowe makes his Glastonbury debut this year, not as an A-list VIP guest (although he is that, too), but as a performer with his band, Indoor Garden Party.

For those who know him for his “other job”, as he describes his Oscar-winning career of films including Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, LA Confidential, Les Miserables and more, this may come as a surprise – but the star has been playing guitar for far longer than he’s been playing characters.

“I had years and years and years of touring and playing in pubs and clubs and releasing records before I got a feature film,” he says, speaking on Zoom from a studio in Sydney, Australia, just a few days before travelling to Europe. “In fact, when I first started [acting], the idea I would be in a feature film one day was ludicrous.”

‘We’re going to blow that place up’

There is a “reset and rebalance aspect” to making music, he says. “Film sets tend to be very controlled. You’ve got to respect the gods of film and be completely ready and have done your research. Just recently, for example, I had a 17-page scene to do with an actor, and that takes an enormous amount of preparation and quiet contemplation to get yourself in the groove.”

But walking out on to a stage to sing is different. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve necessarily prepared, the way the audience responds and everything will adjust and move that show. It’s that kind of anarchy, where you just don’t really know for sure what’s going to happen, that is really attractive.”

Crowe says he was “chuffed” to get the call for Glastonbury, where Indoor Garden Party will play on the Saturday evening. People who “feel like hooting and hollering” should forget about Russell Crowe, the famous actor, he says, and turn up for the music.

“We’re going to blow that place up,” he says. “It’s like, chuck, all the celebrity bullsh*t aside, or the fame for doing some other job aside. You’ll see a serious band and it’s full of monster musicians who know what they’re doing.”

‘As luck would have it, I saw him again…’

About the music, then. Indoor Garden Party is a collective, led by Crowe and featuring The Gentlemen Barbers band – made up of artists including members of his previous groups, Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts and The Ordinary Fear Of God – as well as singer-songwriter Lorraine O’Reilly. The music veers between blues, rock, gospel and country, and they have a new album, Prose And Cons, released independently, out now.

The artwork is a simple but beautiful photograph of a swimmer, captured from behind as he looks out over a vast stretch of ethereally lit water.

“Tell you what, I took that photograph with my iPhone, at a place called Woolloomooloo, where I have an apartment, in Sydney,” says Crowe. “I was just walking around the bay and there was a man standing; it was a winter’s morning and it’s quite cold, Sydney Harbour water, in winter, and I think that’s probably what he was contemplating, the temperature he was about to experience.

“If you see the photograph up close, it’s so painterly, what the light was doing with the water – and we haven’t affected it at all, there’s no filters or anything.”

Does the mystery swimmer know he’s a cover star for a Russell Crowe album?

“As luck would have it, I was sitting on the balcony one day and I saw him again. So I took off down the wharf and ran around the other side of the bay and had a conversation with him, and he was delighted to be on a record cover. So that’s cool.”

‘I’m a very sentimental person’

Fans will get to hear the new songs live at gigs in Warrington and Dublin, as well as Glastonbury, in the UK and Ireland. But before that, Indoor Garden Party have dates in Italy – including a special gig next to Rome’s Colosseum.

Crowe, who in 2022 was appointed by the mayor of Rome to be the city’s “ambassador to the world”, says he has had a special relationship with Italy ever since Gladiator, the film for which he won his Oscar for best actor in 2001.

“This relationship that I’ve had to Italy and Italian people since the release of Gladiator has been incredible,” he says. “I’m the ambassador for Rome in the world… it’s only a little bit of fun, but it’s cool, you know?”

With director Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel due for release next year, he says he has considered if things may be different after that.

“Next year they’ll have a new Gladiator, so my relationship to the people of Italy might change quite dramatically. So in a funny way for me – and I know this sounds very sentimental, but I’m a very sentimental person; I was born in New Zealand, I grew up in Australia, we tend to be that way – I’m going to get to go around the country [touring]… and say g’day and goodbye at the same time.”

‘There’s a tinge of jealousy’

The Gladiator sequel stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal, and will be released 25 years after filmmaker Scott’s first film. Crowe, now 60, has had no involvement, due to (spoiler alert) the events of the original.

How does he feel about it? “I feel old. That’s how I feel about it,” he says. “That period of my life, you know, was a huge change. Everything just went kind of crazy for a while.

“I do have extremely fond memories of it. And, to be completely honest, there’s a tinge of jealousy because I certainly wish I was back at being, you know, 35, 36, in a certain way, so I could have that kind of experience again.”

The star says he still feels “humbled” by the attention he received for his performance. “Because really, my contribution to the film is quite small. It’s very definitely a director’s movie.

“The world created in that film is the work of Ridley Scott, you know? We did end up making five movies together, Ridley and I, and he’s probably still my favourite director to be on a on a set with.”

While he has his own films out as well this year, for the next few months, it’s all about the music. There are tour dates in the US after Europe, and after that – who knows. If he likes Glastonbury, maybe there’ll be a sequel to that performance, too.

“If we make the main stage [next time],” Crowe laughs. “We’ll have more time then.”

Russell Crowe’s Indoor Garden Party play Glastonbury on Saturday 29 June, followed by shows at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre and Warrington Parr Hall. Their album, Prose And Cons, is out now

Entertainment

Bob Geldof reveals why he won’t run for Irish presidency

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1 hour ago

September 17, 2025

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Bob Geldof reveals why he won't run for Irish presidency

Bob Geldof has confirmed he will not be running for the Irish presidency – and says it’s partly because he’d “miss London”.

Speaking to Sky News at the Sky Arts Awards on Tuesday night, the 73-year-old musician and aid campaigner said: “My kids are here, my missus is here, my homes are here.

“I’d miss London. The band is here, I wouldn’t be able to play.”

In Ireland, any Irish citizen over 35 can run for president – but to get on the ballot, a candidate must be nominated by 20 members of parliament or four local authorities.

Geldof said: “I simply wouldn’t have had time.”

He said he had considered it, thinking it could be something “new, interesting and useful”, 50 years after finding fame in The Boomtown Rats, and 40 years after launching Band Aid.

Geldof said he’d briefly spoken to Prime Minister Micheal Martin, asking him: “‘What would you think about Bob Geldof being the candidate for the Fianna Fail Party?’ He said, ‘I think it’d be great, but I’ve already chosen someone’.

“I said, ‘That’s the end of the conversation Taoiseach, thanks very much,’ and that was it.”

Former football manager Jim Gavin was later announced as Fianna Fail’s official candidate.

Conor McGregor pulls out

Geldof admitted he was relieved former mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor was no longer in the running.

McGregor, who had promised to curb immigration in order to protect “Irish culture” and to give power “back to the people,” announced he was withdrawing from the race earlier this week.

Ex-Riverdance performer Michael Flatley, 67, has also expressed an interest in running for office.

This year’s ballot deadline is midday on 24 September, a month ahead of the election on 24 October. A largely ceremonial role, representing Ireland at home and abroad, it runs for a seven-year term.

‘Please stop,’ Geldof tells Israel

Geldof, who has Jewish heritage and is the Founding Patron of the British Holocaust Museums Aegis Trust for Genocide Studies, also spoke passionately about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Following a UN Commission report which found Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, Geldof said: “When you purposefully starve children as an instrument of war then you are a war criminal.”

He went on: “People simply don’t have the bandwidth to deal with the cost of living, the flag waving, the horror of Ukraine, the horrors of Gaza. They’re just tired, and they just want Israel to please stop it. And the UN has just confirmed that. Stop.”

The accusation of genocide has been made by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report” and called for the commission to be abolished.

Geldof was speaking at the prestigious Sky Arts event, where he was recognised for his influence as a musician and cultural figure over the last five decades with a lifetime achievement award.

Never afraid to be outspoken, he was one of the defining voices of the 1970s punk era before going on to co-create Band Aid and the historic Live Aid concerts, reshaping the relationship between music and global activism.

Geldof performed with his band, The Boomtown Rats, during the ceremony which took place at London’s Roundhouse, hosted by comedian Bill Bailey.

See all the Sky Arts Awards winners here.

Entertainment

Hollywood actor and director Robert Redford dies at 89

Published

16 hours ago

September 16, 2025

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Hollywood actor and director Robert Redford dies at 89

Hollywood actor and Oscar-winning director Robert Redford, known for films including Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men and The Sting, has died at the age of 89.

Redford, who was also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the US, died on Tuesday morning.

In a statement, his representative said he was “surrounded by those he loved”, at home in “the place he loved” in the mountains of Utah. “He will be missed greatly,” she added.

Born Charles Robert Redford Jr in Santa Monica, California, in 1936, he attended college on a baseball scholarship but later went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He debuted on Broadway in the late 1950s before moving into television, in shows such as The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Untouchables.

Rising to stardom in the 1960s, Redford became a go-to leading man in Hollywood and a huge star of the following decade, leading films including The Candidate, All the President’s Men and The Way We Were.

He worked hard to transcend being typecast for his good looks, through his political advocacy and a willingness to take on unglamorous roles.

In the 1990s and 2000s, his film credits included Indecent Proposal, The Last Castle and Spy Game, and he also worked actively as a filmmaker – helming movies including A River Runs Through It and The Legend Of Bagger Vance. In 1998, he both starred in and directed The Horse Whisperer.

But he was best known for his role as wily outlaw the Sundance Kid, opposite Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy in the 1969 film. The pair became a famous screen partnership, starring opposite each other again in The Sting a few years later, and good friends.

As well as his starring roles, Redford was also an activist and an accomplished filmmaker – winning the Oscar for best director for Ordinary People in 1981. It was the second of his two Academy Awards – the first won for his acting performance in The Sting – as well as an honorary prize in 2002.

In a career spanning seven decades, he also received three Golden Globe Awards, including the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement honor in 1994.

In his later years, Redford took on a challenging role in All Is Lost, a 2013 survival story that featured virtually no other characters and barely any dialogue. His performance earned a standing ovation after the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2018, he received critical acclaim again in what he called his farewell movie, The Old Man And The Gun.

His legacy lives on in the Sundance Film Festival, which grew into a cornerstone of the film industry and provided a launching pad for filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Darren Aronofsky.

And in 2016, former President Barack Obama awarded him the presidential medal of freedom – considered the US government’s highest civilian honour – saying at the time that Americans “admire Bob not just for his remarkable acting, but for having figured out what to do next”.

Robert Redford leaves behind his wife Sibylle Szaggars and two daughters – Shauna, a painter, and Amy, an actress and director.

He was previously married to Lola Van Wagenen. One of their children, Scott, died at the age of two months from sudden infant death syndrome. Another, James, died of cancer in 2020.

‘One of the lions has passed’

Tributes have been shared across social media following the announcement of Redford’s death.

Meryl Streep, who starred in Out Of Africa and Lions For Lambs opposite Redford, said: “One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace my lovely friend.”

Filmmaker Ron Howard, known for Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, described Redford as “a tremendously influential cultural figure for the creative choices” he made as an actor, producer and director, and said Sundance had been a “gamechanger”.

Marlee Matlin, star of the Oscar-winning CODA, said the film “came to the attention of everyone” because of the Sundance Festival.

“Sundance happened because of Robert Redford. A genius has passed,” she said.

“He was part of a new and exciting Hollywood in the 70s and 80s,” wrote author Stephen King. “Hard to believe he was 89.”

Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, wrote: “Decades ago, Robert Redford came to Utah and fell in love with this place.

“He cherished our landscapes and built a legacy that made Utah a home for storytelling and creativity.

“Through Sundance and his devotion to conservation, he shared Utah with the world. Today we honor his life, his vision, and his lasting contribution to our state.”

Entertainment

Spain votes to boycott Eurovision if Israel competes

Published

18 hours ago

September 16, 2025

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Spain votes to boycott Eurovision if Israel competes

Spain has become the latest country to threaten a boycott of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel competes.

It is now the fifth broadcaster to say it will pull out over Israel’s participation, following recent announcements by the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia and Iceland – but the first of the competition’s so-called “Big Five”, a group which also includes Britain, Germany, Italy and France.

These countries provide the biggest financial contributions to Eurovision, with participants automatically qualifying for the final round, and their withdrawal would increase the pressure on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the event.

The Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group, the competition’s governing body, said a decision on Israel’s participation is pending and that it has “taken note of the concerns expressed by several broadcasters”.

RTVE, the Spanish state broadcaster, announced the decision following a board vote on Tuesday.

The measure, proposed by president Jose Pablo Lopez, garnered 10 votes in favour, four against, and one abstention in the 15-member board, the broadcaster said in a statement.

Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez has previously called for Israel to be banned from the competition, highlighting how Russia was expelled following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

At the time, the EBU said the decision reflected “concern that, in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year’s contest would bring the competition into disrepute”.

Recent editions of the contest, which has always expressed political neutrality, have involved demonstrations against Israel’s continued military action in Gaza – launched in response to the attack by Hamas militants on 7 October 2023, which left some 1,200 people dead.

Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas attack, finished second in this year’s competition, held in Basel, Switzerland, in May – but there were protests before and during her performance. Austrian singer JJ, who won, has also called for Israel’s exclusion in 2026.

Israel has denied accusations it is committing genocide and claimed its actions have been in self-defence against Hamas. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military action.

In a statement following the vote in Spain, contest director Martin Green said he understood the “concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”, and that consultation with members is ongoing “to gather views on how we manage participation and geopolitical tensions”.

Broadcasters have until mid-December to conform if they want to take part.

What have others said?

Dutch broadcaster AvroTros said last week that it was taking a stance in response to the loss of life in Gaza, with the deaths of journalists there a factor in the decision.

Irish broadcaster RTE said the country was taking the same stance, saying it was “unconscionable” to take part given the “ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza”.

Following his win in May, singer JJ said it was “disappointing to see Israel still participating”, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais. “I would like the next Eurovision to be held in Vienna and without Israel,” he added.

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The “potential impacts and consequences of either decision” are being assessed, the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group said in a statament.

Next year’s Eurovision will be the 70th anniversary of the event, and will take place at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna on 16 May.