Home on the range

Back in 1992, many believed that Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven had sounded the death knell for the western.

The film's remorseless assault on a traditionally wholesome genre seemed to signal the final chapter in the story of the great American art form. Hollywood studios had deserted the corral years earlier.

Fifteen years later, however, it seems that the western still has the power to lasso Hollywood's finest. Not many leading men come bigger than Russell Crowe (Gladiator) or Christian Bale (Batman Begins), and yet these two A-list players leapt at the chance to star in a remake of a 50-year-old classic, 3:10 to Yuma.

"Actually, I wasn't surprised to be offered a western," says Crowe. "I had spent quite a bit of time with the film's director, Jim Mangold, about six years ago. We became conversational friends. Then he sent me the Yuma script, I read it and enjoyed the dynamic between the two characters. That was the decision made."

Rogue

These two characters are Crowe's outlaw, Ben Wade, and Bale's limping rancher, Dan Evans, played by Glen Ford and Van Heflin in the 1957 original. Wade is a roguish fellow, riding at the head of a gang who regularly target the Southern Pacific Railroad. When he is captured, it falls to Civil War veteran Evans to transport him across open country to the train bound for Yuma prison. As their journey progresses, the two men engage in a tense battle of wills, forging a mutual respect that sets up a dramatic finale.

Growing respect

"Right from when Evans first confronts Wade, there's a steadiness about him," says Crowe. "I don't think Wade comes across that very often. People have an extreme reaction to him because of his reputation. So I think that begins a kernel of respect and that's what grows."

As a rancher and keen horseman himself, Crowe revelled in the role. The 43-year-old New Zealander is no stranger to the genre. He learned the art of the quick draw while filming director Sam Raimi's pulpy yet star-cluttered The Quick and the Dead in 1996, and even his most memorable part -that of Maximus in Ridley Scott's Gladiator - could almost have been hewn from a story of the American West. Indeed, Yuma director Mangold believes that Ridley Scott's film reflects exactly the tone and structure of a western.

"I suppose Gladiator could be a western," Crowe says before cracking a smile, "if you were writing your review in Athens, that is! To be honest, we didn't really think that way at the time. But there is common ground. And they both have horses - I liked that, obviously."

Country man

The sprawling ranch in Australia is where he and his wife of four years, singer and actress Danielle Spencer, have chosen to raise their two children, three-year-old Charlie and Tennyson, who was born in July last year.

"For me to remain fresh with what I do, and just to inform myself as a human, to be out of town, in the country, is just better, for me, my wife and the boys," says Crowe.

When asked whether he hopes to add a girl to his family unit, he flashes a broad grin. "You'll have to ask the wife," he laughs. "It's under negotiations."

A native of Wellington, New Zealand, Crowe's own childhood was nomadic, his parents relocating to Australia when he was four years old and moving regularly over the following decade. Now he's a parent himself, he is desperate to provide his sons with stability, while keeping their feet firmly on the ground.

"My kids are being raised in a much more affluent environment than was mine," he says. "My wife and I talk about that all the time because neither of us had this kind of experience. Charlie went to school one day, and when he came home I asked him how it went, and he said, ‘Yeah. They don't have a lot of toys.' So it will be an ongoing battle to make sure that they can empathise with people not in their situation."

Temper, temper

It seems as though his growing family has calmed Crowe's inflammatory temper, and the newspapers have for some time been free of his more unruly antics - the most notorious being the "phone-throwing incident", which saw him pay hotel clerk Nestor Estrada $100,000 (Dh367,000) in an out-of-court settlement. Now, however, he is concentrating much of his energy on his family, and is determined to remain true to the personal code he developed during his early career.

While trying to break into acting during his mid-teens, Crowe busked for money - he's a guitarist and singer, and currently fronts a band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, who tour when he's not filming - and took numerous jobs, from bartending and waiting to bingo-calling and horse-wrangling.

"I enjoyed all those jobs," he says. "You have to. If you're a waiter, the worst thing you can do is go to work resenting your job. This will sound trite - but it's the reality, and part of my personality - yet when I was a waiter I tried to be the best waiter and when I was a bingo-caller I tried to be the best bingo-caller.

"And, by the same token, if I'm doing a western, I want it to be one of the great westerns. I'll always give it my best."

A beautiful career

After scooping his Oscar for Gladiator in 2001, Russell Crowe starred in a string of big films:
- Master and Commander
- A Beautiful Mind, for which he won another Oscar nomination
- Cinderella Man (with director Ron Howard)
- He also collaborated with director Ridley Scott in A Good Year.
- The pair have three more in the pipeline: American Gangster, out in November, Body of Lies, and the Robin Hood movie Nottingham.
- Prior to his Oscar wins, don't forget Crowe's star turns in The Insider and LA Confidential.

A stable life

Russell Crowe indulges his love of horses on the ranch he runs in Nana Glen, a few hours north of Sydney. He recently built stables on his land for Australia, the forthcoming film from director Baz Luhrmann, in which

Nicole Kidman plays an aristocratic rancher in the 1940s Outback. It was a move that didn't pay off.

"I was going to be in that film," he says, "and I was happy to build the stables. But the way things turned out, we didn't do it together - and no one's paid me!"

Ready to ride: Alan Tudyk as Doc Potter, Christian Bale as Dan Evans, Russell Crowe as Ben Wade, Peter Fonda as Byron McElroy and Lennie Loftin as Glen Hollander in 3:10 to Yuma.

Christian Bale plays the bankrupt rancher escorting Russell Crowe's cunning - and charming - outlaw to jail in the remake of 3:10 to Yuma.