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Did Korean anchor Sohn Seok-hee cross the line during Russell Crowe interview?

January 22, 2015
JTBC anchorman Sohn Seok-hee is interviewing Russell Crowe in his program "News Room" on Tuesday. (Screen capture from JTBC)

JTBC anchorman Sohn Seok-hee is interviewing Russell Crowe in his program “News Room” on Tuesday. (Screen capture from JTBC)

“People who watched ‘Les Miserables’ sometimes say that it (the movie) would have been better if your singing were better… don’t be upset.”

This was the question posed to Kiwi actor Russell Crowe by JTBC anchorman Sohn Seok-hee on Tuesday. Sohn, whose popularity soared last year with some sharp questioning during his news coverage of the sunken ferry tragedy, could be described as South Korea’s version of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

“It is what it is,” the 50-year-old actor said with a smile. ”I’m not a Broadway singer and I don’t care to be. When I sing, I sing with truth and with emotion from deep inside me…”

Some speculate Crowe’s correction of Sohn’s pronunciation of “Les Miserables” earlier may have triggered the situation. When Sohn used what he would later call the “original pronunciation” of the title — down to its last “ble,” Crowe had corrected him with a pronunciation commonly used in the U.S. — “Le(s) Miserab(les).”

Crowe, who arrived in Korea on Saturday to promote his new film, “Water Diviner,” however, was calm throughout the interview which ran for over 10 minutes.

He explained the singing in Les Miserables ― in which Crowe plays the role of Javert ― was different from the stage because the songs were changed to make more sense to the audience and not every song was full length.

“Every Javert that I have seen performing, he did it in a very bombastic way and it was emotionally in a single note,” he added. “That’s mainly because in the stage play Javert has to kind of fight with tension.”

Crowe also said he didn’t do much during his three-night visit to Korea because he “didn’t bring that many clothes for the weather.

“I sat on the balcony of the hotel and watched the sun come up and go down and read a book a little.”

As to what motivated him to direct Water Diviner, Crowe described the situation as “strange.”

“It found me rather than I found it,” said Crowe. “I read the script as part of my normal process… I felt not just making decisions on behalf of my character but that I wanted to be responsible for telling this particular tale.”

Crowe said he plans to direct his second film based on book called “Happiest Refugee” by Ahn Do. “It’s a story about a Vietnamese family who left Vietnam in a nine-meter boat hoping for a new life in Australia.”

Click here to see the interview for yourself. The segment with Crowe starts at around the 16th minute mark of the video.