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"  True Hollywood story: It was 2006. She was blond\u2014bottled\u2014her blue-green eyes round as full moons and crying mascara-muddied tears down her pale cheeks. Judging by the length of her roots, she hadn&amp;#039;t left her Spanish deco mansion off Sunset Boulevard for three weeks, maybe four. Her brocade curtains were drawn, the only light emanating from a massive muted plasma TV mounted above a massive stone fireplace. MTV videos played like silent films. Years ago we met on the set of a Golden Globe\u2013winning film for which she was also nominated and a star was born. Today, I&amp;#039;d arrived to interview the beauty for a new project, only to find her unkempt, undone\u2014as unmade as the pig-pink satin-sheeted bed she refused to leave. Only one person could drag this Tinseltown diva down Norma Desmond Drive: a man.  What&amp;#039;s his name? I asked, expecting &amp;quot;Off the record&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll never tell.&amp;quot; But the dame was willing and able and wearing the perfect negligee in which to tell all. His name was Russell Brand. He was a comedian, a recovered dope fiend and sauce monster, a former MTV VJ, and the host of England&amp;#039;s Big Brother spin-off, Big Brother&amp;#039;s Big Mouth. Back then, his name was just a whisper on this side of the pond. But she&amp;#039;d crossed over and seen his stand-up routine, which led her to see his lying-down routine, which itself was so routine that he did time in Pennsylvania&amp;#039;s KeyStone sex addiction clinic, where he curbed his enthusiasms yet still went on to win The Sun&amp;#039;s Shagger of the Year Award in 2006, 2007, and 2008 (now called the Russell Brand Shagger of the Year Award). He must be good. And by the size of the tears rolling down the doll&amp;#039;s face, he was too good. She was gone, baby, gone. Five years later, Russell Brand, who by now is famous for writing a best-selling memoir, costarring in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, hosting MTV&amp;#039;s Video Music Awards, and marrying pop star Katy Perry, enters the living room in his own &amp;#039;20s-era Spanish manse, radiating a charisma that&amp;#039;s so beyond the legal limit that it makes laughable a condition of his KeyStone celibacy contract: &amp;quot;No seductive behavior.&amp;quot; Seriously? The guy just shows up and he&amp;#039;s guilty.  Beneath a high forehead and strong brow, Brand&amp;#039;s features are fine: an enviable nose; wide-set almond eyes; full, ruby-tinted lips; and for a Brit, surprisingly perfect pearly white teeth. He sometimes tucks his curls behind his ears, exposing a strong jawline. At once he&amp;#039;s feminine and masculine and vulpine. Not someone to be taken lightly\u2014or as lightly as he&amp;#039;d have you take him. Now 35 and liberated from his libertine ways, Brand&amp;#039;s curse has matured into a blessing. &amp;quot;The greatest thing about Russell is that he loves women,&amp;quot; says Helen Mirren, his costar in The Tempest and this month&amp;#039;s Arthur, inspired by the 1981 film. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t mean that in a nasty, venal, sexy way. Let&amp;#039;s say he likes women, he likes women of all shapes and sizes. It&amp;#039;s very endearing and charming. It makes you feel good.&amp;quot; She laughs. &amp;quot;It sounds silly, but he&amp;#039;s incredibly well behaved. Yes, he has a raunchy sense of humor\u2014when he goes off, your jaw drops\u2014but he&amp;#039;s kind and gracious.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;d like to get him a message: &amp;quot;When you see Russell, tell him I&amp;#039;m wearing my safety pin. He was so sweet, he said, `It&amp;#039;s diamond encrusted.&amp;#039; I wear it around my neck. Occasionally I wear it to keep my bra together.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;What a charming thought,&amp;quot; Brand says, pleased. &amp;quot;A gift of mine, being part of Helen Mirren&amp;#039;s boob infrastructure.&amp;quot; When word went round that Arthur was being remade, criticism flew. Why would anyone revamp the now classic film starring the late Dudley Moore as a lovable drunk Manhattan millionaire who falls for Liza Minnelli&amp;#039;s sassy Queens waitress? &amp;quot;People say, `How dare you?&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; says director Jason Winer. &amp;quot;Then you tell them Russell Brand&amp;#039;s going to do it, and they say, `If anyone is going to play Arthur, he can.&amp;#039; I was worried at first because in the original, Arthur is so charmingly drunk, and I didn&amp;#039;t know if Russell could carry it off. He had this bad-boy image. But we went to dinner, and the waitress was so smitten she couldn&amp;#039;t look at him. I saw Russell register this, and he gently told her, `I like your earrings; they&amp;#039;re an indicator that you have another life.&amp;#039; He put her at ease in the most charming, generous way.&amp;quot;  At 6&amp;#039;2&amp;quot;, Brand stands a foot taller than his predecessor, himself a Brit and a ladies&amp;#039; man, who the press dubbed Cuddly Dudley and the Sex Thimble. Yet Moore&amp;#039;s were big shoes to fill. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m an Englishman,&amp;quot; Brand says. &amp;quot;So to me Dudley Moore is not just Arthur, he&amp;#039;s half of Derek and Clive, a significant part of Beyond the Fringe. He&amp;#039;s a cultural icon.&amp;quot; Still, &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t frightened to take on the role. A billionaire playboy in this day and age having to make a choice between marrying for love or money seemed a very attractive proposition.&amp;quot; Moore&amp;#039;s performance, Brand admits, &amp;quot;influenced mine much more than I intended. He played drunk as sweet and affable. Really, alcohol in the film facilitates clowning. I was a very different kind of an alcoholic. I was much more an oaf, smashing stuff up and crying and causing problems.&amp;quot; Brand contemplates being in recovery, and playing someone who&amp;#039;s not. &amp;quot;It was very strange,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I kept little plastic bottles of booze around the set that I&amp;#039;d smell before each take. That really helped me because I&amp;#039;ve got huge emotional resources to call upon.&amp;quot; Does he ever miss it? &amp;quot;No, not really. In times of stress and difficulty, it&amp;#039;s surprising how one&amp;#039;s first impulse can be to drink or take drugs. But I don&amp;#039;t want to be that person again. I&amp;#039;m happy with who I am now.&amp;quot; In what could be seen as an illustration of his self-destructive nature or his dark sense of humor, Brand entered the world with his umbilical cord tied around his neck. He survived the complicated twist and went on to survive other scary turns both of his own making (bulimia, cutting, drug use) and put upon him (abandonment, sexual abuse). Born in the desolate industrial town of Grays, Essex, Brand was six months old when his father, Ron, left, reappearing only sporadically. His mother, Barbara, worked odd jobs like waitressing and selling dishwashers to pubs to support them, all the while fighting one cancer after another, the first occurring when Russell was seven. Around that time he began going to his father&amp;#039;s on Saturdays, where a television or a stack of dirty magazines was the babysitter, while his father entertained a woman in the bedroom. Still, Russell admired him. &amp;quot;My dad had been a brilliant footballer in his youth,&amp;quot; Brand writes in My Booky Wook. And: &amp;quot;My dad was an angry man, yet he had an amazing energy about him too. I always wanted to emulate his enthusiasm and effervescence.&amp;quot; He got the chance at 17, when Ron educated his son in the ways of the world, taking him to Hong Kong, Bali, Singapore, and Thailand. By the time they returned, Russell, already a drug addict, had earned a PhD in carnal knowledge and acquired a new addiction. &amp;quot;A friend of mine once said, `You are devoted to your lover, but she has a thousand faces,&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; Brand says. &amp;quot;`If she&amp;#039;s not there, you must call her, for you have to see her...three, four times a day\u2014making love with your lover of a thousand faces.&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s how he described my epic promiscuity. I was just as committed then to seduction as I am now committed to monogamy.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Katy seems to have corralled his penis, and I could not be happier for both of them,&amp;quot; says Adam Shankman, who directed Brand in Bedtime Stories. &amp;quot;I love him and wish him well. He reminds me of Robert Downey Jr.\u2014Russell&amp;#039;s brilliant in the same way. They&amp;#039;re that person that&amp;#039;s smarter than everyone, with this level of sensitivity and intelligence that&amp;#039;s almost profound. I talked to him the other day.&amp;quot; A chuckle. &amp;quot;The conversation always starts with Too Much Information.&amp;quot; Brand leads the winding way up various staircases to the summit of the four-story house where his slant-ceiling office is located. It&amp;#039;s hard to imagine him as a chubby grade-schooler, seeing him now in his skin-tight black jeans, short-sleeve charcoal T-shirt, and black vest, his limbs as long and nimble as a marionette&amp;#039;s. At the top of the landing is a framed movie poster of The Doors signed by director Oliver Stone: &amp;quot;To Russell, and the next coming...&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s cozy up here, with the sinking sun casting its magic-hour light across the room. There&amp;#039;s a well-worn leather couch, overstuffed chairs, a dinged wooden coffee table, and an old desk beneath a painting of the Union Jack.  There&amp;#039;s also a life-size cutout of Homer Simpson\u2014&amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s been in the room less than 24 hours, so don&amp;#039;t let it dominate your perspective&amp;quot;\u2014an air hockey table, and a big TV and DVDs: the Stanley Kubrick Collection, Twin Peaks, Bob Dylan&amp;#039;s Don&amp;#039;t Look Back, Woody Allen&amp;#039;s What&amp;#039;s Up Tiger Lily?, the Chaplin Collection, and Seinfeld. On another wall hangs a photograph of singer Morrissey (a close friend), and not far from that is a framed picture of Brand&amp;#039;s cat, Morrissey. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s downstairs sulking,&amp;quot; Brand says. &amp;quot;I feel a flux of guilt I brought him to Los Angeles. I absolutely adore him.&amp;quot;  Slipping into a closet, Brand calls out, &amp;quot;Would you like an espresso?&amp;quot; Whatever he&amp;#039;s having. Browsing around I tap the key of a vintage Woodstock typewriter, stroke a silver steel skull, note the irony of a plastic brain, and peek through the massive telescope pointed out a window into space. Brand appears, hands over a double shot, and toasts, &amp;quot;The queen!&amp;quot; admitting, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m quite dependent on caffeine. Obviously I have a tendency towards addiction. Currently, it&amp;#039;s only caffeine-based drinks.&amp;quot;   He gives a tour of his writing sanctuary. &amp;quot;My bachelor party,&amp;quot; Brand says, pointing out a photo replicating the Last Supper, with Brand seated, Christlike, surrounded by his partying disciples. Here&amp;#039;s a sketch by director David Lynch: &amp;quot;I asked David, `How do you become happy?&amp;#039; And he goes, `It&amp;#039;s like this,&amp;#039; and just started drawing.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s both a road map to Who Knows Where and an insolvable mathematical proof\u2014the effect is totally anxiety-inducing. &amp;quot;This animatronic monkey head is a gift from my father-in-law,&amp;quot; Brand says, picking up the ugly furry thing. &amp;quot;Do some talking!&amp;quot; he commands. It opens its fanged mouth and shrieks. &amp;quot;Scary, eh? But I love my father-in-law.&amp;quot; On a bookshelf is a photo of a happy couple hugging before that famed symbol of undying love, the Taj Mahal. In My Booky Wook, he writes, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a bloke from Essex who likes birds with big bottoms and big boobs, lovely dolly birds.&amp;quot; Katy Perry, the woman in the photo, fits the bill, and then some. They met when he hosted the 2008 MTV Video Awards and connected when he rehosted them in 2009 and she threw a bottle at his head, &amp;quot;obviously showing off in front of some people,&amp;quot; he remembers. &amp;quot;I thought that was really rude, and we entered into some badinage and she held her own.&amp;quot; Three months later he popped the question in India, though &amp;quot;I nearly asked her to marry me on our first date. It was like a hit of acid, a wave of confusion, emerging from under the water, a moment of Oh bloody hell, different perception for a moment, extraordinary\u2014&amp;quot; Like a manifestation of the David Lynch drawing. &amp;quot;And then I thought, I&amp;#039;ll give it space and see what happens.&amp;quot; Julie Taymor, who then was directing Brand as Trinculo the jester in The Tempest, recalls, &amp;quot;He wrote the most beautiful Byron-esque e-mails about being in the state of love that he was in.&amp;quot; For once, he was the goner. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the most normal relationship I&amp;#039;ve ever had with anybody,&amp;quot; Brand says, happy to show off his heavy platinum wedding band glittering with dark pav\u00E9 diamonds. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s very spirited, bighearted, innocent, but very, very smart. Someone told me that enlightenment is contingent upon being able to hold opposing views simultaneously. I&amp;#039;m actually attracted to that magnetism and sort of repulsion. She&amp;#039;s endlessly fascinating.&amp;quot; Beyond that, &amp;quot;I was at a point in my life where I was ready to behave. I look at it the way I look at most things: One day at a time. I will say it&amp;#039;s very, very rewarding and I love her.&amp;quot; He smiles. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s very pretty.&amp;quot; Brand&amp;#039;s own extremes of magnetism and repulsion keep all eyes on him. He&amp;#039;s a character, who, if not playing for laughs, could play serious characters. He&amp;#039;d kill as Hamlet, Macbeth, Mercutio, Henry V. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s way more of an actor than even he realizes,&amp;quot; says Nicholas Stoller, the director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, who went on to write and direct Get Him to the Greek specifically for Brand. &amp;quot;You see glimpses of it when he&amp;#039;s raging at Jonah [Hill] to get him drugs. He can channel that dark, scary inner place.&amp;quot; And still be alluring in the process. Truth be told, Brand could give Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale, and Robert Downey Jr. a run for the Hollywood money. Brand pulls a book of John Keats&amp;#039; poetry from a bookcase weighted with Wilde, Wodehouse, Wordsworth. Settling into a chair, he runs a finger down the index and finds what he&amp;#039;s looking for. &amp;quot;This is `Ode to a Nightingale,&amp;#039; which is long, but come on, let&amp;#039;s read it anyway,&amp;quot; he says, reading the poem aloud in a voice beautiful and melodious. &amp;quot;\u2009`With beaded bubbles winking at the brim&amp;#039;\u2014oh, that&amp;#039;s good: `Tender is the night&amp;#039;\u2014that&amp;#039;s where that comes from,&amp;quot; he says, continuing: &amp;quot;\u2009`Clustered around...but here there is no light&amp;#039;\u2014I like the way this verse here sort of alludes to paganism. While contemplatin&amp;#039; the idea of death, Keats is drawn to paganism and natural imagery where conventional monotheistic faith can answer the questions that are asked of one theologically through the confrontation of death\u2014a poet, a genius like Keats\u2014he&amp;#039;s not going to find the answers in doctrinaire theses like Catholicism.&amp;quot; Brand&amp;#039;s mind boggles the mind.  &amp;quot;\u2009`And for many a time, I have been half in love with easeful death...&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; Brand closes the book, pronouncing it &amp;quot;incredibly mournful and hopeful. You eventually know your place\u2014if not in the universe, on the planet\u2014is kind of irrelevant. So you are left with the choices. It&amp;#039;s your smallest interactions that are very important\u2014the way you treat the people that are around you. I was fortunate in that even when some of my behaviors were quite compulsive, they always\u2014most of the time\u2014came from a relatively tranquil and gentle place. I&amp;#039;m naturally quite tender towards people and understanding of people.&amp;quot; He pauses. &amp;quot;I can be quite selfish. But I feel that there are higher things; I feel there is a God, and I feel that there is a great purpose and great value in altruism and most simply, I suppose, in love.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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