“I asked him not to come”: Ron Howard’s failed attempt to enforce his career’s only on-set ban
Based on his reputation, you might think that somebody would need to do something especially heinous to find themselves declared persona non grata on a Ron Howard set.
After all, he’s been earning his stripes as one of Hollywood’s nicest lads for over half a century, and he hasn’t had many run-ins with anyone, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that a vendetta, grudge, or simmering blood feud was the reason why their presence was not welcome during shooting.
However, because this is Ron Howard, it had nothing to do with any of those reasons. Instead, it was merely a professional decision, which didn’t go according to plan because they turned up anyway despite his protestations, and he did absolutely fuck all to try and enforce it, which sounds perfectly on-brand.
Even though it was a film based on his life, Russell Crowe didn’t want to meet John Nash when he was making A Beautiful Mind, either. He wouldn’t be deterred, though, with the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician taking it upon himself to descend on the set, despite his lack of an invite.
“I had asked him not to come, because a couple of times, I did TV movies where I played a real guy, and I just never personally wanted to meet that person,” Howard explained. “So I wasn’t that keen for Russell necessarily to get together with John. I was concerned that Russell was going to feel compelled or responsible to not work from within, but to try and get on track and do some imitation of Nash.”
The Academy Award-winning Gladiator star felt exactly the same way, but with A Beautiful Mind shooting in many of the real-life locations where the events depicted onscreen had unfolded, neither of them had a choice when Nash disregarded a direct order from Howard and turned up completely unannounced.
“We were shooting in Princeton, and that’s where John lives, and that’s where he works,” Crowe recalled. “So he just walked up to the set. And I realised it was him, and I was sort of dumbfounded.” Instead of telling him to fuck off, which wouldn’t have been a very nice thing to do, the actor decided to embrace the unexpected opportunity.
He’d avoided Nash because he didn’t want his performance to be subconsciously altered by a one-on-one encounter, but he quickly changed his tune by issuing a missive to anyone playing a person in a biographical drama who’s still alive: “If you have the opportunity to meet them, don’t be an absolute idiot.”
To be fair, Howard’s instructions were pretty flimsy to begin with. He’d asked Nash not to appear on the set of A Beautiful Mind, but he decided to shoot some of the movie in the very place where he happened to spend his days, so it’s not like he wouldn’t have gotten curious to see how his life story was shaping up.
