It was ‘crystal clear’ showbiz wanted Billy Crudup for his looks. He had other ideas
LOS ANGELES — For years, Billy Crudup wasn't interested in the song-and-dance of the Hollywood promotion machine. So deep was his aversion to it that he tells a story, in the few interviews he's done, about trying to negotiate his way out of doing press.
It's the sort of idealism about his craft that would make his character in "The Morning Show" smirk. Cory Ellison, the smarmy network executive Crudup has made a fan favorite on the Apple TV+ drama, is the sort of guy who will entertain altruism and assuage talent — as long as it leaves him a few moves ahead in his game of capitalist chess.
And Crudup, who has made a career out of leaving a lasting impression on stage and onscreen, has finally come around to playing as well.
"To me, it was counterintuitive, because what I was trying to do was tell a story that made people assume that I was somebody else entirely — so, the more that they knew about me, the harder it was going to be for me to convince them that I was somebody else," Crudup says. "Thinking about the opportunities that I missed out on because I became such a contrarian, I think it's a fair argument to say that you could think about it in a different way. What happened over the past probably 10 years or so is I've gotten to the
