The actor hesitated until the very end as to whether or not to star in the film, which eventually earned him an Oscar.
The American actor Russell Crowe has revealed that he had considered running away from the set of Ridley Scott’s film “Gladiator” more than once. In an interview for Vanity Fair’s YouTube channel, the artist admitted that after reading the script, he found the film to be no good, but succumbed to the persuasions of the project’s author.
In 2001 it was this movie that won Russell Crowe an Oscar for Best Actor. Not “Cinderella Man” not “American Gangster,” “Body of Lies” or the epic “Noah,” not even the brilliant “A Beautiful Mind” film. But “Gladiator”. Over the next 20-odd years, the artist failed to reach the top of Mount Olympus twice, though he did win many other important film awards.
“Gladiator” is my twentieth film, so I was confident in my abilities as a lead actor. What I wasn’t sure about in Gladiator was the world around me. There was a great concept at the core of what we were doing, but the script… It was garbage. Absolute garbage. I thought a couple of times, maybe the best option for me is to just get on a plane and get out of there, ya know?” – Crowe said.
As the actor noted, only continuous conversations with Ridley Scott helped to believe in the project. The director directly told the celebrity that he will not force him to star in any scene in which he does not believe 100%. The film about the Roman general Maximus, who became a gladiator, was released in 2000 and grossed almost half a billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
Recently it became known that a sequel to the film is in preparation for production. However, Crowe will not be in it. His character died in the original film, and the creators decided not to invent stories of magical resurrection. The director will be Ridley Scott again, with the main roles played by veteran Denzel Washington and new Hollywood darlings Barry Keoghan and Paul Mescal.
