Russell Crowe

'Swallow My Gift' is all about music being its own reward. I don't do it to become more famous; I don't do it to make money. I don't do it from an ego-driven point of view.

— Russell Crowe

Meg Ryan is a beautiful and courageous woman. I grieve the loss of her companionship but I've not lost the friendship. We talk all the time and that was what our connection was about. She has a wonderful mind and we just like a chat.

— Russell Crowe

Some things just come without any real understanding. I don't bother to question it or myself anymore. If you get into a situation like L.A. Confidential, where you can just totally get inside the character, that's a privileged position. Now that I'm more aware of the process I realize it's the position you always want to aim for.

— Russell Crowe

People accuse me of being arrogant all the time. I'm not arrogant, I'm focused. I don't make demands. I don't tell you how it should be. I'll give you fucking options, and it's up to you to select or throw 'em away. That should be the headline: If you're insecure, don't fucking call.

— Russell Crowe

I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.

— Russell Crowe

There's nothing like sitting back and talking to your cows.

— Russell Crowe

I'm fundamentally quite shy, so that thing of taking on another character is quite a liberating thing to do if you're a shy person, because within that character framework you can now go to all these other places. [pauses] And I never found another job that I was actually that good at.

— Russell Crowe

If it's not going to be that serious, I don't want to do it. It's a personal taste. I don't like watching an actor have the same fucking hairdo from time period to time period, from character to character— I just think it's bullshit. It's a waste of money and a waste of my time as an audience member.

— Russell Crowe

I'm the sort of bloke that will have stand-up arguments with producers, saying, "Look, mate, I know you're product-placing that fucking thing' If I can see it, I'm just not going to allow it to happen... You lose all of your integrity as soon as you cross over into that sort of crass commercialism.

— Russell Crowe

It was a 100 percent fucking home run, except the central character of William Shakespeare was not a fucking writer— he was not smelly enough, he was not unshaven enough, and obviously hadn't had enough to drink. He was some prissy pretty boy. What the fuck? That's so disrespectful.

— Russell Crowe

I suppose I'm still too young to say everything I want to say, though nobody'd ever give me credit for holding anything back. But I do … I just have no desire or need to slag Joe Fiennes. But I would look at that particular thing differently. I see the opportunity differently.

— Russell Crowe

Until I was 25, 1 had one tooth missing. When George Ogilvie cast me, he asked me about it, and I told him the story and that I thought it was very false of me to go and get a tooth cap. He was very nice about it, listened to it all, and said, "All right, well, let me put it this way, Russell. You're playing the lead character in my film, right? The character of Johnny has two front teeth....'

— Russell Crowe

I lost my front tooth in rugby league when a fat guy from Bellevue Hill kicked me in the face as I got up from a tackle to mark him. I made this decision not to cap the tooth because I thought it was false. But I didn't make any movies as a teenager, and I had a very hard time with girls and stuff.

— Russell Crowe

I don't follow anybody in particular. When people talk about Laurence Olivier or something, I go, "Fuck, man, once you've had De Niro with Raging Bull, that's where you begin."

— Russell Crowe

I've always had a thing about being accused of something when I'm not guilty of it, you know? That goes right back to a primary school thing. It's the thing that scares me the most— being blamed for something that I didn't do... And there's that "If you get accused of something and you get angry, then you must be guilty."

— Russell Crowe

I went shopping with Danielle yesterday, and we were in a bookstore. And this woman actually said, "Look, Russell Crowe reads— who'd have known?"

— Russell Crowe

I used to have these very strange situations where I'd be walking down the street and I would imagine people calling out my name. I was as optimistic and as full of hope as anybody could be. And lots of things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to when I was a younger fella, but I didn't lose that thirst to understand what it is that I could do well.

— Russell Crowe

A guy like Hando is abhorrent to me— the philosophy that governs his life is something that disgusts me completely— so that was an interesting learning experience.

— Russell Crowe

I'm not really doing the fucking Russell Crowe brand-name shit. I'm not fulfilling that stuff. So if I don't fulfill, then just write about it anyway... You know, there was an article I was reading on-set somewhere, and there were eleven things on this list that made me a motherfucker, right? The eleven points of motherfuckerdom of Russell Crowe. And nine of them were completely untrue, had never happened, but had been over time reprinted so much that they were now folkloric.

— Russell Crowe

To be honest, when you're younger and cooler, you say those sort of things don't mean anything, but then on the day when they pat you on the back and they say, "Look, mate, we're noticing what you're doing-thanks very much;' you think of the people who spent a life in the cinema and didn't receive that kind of accolade, and it's sort of a humbling experience. And it's very nice and all that. But it doesn't change the way I do things.

— Russell Crowe

This is not belittling it, because I do think it's a very emotionally and intellectually complicated physical performance, and it's the combination of those things that made it a little unusual, I suppose. But I definitely rate The Insider and A Beautiful Mind above that. I probably rate Romper Stomper above it. And there's a hell of a lot of nuance going on in L.A. Confidential as well.

— Russell Crowe

None of it was my application. I didn’t pay for any of it. It was…the FBI, bless their pressed white shirts. They picked up on something they thought was really important, and they were following it through. They were fucking serious, mate. What are you supposed to do? You get this late-night call from the FBI when you arrive in Los Angeles, and they’re like absolutely full-on, "We’ve got to talk to you now, before you do anything. We have to have a discussion with you, Mr. Crowe."

— Russell Crowe

That was the first conversation in my life that I’d ever heard the phrase Al Qaeda. And it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers. And it was a destabilization plan. I don’t think that I was the only person. But it was about—and here’s another little touch of irony— it was about taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural-destabilization plan.

— Russell Crowe

Oh yeah, there was a point where they said they thought the threat had probably or had possibly been overstated, and then they started to question their sources, and blah, blah, blah. But I don't know how it was resolved, you know? But they were serious about it. And what can you say? I mean, gee, there were a lot of man-hours spent doing that gig, so the least I can say is, "Thank you very much."

— Russell Crowe

I'm not Machiavellian. I don't play chess with my life, you know. I respond in the moment, which is what makes me a good actor. It makes me, sometimes, a good interview subject but it also makes me a very easy target.

— Russell Crowe

I think my reputation is something that I'll probably try to spend the rest of my life living it down and it probably won't work.

— Russell Crowe

He was screaming at me at the time. He was calling me all manner of things and the all the other cast — or the three principal guys that I worked with, or that I shared a dressing with, were holding my arms. So that's all I had left to hit him with. And he fucking deserved it.

— Russell Crowe

I have a temper. My mum's got a temper. My brother's got a temper. You've got to have one. You know what happens if you don't have one? One day you're walking down the street and you just pop. You're lying there dead on the pavement because you've been holding and suppressing all this bullshit, you know.

— Russell Crowe

I live a real life, man. It's complex. Some days are absolute diamonds and some days are dog shit, same as everybody else. Unfortunately, some days that are diamonds I've taken them and turned them into doing shit. But you live and you learn. I'm 42. I'll get wiser.

— Russell Crowe

South Sydney is a very complicated and wonderful place. You have some of the most expensive bits of real estate in the country and a large percentage of government housing.

— Russell Crowe

I'm sick to death of famous people standing up and using their celebrity to promote a cause. If I see a particular need, I do try to help. But there's a lot that can be achieved by putting a check in the right place and shutting up about it.

— Russell Crowe

There's an ease that I have living in Australia. The best things about Sydney are free: the sunshine's free, and the harbour's free, and the beach is free.

— Russell Crowe

My days, if they start in the morning with a cuddle from my son, are just so much more glorious than they were prior to that.

— Russell Crowe