Feisty Gladiator comes out fighting

Russell Crowe: 'I am in that period now but I will take Ridley Scott [85] as my role model. He is still discovering new things in his work' Photo: Richard Mowe

What happens to a mega-star when he morphs into his later years? Russell Crowe who earned an Oscar for playing Maximus in Gladiator and critical acclaim for such films as A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Mann, seems sanguine at the prospect.

When I asked him how he felt about his impending 60th milestone birthday next year during a media encounter at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, he retorted with feeling that when he faces the mirror of a morning he has been heard to exclaim: “Who the fuck is that?”

He continued: “I am in that period now but I will take Ridley Scott [85] as my role model. He is still discovering new things in his work. Or I will just stop and you will never hear from me again. I haven’t decided what it’s going to be. These are two very valid choices.”

It was Scott (with whom he has worked five times, who killed him off at the end of Gladiator never to rise again during his climactic duel in the Colosseum against Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix).

Russell Crowe in Karlovy Vary 2 Photo: Richard Mowe

Annoyingly he still gets questioned about Gladiator 2, currently in production. “They should be paying me for the amount of questions I am asked about a film I am not even in. It has nothing to do with me. I am dead - six feet under. But I do admit to a certain tinge of jealousy because it reminds me of when I was younger [he was 36 when the film was released] and what it meant for me in my life.

“But, listen, I don’t know anything about the cast, I don’t anything about the plot. I am dead. I do know that if Ridley has decided to do a second part of the story, more than 20 years down the line, he must have had very strong reasons. I can’t think of this movie being anything other than spectacular.”

He said he had been in Malta recently with his band, and seeing the Gladiator 2 Colosseum set, built exactly as it had been 25 years previously for the first film. “It was a time-warp for a couple of seconds,” said Crowe a tad ruefully.

Crowe will be seen shortly in Kraven The Hunter, playing Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s father, forcing his off-spring to become a killing machine.

Russell Crowe in Kraven The Hunter Photo: Sony Pictures

He has two other films in the offing - The Georgetown Project (written by MA Fortin and directed by Joshua John Miller) which follows Crowe as a troubled actor, who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film and also Nuremberg in which he plays Hermann Göring.

Earlier in the day he introduced introduced a special screening of Peter Weir’s Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World.

He revealed: “Peter slowed down the release. We finished production before Pirates Of The Caribbean had started, but it got out before we did. Once people had a big laugh, it was difficult to get the general audience to take seriously whatever we were doing.”

His trip to the Czech Republic was touched with a certain regret because it marked the end of a tour with his band Indoor Garden Party. After last night’s opening concert he had members of the group wailing on his shoulder for another chance to work together.

The bonhomie will live on, however, in the film Last Breath for which he has been shooting material since 2011. Crowe who has performed in bands since the early 1980s, added: “It’s about my connection to music, which began at the same age as when I first started acting. I use the same energy source, whether I’m writing a song or creating a character.”

The film, currently in production, follows Crowe and the band on their 23-date tour in Europe, as well as previous shows in the US, UK and Australia.