Top 15 Russell Crowe Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

It was probably easier for me to deal with this huge thing that was happening by having this little thing to do, which was keep the video camera going. Plus, my wife has a record, an absolute record, of something that happened to her that she was not experiencing. And I know it sounds daggy and what have you, but mate, it's a hell of a cool thing to watch. I'm not being self-defensive or whatever— I have absolutely no problem expressing myself. This thing of confusing Bud White or Maximus with who I am is ridiculous. Like it's such a big fucking deal that Russell Crowe might cry? Are you fucking kidding?

Probably the biggest difference— the thing that really took my life and changed it , and made my relationship with the press a defensive one instead of one of tolerant amusement or whatever— was Meg Ryan. And, gee whiz, I'm not going to apologize for that situation in my life. It's just there. Well, actually, that's wrong— I would apologize if there are people that were directly hurt from that situation. There was never any intention like that. Quite frankly, it was in the papers before it was a reality, you know? So we were already having to deal with the bullshit, and that possibly brought us close together, because we were both dealing with what it meant to be put in that situation.

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.

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.