Crowe's other films include L.A. Confidential (1997), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) Cinderella Man (2005), American Gangster (2007), 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and Robin Hood (2010). Crowe's work has earned him several accolades, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Academy Award nominations in a row (1999–2001), one Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, one BAFTA and an Academy Award. Due to his success and character variety, some critics who have called him a "virtuoso" actor. He is also co-owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, an Australian National Rugby League team. Crowe's upcoming projects include Les Misérables, an adaption of the popular musical in which he will portray Javert, Man of Steel where he will play Jor-El, the father of Superman, and Noah where he will play the titular biblical patriarch.
Early life
Crowe was born on 7 April 1964 in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Jocelyn Yvonne (née Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were movie set caterers; his father also managed a hotel. Crowe's maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who was named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's maternal great-great-grandmother was Māori, and his paternal grandfather was from Wrexham, Wales; Crowe also has Scottish, Norwegian, English, and German ancestry. His cousins, Martin and Jeff Crowe, are former New Zealand cricket captains.When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, where his parents pursued a career in film set catering. The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age five or six was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson (in 1994 Thompson played Crowe's father in The Sum of Us). Crowe also appeared briefly in serial The Young Doctors.
He was educated at the Sydney Boys High School. When he was fourteen, Crowe's family moved back to New Zealand, where he (along with his brother Terry) attended Auckland Grammar School with cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He then continued his secondary education at Mount Roskill Grammar School, which he left at the age sixteen to pursue his ambitions and childhood dreams of becoming a successful actor.
Career
Australia
Crowe began his performing career as a musician in the mid-1980s, under guidance from his good friend Tom Sharplin, when he performed as a rock 'n roll revivalist, under the stage name Russ Le Roq. He had a New Zealand single with I Just Want To Be Like Marlon Brando. He managed an Auckland music venue called "The Venue" in the mid '80s.Crowe returned to Australia at age 21, intending to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. "I was working in a theatre show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA," Crowe has recalled. "I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, 'You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits.'" From 1986 to 1988, he was given his first professional role by director Daniel Abineri, in a production of The Rocky Horror Show. He played the role of Eddie/Dr Scott. He repeated this performance in a further Australian production of the show. In 1987, Crowe spent six months busking when he could not find other work. In the 1988 Australian production of Blood Brothers, Crowe played the role of Mickey. He was also cast again by Daniel Abineri in the role of Johnny, in the stage musical Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom in 1989.
After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protégé of Ogilvie, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990) (aka Prisoners of the Sun), which was released a month earlier than The Crossing, although actually filmed later. In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second series of Police Rescue. Also in 1992, Crowe starred in Romper Stomper, an Australian film which followed the exploits and downfall of a racist skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by Geoffrey Wright. For the role, Crowe won an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award for Best Actor, following up from his Best Supporting Actor award for Proof in 1991.
United States
After initial success in Australia, Crowe began acting in American films. He co-starred with Denzel Washington in Virtuosity and with Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead in 1995. He went on to become a three-time Oscar nominee, winning the Academy Award as Best Actor in 2001 for Gladiator. Crowe was awarded the (Australian) Centenary Medal in 2001 for "service to Australian society and Australian film production."
All three films were also nominated for best picture, and both Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind won the award. Within the six year stretch from 1997–2003, he also starred in two other best picture nominees, L.A. Confidential and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In 2005, he re-teamed with A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard for Cinderella Man. In 2006 he re-teamed with Gladiator director Ridley Scott for A Good Year, the first of two consecutive collaborations (the second being American Gangster co-starring again with Denzel Washington, released in late 2007). While the light romantic comedy of A Good Year was not greatly received, Crowe seemed pleased with the film, telling STV in an interview that he thought it would be enjoyed by fans of his other films.
In recent years, Crowe's box office standing has declined. The Hollywood stock market (HSX) share Russell Crowe (RCROW), issued in 1997, however maintains constant accretion. Crowe appeared in Robin Hood, a film based on the Robin Hood legend, directed by Ridley Scott and released on 14 May 2010.
Crowe starred in the 2010 Paul Haggis film The Next Three Days, an adaptation of the 2008 French film Pour Elle.
Crowe will be taking on the role of Inspector Javert in the musical film of Les Misérables.
It was announced that Crowe will be the lead in the Darren Arnofsky film Noah, set to release in March of 2014. He is also set to portray Superman's biological father Jor-El in the Christopher Nolan-produced Superman reboot, Man of Steel, set to be released in the summer of 2013.
Personal life
From his youth to the present, Crowe has had a special love of horses. "They're just like people," he told CraveOnline, "there are some horses that you have a deeper connection with immediately, and you can work on that over time." He has also noted that he sometimes finds it difficult to part with his equine co-stars when a film wraps.Most of the year, Crowe resides in Australia. He has an apartment in Sydney at the end of the Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo and a 320 ha (791 acres) rural property in Nana Glen near Coffs Harbour. In 2011 the family moved to a house with a garden in Sydney´s Rose Bay. The Nana Glen property, a cattle farm (700 Black Angus), includes a chapel that Crowe built for his wedding to Spencer.
Crowe stated in November 2007 that he would like to be baptised a Christian, and feels that he has put it off for too long. "I do believe there are more important things than what is in the mind of a man," he says. "There is something much bigger that drives us all. I'm willing to take that leap of faith."
In June 2010, Crowe, who had started smoking when he was only 10, announced he had quit for the sake of his two sons. On 10 November 2010, Crowe told David Letterman that he had been smoking more than 60 cigarettes a day for 36 years of his life, and that he had fallen off the wagon the previous night and smoked heavily. By April 2011, it was officially confirmed that Crowe's attempt to quit smoking was unsuccessful. He has continually been photographed smoking in 2012.
In preparation for several film roles in 2012, from June to November 2011 Crowe underwent a gluten-free and non-alcoholic diet and fitness programme that consisted of walking, mountain biking and workout in the gym. During this period he lost 24 kg (53 lb) reducing his weight from 114 kg (251 lb) to 90 kg (198 lb)
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