Russell Crowe

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Movies listed: 51

Born: Unknown

Awards

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role2002 · BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama2002 · Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Academy Award for Best Actor2001 · 73rd Academy Awards · Gladiator
Centenary Medal2001 · Centenary Medal
Australian National Living TreasureAustralian National Living Treasure
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading RoleScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Biography

Russell Crowe is a New Zealand-born actor and filmmaker whose career has been strongly associated with Australian cinema, international historical drama and intense leading performances. Born Russell Ira Crowe in Wellington in 1964, he moved with his family to Australia as a child and grew up around film and television production. He began acting young, worked in Australian television and music, and became one of the major screen actors to emerge from the Australasian industry into Hollywood during the 1990s.

Crowe first drew substantial attention in Australian films, including The Crossing, Proof and Romper Stomper. Romper Stomper, in which he played a violent neo-Nazi, was especially important in establishing his capacity for physically forceful and psychologically volatile roles. He then built international momentum with films such as The Sum of Us, Virtuosity, L.A. Confidential and The Insider. Michael Mann's The Insider, in which Crowe played tobacco-industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, brought him his first Academy Award nomination and showed that his intensity could be used for internal pressure rather than only outward aggression.

His defining global breakthrough came with Ridley Scott's Gladiator. As Maximus Decimus Meridius, a betrayed Roman general forced into the arena, Crowe became the emotional center of a large-scale epic that revived popular interest in the sword-and-sandal film. The performance won him the Academy Award for Best Actor and made him one of the most bankable dramatic leads of the early 2000s. He followed it with A Beautiful Mind, portraying mathematician John Nash in Ron Howard's biographical drama, and earned another Academy Award nomination.