Russell Crowe found fame by portraying the role of Maximus Decimus Meridius in Ridley Scott’s 2000 iconic masterpiece Gladiator. Following the success, the actor appeared in many iconic movies over the years.
Working alongside Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill, Russell Crowe portrayed the role of Jor-El in the 2013 DCEU movie Man of Steel. Defending the movie from critics, Crowe didn’t feel that the movie was too dark instead, the actor revealed that Man of Steel was more about “having more hope”.
When Russell Crowe Defended Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel
It was in 2013 when the world talked about how Zack Snyder had a little change of heart at the end of Man of Steel when Superman killed General Zod. Although the superhero is an all-good person in the comics, Snyder decided to change the ending to reflect our society better.
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With the movie being deemed as “too dark” for a Superman movie, Russell Crowe had no choice but to defend the film in which he starred as Jor-El. An old interview of the actor was recently shared on X (formerly Twitter) about how he thought that Man of Steel wasn’t dark at all and instead, the movie was about having more hope!
“I don’t see this as darker, you know. I see…I understand that, you know, the Batman franchise was definetly much darker than any Batman that’s ever been but I actually see this [Man of Steel] as having a more hope and more essential truth to it”
Well, Crowe owes his career breakthrough to Ridley Scott but the actor does have skills of his own. The actor even passed a screen test by the veteran director which made Scott say that he and Crowe are going to be great together.
Russell Crowe Passed Ridley Scott’s Test
Back in 2000, Crowe was selected for the lead role of Scott’s magnum opus Gladiator. Portraying the role of Maximus Meridius, the film was essentially a career breakthrough for the actor. In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Russell Crowe talked about how Ridley Scott initially took a test.
“He just comes up to me and goes, ‘I’m just gonna shoot you contemplating, I want you to look over you to your right and I want you to see a small bird in the tree. Perhaps, it makes you smile, the bird takes off and I want you to watch its flight, and its flight brings you back to the battlefield, and what’s actually in front of you,'”
He further continued,
“And he goes, ‘Action!’ So I do that and I am pretty sure I did every single thing he asked, and I put little strokes of color on certain things and then I brought the attention back to the battlefield and he just came up to me [and said], ‘You and me are gonna be f**king great together mate.’”
And as they say, the rest is history. Russell Crowe won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Gladiator and Ridley Scott earned the nomination and fame for being an iconic director. Gladiator is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
