From one Oscar to two exorcisms: inside Russell Crowe’s new era
It’s been roughly a decade since Russell Crowe could justifiably be called a mainstream concern, with two of his most recent movies standing out as being entirely illustrative of the new era the Academy Award-winning actor currently finds himself in.
In April 2023, Crowe played the title character in The Pope’s Exorcist, a distinctly B-tier supernatural horror where the Vatican-employed man of the cloth battles demons. In June 2024, he plays the lead character in The Exorcist, a distinctly non-papal supernatural horror that nonetheless finds him as an actor playing a priest in a supernatural horror film who begins to think the fictional demons he’s dealing with might be real.
Technically, the latter happened first, and the fact it wrapped shooting in December 2019 hints that there’s a high chance it’ll be shit. Still, why on earth would Crowe decide that he wanted to make two horror flicks in quick succession that revolve around almost the exact same thing? Presumably, because all he wants out of this stage of his career is to have fun, which he seems to be achieving.
Even though he earned three consecutive ‘Best Actor’ nominations at the Oscars for The Insider, Gladiator, and A Beautiful Mind, Crowe always gave off the impression that his talents were never really suited for being a Hollywood leading man. His gruff, grizzled, and powerful performances made him a superstar, but the majority of subsequent attempts to make him the focal point of a major motion picture fell flat.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World didn’t fare well enough to merit a sequel, reuniting with Scott on Robin Hood was a bust, The Next Three Days was eminently forgettable, and The Nice Guys tragically flopped, leaving Darren Aronofsky’s 2014 biblical epic Noah as the last time Crowe headlined a box office hit.
Much like Brad Pitt but a little rougher around the edges, Crowe comes across as someone intended to be a character actor and supporting player who ended up being stuffed into a leading man box. He was great as the straight man to Denzel Washington’s charismatic tour-de-force in American Gangster and carried a glint in his eye as the erstwhile villain of James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma, but he finally seems to have hit stride after embracing the art of hamming it up.
He aimed for the cheap seats with his ridiculous and divisive turn as Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, donned a fat suit to devour the scenery whole with a gleefully apt performance in Unhinged, and took on ‘guy in the chair duties’ with expositional aplomb in Land of Bad. In addition, he is set to assume fatherly duties in what’s sure to be a superheroic dumpster fire in Kraven the Hunter, and there’s realistically only one of two ways his upcoming outing as Hermann Göring is going to go in James Vanderbilt’s historical drama Nuremberg.
There’s a lot to be said for any performer who realises their days at the top of the tree are numbered and decides the best course of action is to start doing whatever the hell they want instead of chasing the most prestigious roles and highest-profile projects, with his dual-pronged assault on on-screen exorcisms hinting that Crowe is happy to make a new bed as a B-tier journeyman.
No actor in the industry is going to sign on for The Exorcism and The Pope’s Exorcist almost back-to-back without having at least a decent degree of self-awareness. With his A-list days at an end, Crowe has embraced the notion that keeping himself occupied and entertained is now his foremost concern.
