The movie that scarred Russell Crowe for life: “I don’t need to see it again”
Russell Crowe has been a part of some truly epic movie moments. Everyone remembers where they were when they first heard his “I am Maximus Decimus Meridius” speech from Gladiator, one of the finest monologues in cinema history. There’s his duet with Paul Bettany from Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, his climactic final fight in Cinderella Man, and any of his hilarious interactions with Ryan Gosling in cult favourite The Nice Guys.
He’s played Roman generals, damaged geniuses, English folk heroes, and even the king of the Greek Gods, but one genre that is almost entirely absent from Crowe’s career is horror. He appeared in the 2020 movie Unhinged as a mentally unstable murderer who pursues a woman after a seemingly minor traffic incident, but that was more of a thriller than an out-and-out scare-fest. Probably the most frightening thing he’s done on camera was try and sing in Les Misérables, but we don’t need to remind ourselves of that fiasco.
Perhaps the lack of scary movies in the Oscar-winning filmography can be traced back to a traumatising incident from his childhood. In an interview with The Digital Fix, Crowe revealed that a trip to the cinema as a teenager has stayed with him ever since, partly due to the movie but also partly due to the actions of someone who worked there.
“I saw [The Exorcist] when I was 14. I don’t need to see it again. I really don’t,” he said. “I saw it in a movie theatre in Auckland, New Zealand, actually. It was on probably its fourth or fifth run. This usher in the theatre, halfway through, decided it was a funny idea to bang the roof of the theatre with a broom. The 500 of us in the theatre did not share his sense of humour in that moment.”
Any horrorhound worth their salt knows exactly what Crowe is talking about. William Friedkin’s twisted masterpiece is widely regarded as one of the scariest – if not the scariest – horror movies ever made. Regan MacNeil’s bone-chilling plight was so impactful at the time, that there are countless stories of audience members going out of their minds when watching it for the first time. Thousands, if not millions of people the same age as Crowe will likely all have stories of the mania surrounding The Exorcist. He definitely isn’t the only one who never wants to see it again.
Ironically, as much as The Exorcist left a young Crowe shaking like a leaf, it has tangentially informed a lot of his recent career. In 2023, he starred in The Pope Exorcist, a delightfully rubbish horror-thriller based on the life of Father Gabriele Amorth. The movie drew backlash from a real order of exorcists, who dismissed it as nothing more than “unreliable splatter”. Then there’s 2024’s The Exorcism, in which Crowe plays an actor starring in a fictional film that very closely resembles The Exorcist. That was also rubbish too, in case you were wondering.
Russell Crowe’s odd relationship with The Exorcist goes much deeper than that one fateful screening from his youth. It’s almost like the movie has… possessed him. Somebody cue “Tubular Bells”.
