The Gladiator star appears to have given up on an Oscar by taking on a series of low-calorie action roles that might once have been offered to the internet’s favourite OTT actor
If there was ever an actor who found himself tripped up by success, it’s Russell Crowe. The wild commercial and critical acclaim Crowe received for Gladiator 22 years ago threw him down a hole that at times seemed inescapable. For years, he found himself chasing Oscars in a series of dismal, middlebrow thrillers that existed for the pleasure of nobody at all. Nobody remembers State of Play fondly. Or Body of Lies or The Next Three Days. Or Proof of Life, for that matter.
And yet, look at him now. It has just been reported that Crowe has signed up to play the lead in Julius Avery’s new film The Pope’s Exorcist, about the man who does exorcisms for the pope. The film is going to be based on a real-life person, Father Gabriele Amorth, an Italian priest who died in 2016. But on the other hand, that real-life person did spend his life doing 160,000 exorcisms, and once wrote a book called The Devil is Afraid of Me, which makes the new film sound like a load of pulpy, silly fun. It’s an early call, but it’s hard to imagine The Pope’s Exorcist ever winning an Oscar.
