Russell Crowe has joined the long list of celebrities who have participated in “Answer your questions”the magazine section GQ where celebrities answer questions sent by their fans. Among these questions, users have brought to light the time that the actor Gladiator decided to reject his participation in one of the most famous film sagas in history. “Do I regret having rejected The Lord of the rings?”Crowe reads into the camera before responding: “Absolutely”.
In the early 2000s, Crowe had his hands on the opportunity to play Aragorn, the Heir of Isildur whom he finally gave life to Viggo Mortensen. Although it may be hard to believe, he opposed participating in a saga that, over the years, would win 17 Oscars. The actor has clarified that he does not feel any remorse for this and that he has a good reason for not having gone ahead with the adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s works: “As a child he was a big reader of Tolkien, so I was excited by the idea of The Lord of the ringsbut it seemed to me that it was the studio that made the decision, not the director“.
I spoke to Peter Jackson on the phone and he didn’t tell me the kind of things directors would tell you if they were really trying to attract you to a project. He gave me the feeling that he already had something else on his mind and the fact that I took a step forward was going to get in his way.
That phone call made Crowe reconsider whether he was really excited to be part of the project. “The thing is, we come from the same place. So if there’s a nuance to that conversation that other people might not hear. We are both New Zealanders.. And I knew his way, without him saying anything negative, that he had another plan. So I left it like that,” he explains to GQ.
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This decision did not represent an absolute disaster for his career, quite the opposite. The Fellowship of the Ring was filmed at the same time Gladiatorthe historical fiction with which Crowe managed to win an Oscar Award in the category of Best Supporting Actor in 2001. We will never know if he would have achieved the same if he had decided to be King of Gondor alongside Peter Jackson.
