Russell Crowe’s Rant About Female Movie Stars

Unlike actors like Mickey Rourke and Sylvester Stallone, Russell Crowe is a realistic fellow that embraces his age and ability.

At the age of 50, he’s well aware that probably couldn’t repeat the same performance as he had in “Gladiator,” but would rather settle for roles like Jor-El in “Man of Steel” or Noah in the Biblical epic.

However, he also recognizes when other 40+ Hollywood actors, especially female ones, are complaining about the lack of roles for them.

Be Yourself? Not Quite

In an interview with Australia’s Women’s Weekly, said Crowe: “To be honest, I think you’ll find that the woman who is saying that the roles have dried up is the woman who at 40, 45, 48, who still wants to play the ingénue, and can’t understand why she’s not being cast as the 21-year-old.”

“Meryl Streep will give you 10,000 examples and arguments as to why that’s bull****, so will Helen Mirren, or whoever it happens to be. If you are willing to live in your own skin, you can work as an actor. If you are trying to pretend that you’re still the young buck when you’re my age, it just doesn’t work.”

We hear you, Russell, but we can’t completely agree. Unfortunately, the Australian actor forgot the fact that today’s movie industry is a male-dominated one. It’s nice to see that he realizes that he shouldn’t aim for roles better suited for younger actors, but in our opinion, we think he could handle it.

Moving On…

Even though he has a point, we still believe he wasn’t really paying attention to the Hollywood gender inequality debate. Besides the constant pressure of looking way younger than they actually are, actresses are faced with an overwhelming majority of male actors.

Bottom line, Russell Crowe is known as “the grumpy legend” for a reason. He says something like this, and then he makes another awesome movie.

Here’s hoping the Hollywood gender inequality gets resolved soon, and that Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren can forgive their colleague for not thinking before commenting.