Thor: Love and Thunder: Russell Crowe Reveals Marvel Wanted Him to Use His Gladiator Voice

While promoting his latest film, The Pope’s Exorcist, Russell Crowe has been answering questions about some of his most famous roles. Last year, Crowe made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Thor: Love and Thunder as Zeus, and he recently revealed to Vanity Fair that Marvel originally wanted him to reuse his voice from one of his most famous movies, Gladiator. Of course, Crowe won an Academy Award for playing Maximus in Gladiator, but he didn’t want to do an English accent for Zeus.

“[Taika Waititi] sort of said, ‘Listen, I’ve come up with this thing and I don’t knowif you’ll respond, but you know what, I’m thinking all the different roles you’ve done, you know, what about a Greek god?’ They are asking me to play the role with the same voice as Maximus. His voice, I used to call ‘Royal Shakespeare Company two pints after lunch.’ This faux upper-class kind of voice, you know? So I said to Taika, ‘You cannot make me do this in an English accent. I want to do this as a Greek guy.’ And everybody just was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Zeus is a Greek god, he’s no other God from any other civilization, he is a Greek god.”

Crowe continued, “They came back to me and they said, ‘We’ll only let you do that if you also agree to simultaneously shoot every scene in the accent that we think is going to work.’ It was fun and fine, but I doubled the length of every working day I had because I had to shoot every scene as a Greek guy and then turn around and shoot every scene with an English accent as well. But the studio said at the time that they would cut both things together and they would screen both, and the characterization that got the biggest response in the audience was the one they were going to go with. The Greek characterization absolutely smashed the English one, smashed it by 10 or 15 points, and true to their word, they went with what they said.”

Is Russell Crowe in Gladiator 2? 

Recently, it was announced that a Gladiator sequel is currently in the works with Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington. However, Crowe is not involved in the film. In fact, the actor recently told Collider that he’s “jealous” of the new movie’s cast. 

“I mean, look, the only thing that I really feel about it is slightly jealous, you know? Because I was a much younger man, obviously, and it was a huge experience in my life,” Crowe explained. “It’s something that changed my life, really. It changed the way people regarded me and what I do for a living, and, you know, I’ve been very lucky to be involved in lots of big movies, but the legs on that film are incredible. Here it is, it’s 2023, and we made that film in 1999. I guarantee you, somewhere around the world tonight, Gladiator is going to be showing on primetime TV. And you don’t always get that kind of longevity with every film you do, so, it obviously holds a special place in my heart.”

The Pope’s Exorcist is currently playing in theaters.