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One can say that there are, generally, two kinds of actors in Hollywood: those who commit and those who over-commit. Actors who commit have a lot of passion for their project. That said, they may be unwilling to put themselves through intense body transformations or any other unrealistic demands just to play the part.
On the other hand, actors who over-commit tend to give a role everything they’ve got, the likes of which include Tom Cruise and his fellow veteran actor, Russell Crowe. Perhaps, many may not have realized that Crowe dropped 40 pounds for his role in Gladiator, the very same one that won him an Oscar for best actor. Some rumors suggest he might lose even more weight for a potential Gladiator 2. Several years later, it seems Crowe saw the need to undergo a drastic physical transformation once again. This time, it’s for his 2020 thriller Unhinged.
For one thing, drastic weight gain can be quite dangerous for actors, and no one should need to feel the need to put themselves in danger for a movie role. Some people will also point out that there are very few good roles written for fat actors in Hollywood, and so it is upsetting to see what few fat characters there are being played by thin actors (or actors who are thin most of the time). Finally, some people will even tell you that stories like this can come across as sexist, because while women in Hollywood are often pressured to lose weight for roles, men like Russell Crowe receive praise for doing the opposite.
Updated on November 28, 2022: The film Unhinged released in August 2020, and despite his commitment to the role, received mediocre ratings across the board. Crowe quickly moved on, however, putting his focus back onto his health and the next steps of his career. This year alone, he starred in four films (one of which came from the MCU) with another two projects coming out before the end of the year. Russell also has three productions set to release next year, and another three that are still in the works.
Initially, Russell Crowe Had Decided To Say ‘No’ To Unhinged
As an actor of his caliber, Crowe has relatively more leeway when it comes to choosing his next projects than many other actors. And when he was first approached about Unhinged, the Oscar winner agreed to a meeting with director Derrick Borte, although he intended to turn the film down. “When I first read it – and this is becoming a more and more regular thing for me – I didn’t see what I could do with it,” Crowe recalled while speaking with The Sydney Morning Herald. But then he discussed the script with a friend, and he came to a realization.
He was hesitant to do the film because it deals with an extreme case of road rage, which is frighteningly possible. That’s when Crowe knew this was a subject he could explore. “It just started to become something that I felt compelled to do, to flip the intellectual process aside and understand the importance of this subject,” the Oscar winner told USA Today. “Where is this rage in society coming from? What do we do to unpack what we’ve built with that?”
From then on, Crowe became interested in portraying his character in a grounded way as much as possible. “I think with Russell, it was always just about how to ground it and how to base it in some kind of reality and keep it authentic and that was an ongoing conversation for the entire run of the shoot,” Borte explained during an interview with ComingSoon. “Breaking down every one of [Crowe’s] actions to try to make sure they were motivated, make sure they came from this real place that we kind of created with the backstory for this guy.”
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And while it was easy for Crowe to grasp the story of the film, transforming into the role of an unnamed man who starts killing people after a road rage incident was a different challenge altogether.
What Did Russell Crowe Have To Do For His Unhinged Role?
From the beginning, the role proved to be quite a challenge for Crowe, especially when he knew there was nothing relatable about the character. “The difficulty in a character like this is his singular purpose. There’s no way you can justify his actions,” the actor explained. “You can’t use humanity to soften who he is because that would be cheap.” At the end of the day, he said that his character had “stepped into a fight that completely lacks humanity and empathy, and he is just going to destroy until he is destroyed.”
For him, the challenge was not just to portray a man that had unraveled and become a psychopath. He also had to physically transform himself into someone who looked like he hadn’t bothered with staying healthy for several years. To do this, Crowe readily put on weight, something that he had done when he was cast in Ridley’s Scott’s Body of Lies. Back then, the weight gain scared him. “When I see my gut hanging between my legs, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he told USA Today in a previous interview. “I’m not sure I’d do that again.” It turns out, Crowe was willing to go through this process at least one more time.
Despite The Intensity Of The Role, Working On Unhinged Was Fun For Russell Crowe
The film may have been about road rage and Crowe’s character being determined to kill a mother, her child, and everyone she holds dear. Nonetheless, the vibe among the cast and crew was surprisingly laid back behind the scenes. Crowe even said he had quite a good time.
“Now you see this film and it’s fraught with tension on screen. But the actual vibe on the set was completely different,” Crowe explained during an interview with Fox News. “We were shooting in New Orleans in the summertime. The sun is out. You have eight miles of freeway locked off. And as you can see, Derrik is a pretty cool customer.” When they weren’t filming any scenes, Crowe also revealed, “I actually spend most of my time making jokes and making people laugh. That sort of, to me, is an energy builder.”
Today, Crowe is attached to a series of film projects. Fans were eager to see him make his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in Thor: Love and Thunder when it hit theaters in July earlier this year.
