RUSSELL IRA CROWE: THE ZEALANDER WATER DIVINER

Russell Crowe

Today is the last day in New Zealand. Tonyi Tamaki has been the best guide in the country and now she's going to join to the rest of the group in their flight back to Europe. Everyone has a special moment to be remembered but they have enjoyed every day they have been in this wonderful place.

Now, they are in Auckland's Airport waiting the departure of their flight to Dubai where they are going to take another flight to Barcelona. It's a long 25 hours-flight and every member of the group is trying to have enough leisure to not spend all the flight sleeping.

The Grandma has chosen two activities for the flight. She's going to study a new lesson of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Grammar 32), and she's going to read the biography of Russell Crowe, the most famous Kiwi actor, most known since he played the role of Gladiator and won an Academy Award for it.

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Russell Ira Crowe (born 7 April 1964) is an actor, film producer and musician. Although a New Zealand citizen, he has lived most of his life in Australia. He came to international attention for his role as the Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which Crowe won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, an Empire Award for Best Actor and a London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.

Russell Crowe in Gladiator

Crowe appeared as the tobacco firm whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand in the 1999 film The Insider, for which he received five awards as best actor and seven nominations in the same category.

In 2001, Crowe's portrayal of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John F. Nash in the biopic A Beautiful Mind brought him numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.

Crowe's other films include Romper Stomper (1992), L.A. Confidential (1997), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Cinderella Man (2005), American Gangster (2007), State of Play (2009), Robin Hood (2010), Les Misérables (2012), Man of Steel (2013) and Noah (2014).

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In 2015, Crowe made his directorial debut with The Water Diviner, in which he also starred. Crowe's work has earned him several accolades during his career and including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three consecutive Academy Award nominations (1999–2001), one Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, one BAFTA, and an Academy Award.

Crowe has also been the co-owner of the National Rugby League (NRL) team South Sydney Rabbitohs since 2006.

Crowe was born on 7 April 1964 in Strathmore Park, Wellington. Son of Jocelyn Yvonne and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were film set caterers; his father also managed a hotel. Crowe's maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who was named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's paternal grandfather, John Doubleday Crowe, was from Wrexham, Wales, and one of Crowe's maternal great-great-grandmothers was Māori.

Russell Crowe in The Water Divine

Crowe also has English, German, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Scottish, Swedish, and Welsh ancestry.

He is a cousin of former New Zealand cricket captains Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe, and nephew of cricketer Dave Crowe. Russell has built a cricket field named for his uncle. When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Sydney, Australia, where his parents pursued a career in set catering.The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson. Crowe also appeared briefly in the serial The Young Doctors. 

Crowe was educated at Vaucluse Public School but later moved to Sydney Boys High School. When he was 14, his family moved back to New Zealand where, along with his brother Terry, he attended Auckland Grammar School with cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He then continued his secondary education at Mount Roskill Grammar School, which he left at the age 16 to pursue his ambition of becoming an actor.

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Crowe began his performing career as a musician in the early 1980s, under guidance from his good friend Tom Sharplin, when he performed under the stage name Russ Le Roq. He released several New Zealand singles including I Just Want To Be Like Marlon Brando, Pier 13, Shattered Glass, none of which charted. He managed an Auckland music venue called The Venue in 1984. When he was 18, he was featured in A Very Special Person..., a promotional video for the theology/ministry course at Avondale College, a Seventh-day Adventist tertiary education provider in New South Wales.

Crowe returned to Australia to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. I was working in a theatre show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA, Crowe has recalled. I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits. 

Russell Crowe in Master and Commander

From 1986 to 1988, he was given his first professional role by director Daniel Abineri, in a New Zealand production of The Rocky Horror Show. He played the role of Eddie/Dr Scott. He repeated this performance in a further Australian production of the show, which also toured New Zealand.

In 1987, Crowe spent six months busking when he could not find other work. In the 1988 Australian production of Blood Brothers, Crowe played the role of Mickey. He was also cast again by Daniel Abineri in the role of Johnny, in the stage musical Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom in 1989. 

After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast by Faith Martin in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protégé of Ogilvie, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990), which was released a month earlier than The Crossing, although actually filmed later.

In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second series of Police Rescue. Also in 1992, Crowe starred in Romper Stomper, an Australian film which followed the exploits and downfall of a racist skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by Geoffrey Wright and co-starring Jacqueline McKenzie. For the role, Crowe won an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award for Best Actor, following up from his Best Supporting Actor award for Proof in 1991.

In 2015 it was reported that Crowe had applied for Australian citizenship in 2006 and again in 2013 but was rejected because he failed to fulfill the residency requirements. However, Australia's Immigration Department said it had no record of any such application by Crowe. 

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Crowe says he follows New Zealand's rugby union team, the All Blacks, and Australia in any other sport. Two of his cousins, Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe, captained the Black Caps New Zealand international cricket team.

Crowe watches and plays cricket, and captained the Australian Team containing Steve Waugh against an English side in the Hollywood Ashes Cricket Match. On 17 July 2009 Crowe took to the commentary box for the British sports channel, Sky Sports, as the third man during the second Test of the 2009 Ashes series, between England and Australia.

Crowe & Sam Burgess, South Sydney Rabbitohs

He is friends with Lloyd Carr, the former coach of the University of Michigan Wolverines American football team, and Carr used Crowe's movie Cinderella Man to motivate his 2006 team following a 7–5 season the previous year. Upon hearing of this, Crowe called Carr and invited him to Australia to address his Rugby league team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, which Carr did the following summer. In September 2007, after Carr came under fire following the Wolverines' 0–2 start, Crowe travelled to Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Wolverines' 15 September game against Notre Dame to show his support for Carr. He addressed the team before the game and watched from the sidelines as the Wolverines defeated the Irish 38–0.

Crowe is a fan of the National Football League. On 22 October 2007, Crowe appeared in the booth of a Monday night game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Crowe is also a soccer fan supporting Futbol Club Barcelona and Futbol Club Internazionale Milano. 

Crowe has appeared in 43 films and three television series since his career began in 1985. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Gladiator (2000) and was nominated twice more for The Insider (1999) and A Beautiful Mind (2001), making him the ninth actor to receive three consecutive Academy Award nominations. He has also received five Golden Globe Award nominations (winning one), three BAFTA Award nominations (winning one), and three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations (winning one).

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When I read The Water Diviner, I was having the same kind of visceral reaction that I would normally have acting in something.

I believed that I was the only person that could tell this story

the way it needed to be told. That's the real arrogance of a director!

Russell Crowe