Russell Crowe feels awkward about his Oscar win for ‘Gladiator’.
The 56-year-old star claimed the Best Actor gong in 2001 for his role in Sir Ridley Scott’s historical epic, but he feels the director deserved more credit for the success of the film.
Speaking on ‘Today’ in Australia, Russell recalled: "I went to Rome and sat and watched the film and it was a humbling experience, man, because I’m watching it and so much changed in my life.
"I got so many pats on the back, and, you know, I got some big awards and all that, and obviously that sort of stepped me up to a different level for quite some time.
"But I watched that movie, and it is a director’s film. It was one of those moments of, ‘Why did I get all the attention when the Academy Award belongs to Ridley Scott?’"
Scott was nominated for the Best Director prize at that year’s ceremony, but missed out on the award to Steven Soderbergh – who landed the coveted accolade for helming ‘Traffic’.
Crowe recently revealed that he was hopeful of appearing in a sequel to ‘Gladiator’, even though his alter-ego Maximus Decimus was killed off in the 2000 blockbuster.
He said: "I keep being like this sort of party pooper when I say, I just wanted to remind you I died in the first one. So, I don’t really know. This far away, could we play with that? We could…"
Russell also confessed that the original draft for the ‘Gladiator’ script was "bad".
He shared: "The producer didn’t know I’d actually already been able to get a copy, but the thing he said is, ‘I don’t want to send you the document we have, because you won’t respond to it. But, I want to encourage you to have a meeting with Ridley Scott.’"