‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Star Russell Crowe Criticizes Actors Who Complain About Appearing In Super Hero Movies: “You’re Telling Me You Signed Up For A Marvel Movie And You Didn’t Get Enough Pathos?”
In the opinion of Thor: Love and Thunder actor Russell Crowe, any actor who signs up for a signs up for a super hero film expecting it to be the most artistic and fulfilling experience of their career needs to take a step back and subject themselves to a reality check.
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Crowe, whose additional cinematic comic book credits include roles as Jor-El in Man of Steel and the protagonist’s father Nikolai Kravinoff in Sony’s ill-fated Kraven: The Hunter, shared his disagreement with his peers’ growing resentment towards the capes-and-tights genre during a recent spotlight interview given to GQ.
Asked by the outlet’s Hayley Campebll for his thoughts on Madame Web star Dakota Johnson’s previous criticism that the embarrassing Spider-Man spin-off was an example of how “art does not do well when it’s made by committee“, Crowe opined, “I don’t want to make any comments to what anybody else might have said or what their experience is, but… you’re bringing out the impish quality of my humour. You’re telling me you signed up for a Marvel movie, and some f–king universe for cartoon characters… and you didn’t get enough pathos? Not quite sure how I can make this better for you.”
“It’s a gigantic machine, and they make movies at a certain size,” he asserted. “And you know, I’ve experienced that on the DC side with Man of Steel, Zack Snyder, and I’ve experienced it on the Marvel side via Disney with Thor: Love and Thunder. And I’ve also experienced the [Sony-produced] Marvel dark universe with Kraven the Hunter. These are jobs. You know: here’s your role, play the role. If you’re expecting this to be some kind of life-changing event, I just think you’re here for the wrong reasons.”
Continuing in his thoughts, Crowe then informed Campbell, “It can be challenging, working in a blue-screen world, when you have to convince yourself of a lot more than just the internal machinations of your character. But for anything to be… and you can’t make this a direct comment on her because I don’t know her and I don’t know what she went through, and the fact that you can have a s–t experience on a film… Yeah, you can. But is that the Marvel process?”
“I’m not sure you can say that,” he answered of his own question. “I haven’t had a bad experience. I mean [on Thor], OK, it’s a Marvel movie, but it’s Taika Waititi’s world, and it was just a gas every day, being silly.”
“And then, with JC Chandor on Kraven, I’m just bringing a little weight to the circumstances. so the young actors have got an actor they can bounce off, he continued. “Going to work with JC was fun. You know, so many of these directors have a certain skill level – freaking genius people. Think about what’s required, right? It’s everything: the composition, the framing, the colour, the music, what’s left outside the camera. Whether it’s [Proof director] Jocelyn Moorhouse or it’s Ridley Scott, you’re talking about hanging out with geniuses.”
Interestingly, Crowe is but the second member of Thor: Love and Thunder‘s cast to push back against Hollywood’s turn on super hero films.
Pressed by GQ‘s Zach Baron in 2022 as to why an esteemed actor such as himself would reduce himself to starring in a post-Endgame Marvel production, Gorr actor Christian Bale explained, “the impression I was getting from the way you asked it [was that] you were like, ‘Yeah, okay, what the f–k was Thor about?’ But I love those films. I love them. There’s a mood and a time for every single one, and I do have a firm belief that every single kind of film can be done brilliantly.”
For better or worse, Crowe’s next superhero-related outing, Kraven: The Hunter, is presently on track to escape from its cage on December 13th, 2024 – an updated release date given to the film apparently due to Sony’s own belief that audiences will want to see it “over and over again“.
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