Crowe Fails To Make Up For His Sexist Comments

Oh, Russell Crowe: if you don't have anything smart to say, don't say anything at all. If you've forgotten his moment of word vomit in January, Crowe said that women in Hollywood should be "age-appropriate," and actresses over 40 years old shouldn't be trying to play roles that are younger than their age. In an interview with The Guardian (in which Crowe also talked about Michael Jackson prank-calling him, but that's a story for a different time), Crowe tried to clarify his comments and just ended up looking even more like a goon. He mansplained that he only meant that as women get older, "the types of roles you play change." What a stunning use of the "I'm sorry you misinterpreted me" non-apology.

Crowe's original comment came in an interview with Australian Women's Weekly, and he had this helpful advice from a Man's Perspective for actresses: "To be honest, I think you’ll find that the woman who is saying that [the roles have dried up] is the woman who at 40, 45, 48, still wants to play the ingénue, and can’t understand why she’s not being cast as the 21-year-old,” he said. Then, in the IRL version of a subtweet, he condescended to some Unnamed Actress:

I have heard of an actress, part of her fee negotiation was getting the number of children she was supposed to have lessened. Can you believe this? This [character] was a woman with four children, and there were reasons why she had to have four children -- mainly, she lived in a cold climate and there was nothing to do but fornicate all day -- so quit arguing, just play the role!

So basically, all older women in Hollywood must not have any demands or creative control over their roles because they should take what they can get before they shrivel up and die. Of course.

When speaking with The Guardian, Crowe again tried to draw a flimsy parallel between women acting "age-appropriate" and male actors having to do the same. His favorite example to use is always himself as Gladiator, saying that now, at age 50, he could in no way play that role again. And then he really dug himself deeper into a hole:

The thing that people are talking about in terms of ageism or sexism or whatever, that's prevalent everywhere and it's male and female. I'm just saying: be comfortable in your own skin. Sure, you know, if you're lucky enough you get to be the ingenue, but then at a certain point, you're the dowager. But enjoy playing that role, too.

Hey Russ: I'm just saying, but you don't understand anything. It's laughable that Crowe is trying to assert that ageism and sexism, in Hollywood and in general, are equally applied to men and women. Why are celebrities so bad at apologies? As Bustle's Mary Grace Garis pointed out when Crowe made his original comments, Crowe is himself guilty of taking roles that are much younger than he is — including one of his most famous roles as John Forbes Nash, Jr. in A Beautiful Mind. His character would have been around 20: Crowe was 37 during the shooting of the film. But, hey, he wasn't 40, so he could still play the ingénue right?

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