'Gladiator' star Russell Crowe reveals the price he paid for successful career

Oscar-winner Russell Crowe is reflecting on the injuries he suffered throughout his long standing career in Hollywood.

In a recent interview, Crowe was asked what its like to see his clean shaven face for the first time since 2019.

He replied: “Have you ever seen one of those documentaries where James Cameron takes a camera down to the Mariana Trench, and you see these really weird-looking fish? It was kind of like that. Took a number of days for my puckered skin to fucking come back to looking human.”

Crowe also reflected on his multiple injuries as he looks forward to turning 60.

He shared with GQ: “I’ve got no cartilage in my big toes because the sports that I played were all lateral movement sports – tennis, rugby and cricket, where you’re sprinting from a cold start – on top of the fight sequences, where sometimes you’ve got to make a very extreme sudden move to save yourself in a situation where something’s gone wrong.”

The Gladiator star mentioned that he has fasciitis, shin splints, bone-marrow edemas under both knees and has several issues with his back.

“I’ve got ribs that just pop off the spine if I put them under too much pressure,” he shared.

“I’ve had two operations on my left shoulder, but now that shoulder is so full of arthritis that for me to get back to a place of comfort, they’ve basically gotta cut in, take the whole humeral head out, they’ve gotta chop it in half, stick carbon fiber in there and sew it back up, and there’s a recovery period of 11 months,” he added.

Russell Crowe will next be seen as the Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring in the upcoming film Nuremberg.