Russell Crowe he is one of the biggest movie stars of his generation. But while he’s always pursued roles in a wide range of genres, the actor is still bothered by what he sees as the Australian film industry’s attempts to pigeonhole him, something that started early in his career.

Appearing on the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast to promote his role in ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ Crowe recalled his early successes in Australia and the frustration he felt after only being offered action roles.

“I got to a point where I’d only had seven lead roles and I’d won some of them, let’s say, Australian Oscars,” Crowe said. “And a script came along that gave me the opportunity to work with an actress I really wanted to work with, so I did. But then the next script arrived, and it was like a mirror image of the previous one. So I was looking at that, and I was looking at the careers of other Australian actors. And once I realized that even after seven roles, from the perspective of the Australian industry, I was already at the place where they were happy and comfortable with what I had done, I thought, “They’re going to give me another role so that I can be the guy riding the horse”.

He continued: “At the time I was only in my 20s. I wasn’t ready to start repeating myself. So, the only option left before me was to make films in other places,” he said.

Shortly after this realization, Crowe made a trip to the 1991 Cannes Film Festival to promote his role in Proof. The actor said the enthusiastic response he received from Americans made him believe he could take on different roles if he moved to Hollywood.

“I just got the vibe in Cannes that so many Americans, people in the industry, were coming up to me and talking to me not about one role, but about a lot of things they’d seen me in. I just thought, “Maybe I should go there.” Because at the time in the 1990s, it just wasn’t a thing. You didn’t just go to Los Angeles and create something.”