A scene in the movie 'The Pope's Exorcist' starring Russell Crowe as Father Gabriele Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican. Handout
Russell Crowe has never starred in a horror movie until he was cast as the titular character in Colombia Pictures’ film “The Pope’s Exorcist.”
Saying it’s a genre that he’s never really touched at all, Crowe shared that scary movies actually put him off his sleep.
“I’m incredibly superstitious. Moving in circles like this where you’re examining situations that the characters face… It’s not necessarily a comfortable place for me,” he said in a statement.
“Certainly, there were a lot of unusual things happening around us, but you keep your balance and see them as coincidence, otherwise you’re going to drive yourself a little bit insane,” Crowe added.
Fortunately, he had a lot of his plate throughout filming “The Pope’s Exorcist.”
In order to understand his character and what made him tick, Crowe dove into research, amassing all the material he could about the late Father Gabriele Amorth, the real-life Pope’s exorcist who was able to chronicle his stories in the best-selling memoirs on which the film is based.
“The Pope’s Exorcist” follows Amorth as he investigates a young boy’s terrifying possession and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden.
The Academy Award-winning actor travelled to Rome, where he spent a week meeting people from the Vatican who knew the Pope’s exorcist.
“I have to say that the Church was very open. We were given some extreme privileges by those in charge at the Vatican,” he said.
Crowe said that Amorth’s colleagues and friends from the Vatican told him that the exorcist “never had any disagreements with anybody and always followed the line of the church,” while at the same time, the actor noted, “Father Amorth said some very controversial things in his time. He made some very strong statements, at various points in time, about his beliefs – which weren’t always 100% in line with the Church.”
“He had a certain, particular irreverent take on things that I tried to bring into the film,” Crowe said. “He’s an individual, not a cookie cutter man of the cloth. He rides a Lambretta motor scooter!”
The film, directed by Julius Avery, will hit Philippine cinemas starting April 19.