Russell Crowe, Drunk On Vodka, Once Bought A Dinosaur Skull From Leonardo DiCaprio
Russell Crowe might be known for some of the iconic characters he has portrayed in films, but he apparently is also attracted to unusual and eccentric items.
Take for instance the dinosaur skull he bought from Leonardo DiCaprio. In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, post via YouTube, the Gladiator actor said that he bought the skull one night when he was at DiCaprio’s home, and the two had been drinking.
“I bought it for my kids and, cut myself a little bit of slack, there was a bunch of vodka involved in that transaction,” Crowe said.
When asked about how the conversation came about, Crowe, 55, said he thought that DiCaprio brought up the conversation.
“He was like, ‘I’ve got this one but there’s another one coming onto the market that I want so I’m trying to sell that one.’ I said, ‘I’ll buy it,'” Crowe recalled.
Crowe said that when he asked DiCaprio how much he wanted, he was “cool” about it and said he would take what he paid for it, which was around $35,000.
The skull was reportedly from a Mosasaur dinosaur, which was a “giant, serpentine marine reptile” that lived on Earth approximately 65 million years ago. Mosasaurs had double-hinged jaws and flexible skulls which allowed them to eat their prey whole, according to auction site Sotheby’s. The broker handled the public sale of the skull when Crowe decided to get rid of it after his divorce last year. According to the site, the skull sold for nearly twice what Crowe paid for it.
The star sold many unique items in his divorce auction, including a life-size prop horse used in Gladiator, a brown leather boxer’s jock strap used in Cinderella Man, a signed Epiphone Les Paul deluxe guitar, a custom chopper motorcycle designed by Orange County Choppers and of course, the Mosasaur skull, CBC reported.
Life-size horse, dinosaur skull and jockstrap for sale at Russell Crowe's divorce auction https://t.co/40O5hIA0oI pic.twitter.com/4Gl4yGypap
— As It Happens (@cbcasithappens) April 6, 2018
In the interview, Crowe also spoke about how he turned down the role of Aragorn in the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings trilogy. When asked why he decided not to take the role, he said that when he spoke to director Peter Jackson, he sensed that Jackson had been persuaded by the studio to call him, but Jackson had someone else in mind for the role — presumably actor Viggo Mortensen. When asked about how he felt about passing up the role and all of the money attached to it, Crowe said he never really give it any thought.
