It’s been said that Russell Crowe wants Robin Hood to be his comeback. It’s been said that Russell Crowe is willing to play the game this time. It’s been said that Russell Crowe is no longer a violent, angry, surly douche. Well, that last one was said by Russell, sort of. He’s been trying to convince everyone that he isn’t an “angry person” and that image of him is just a figment of the media’s imagination.

Except that he still is an angry person. True, he isn’t throwing phones or beating people up in Cannes, but he’s still an a-hole. Russell was being interviewed by the BBC at Cannes, and when the questioning got slightly difficult (and truly, these were not difficult questions), Crowe stormed out of the interview. First, the interviewer asked Russell about his accent in Robin Hood, and that’s when Russell started to lose it, you can tell. After that, the BBC interviewer asked him about the stories written about in that Dreamworks book, which had Russell uttering lines like, “It was sh-t… but I’m the greatest actor in the world and I can make even sh-t sound good.”

Russell Crowe, in Cannes for “Robin Hood,” got up and walked out in the middle of a BBC radio interview.

Interviewer Mark Lawson first irritated Crowe by innocently asking about his accent in the film, saying he heard a hint of Irish. An unhappy Crowe responded, “You’ve got dead ears, mate, seriously dead ears if you think there’s an Irish accent.”

After Crowe rambles a few minutes about the character’s genesis, Lawson asks if the accent is more northern English.

Crowe replies, “No I was going for an Italian, yeah. Missed it? F-ck me. Anyway…”

But the final nail that made Crowe stand and just leave was when Lawson asked him about a newly published anecdote that says, during “Gladiator” filming, Crowe didn’t want to say the famous line, “I’ll take my revenge in this life or the next.”

Rather than answer, Crowe unhooks himself and walks out, saying, “I don’t get the Irish thing by the way.”

[From Huffington Post]

What a f-cking baby. Seriously, is he not capable of laughing this stuff off? Or just a simple, “That’s not the way I remember it, but whatever.” His reaction makes me believe the stories of his insanity even more. And what’s the big deal about asking about accents? Russell isn’t Meryl Streep, you know? He isn’t known for his hardcore authenticity with accents. Go back and re-watch Gladiator, and you’ll hear him do English, Australian and American accents. Seriously.

In one last Crowe note, a few days ago he was doing a larger press conference for Robin Hood and he was asked something along the lines of “If Robin Hood was a modern-day hero, who would his number one enemy be?” Russell’s reply: “My theory would be that if Robin was alive today he would be looking at the monopolization of media as the greatest enemy. Would he have in mind what you guys do for a living and realize that the true wealth lies in the dissemination of information?” Ugh… yeah, that must be why so many newspapers and media outlets are folding or losing money by the bucket-full. Because they’re so powerful. It just sounds like Russell was blaming the media – yet again – for reporting on his childish antics.

Russell in Cannes, with Danielle Spencer on May 12, 2010.