Marvel Wanted Russell Crowe to Use His Gladiator Voice as Zeus in THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

Russell Crowe’s version of Zeus in Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder was… interesting. I thought it was way too over-the-top, but some fans seemed to enjoy it. It turns out that Marvel Studios and director Taika Waititi initially wanted him to use the same voice that he used as Maximus in Gladiator for the movie, but Crowe had a different idea. He wanted to have a Greek accent. The actor explained:

"[Taika Waititi] sort of said, 'Listen, I've come up with this thing and I don't know if you'll respond, but you know what, I'm thinking all the different roles you've done, you know, what about a Greek god?' They are asking me to play the role with the same voice as Maximus. His voice, I used to call 'Royal Shakespeare Company two pints after lunch.' This faux upper-class kind of voice, you know? So I said to Taika, 'You cannot make me do this in an English accent. I want to do this as a Greek guy.' And everybody just was like, 'What are you talking about?' Zeus is a Greek god, he's no other God from any other civilization, he is a Greek god."

Crowe makes a good point there, and so what Marvel did is that show all of Crowe’s scenes twice. Once where he is talking like Maximus, and another where he speaks in a Greek accent. They then let the test audience choose which accent it should be. Crowe continued:

"They came back to me and they said, 'We'll only let you do that if you also agree to simultaneously shoot every scene in the accent that we think is going to work.' It was fun and fine, but I doubled the length of every working day I had because I had to shoot every scene as a Greek guy and then turn around and shoot every scene with an English accent as well. But the studio said at the time that they would cut both things together and they would screen both, and the characterization that got the biggest response in the audience was the one they were going to go with. The Greek characterization absolutely smashed the English one, smashed it by 10 or 15 points, and true to their word, they went with what they said."

So, that’s how Crow’s version of Zeus ended up coming about. In the end, no matter what Crowe had done with the character, it wouldn’t have helped the quality of the movie. That film was a complete mess. Regardless, what did you all think of Crowe’s version of Zeus in the movie?