Russell Crowe opens up on Golden Globes win during bushfire crisis
Russell Crowe has revealed how he found out about winning a Golden Globe while fixing up his bushfire-ravaged NSW property and has shown the amazing changes his farm has gone through in just 10 weeks.
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Hollywood heavyweight Russell Crowe has revealed he found out about winning the Golden Globes best actor gong from his children as they watched the awards ceremony on television at their bushfire-razed NSW property.
The 55-year-old star, who took out the award for his role in The Loudest Voice, used his acceptance speech to declare the Australian bushfires were a result of climate change.
Jennifer Aniston read the speech as Crowe remained on his 400ha Nana Glen farm north of Coffs Harbour which was affected by fires which tore through the region in November last year.
Crowe today said he was glad his words helped “galvanise global understanding” of the devastation.
“I was standing on the farm on the balcony and my eldest son tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Dad come here for a second, you know you just won a Golden Globe?’, Crowe told Nova radio.
“I was standing on the farm not giving a shit about whatever else was going on.”
The actor took to Twitter on Monday morning to show his 2.7 million followers an image taken just after the Liberation Trail blaze 10 weeks ago compared to an image taken today.
November’s charred landscape overlooking a dam on the property contrasts starkly with the rolling green pastures pictured less than three months later.
Blackened trees are still visible on the property but the sky is free of smoke as the region’s vegetation begins to rejuvenate.
“My place 10 weeks ago after the fire had gone through, and this morning after a big weekend of rain,” Crowe tweeted.
The Liberation Trail bushfire burned through more than 150,000ha of bushland before hitting Crowe’s property.
“We got smashed but we got really lucky as well,” Crowe told Nova.
“It just so happens that this year in April I said ‘I’m not sure if we’re fire ready at the moment. Let’s have a look at all of our systems’ so we pulled out all of our water pumps and one of them was completely seized”.
Crowe said he removed a block of trees after two year of dealing with council and luckily, the action saved his house.
”It just so happens that every single area that we’d done work on that’s where the fire hit,” he said. “We had 75 foot flames above the house. It’s kind of apocalyptic”.
“At one point the fire was stopped and it went through the bush and came back again from another direction, if we hadn’t taken the trees out we would have had a catastrophic loss”
Claims by one of Crowe’s neighbours in November that fire trucks drove straight past her home to save the actor’s property were rubbished by authorities.
“Crews are dispatched on priority of jobs and the properties that need it the most, we are not aware of who owns the properties,” an RFS spokesman said at the time.
Crowe has been vocal on Twitter in the weeks following the inferno, using the platform to show how the fire affected his property.
Crowe also skipped the Golden Globes ceremony in the US earlier this month so he could remain in Australia to monitor fire conditions.
He won best actor in a limited series for his role as disgraced Fox CEO Roger Ailes in The Loudest Voice and a message read to Hollywood’s elite urged the world to take climate change seriously.
“Make no mistake, the tragedy unfolding in Australia is climate change-based,” Crowe’s message read.
“We need to act based on science, move our global work force to renewable energy and respect our planet for the unique and amazing place it is.
“That way, we have a future.”
Originally published as Russell Crowe opens up on Golden Globes win during bushfire crisis