Russell Crowe

Moved back to New Zealand with my parents when I was 14.

Then at 21, I moved back to Australia by myself because I considered Australia to be my home.

I'd lived there between four and 14.

That's your formative years.

And I never felt like New Zealand, even though it was the land of my birth, it was really home.

So I went back to where I felt comfortable.

And I went back with the idea that...

You know, I've been doing all these clubs and bands and stuff like that, but I'm going to sort of change the priority.

I'm going to focus more on acting and put the music, you know, underneath it.

And one of the things that I'd planned on doing was working enough, saving money, to then go tonight at the National Institute of Dramatic Art and get a piece of paper that says I know how to do my job, right?

So...

The year was 88, I think.

I'd been in Australia for a couple of years by then.

I had an agent.

Things were going really, really well.

Solid work, being able to save money.

And I was doing a show at this theater and a guy called Bruce Applebaum.

who had been my brother's biology teacher in high school, but who had become a friend of one of my uncles.

And he came to see the show, and he came backstage.

And at that point, he was the technical director for the National Institute of Dramatic Art.