Confirmed: Russell Crowe to be awarded at 2023 Karlovy Vary film festival

Russell Crowe announced yesterday that he would be performing in Karlovy Vary during the 2023 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and this morning organizers confirmed that the Oscar-winning actor would indeed be an official guest of the festival’s 57th edition.

Crowe will be awarded a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival at the festival’s opening ceremony on June 30. Later, he’ll perform on stage as part of the festival’s opening concert with his Indoor Garden Party touring event.

Location and ticket details for Crowe’s performance have not been confirmed, but the festival’s opening concert typically takes place in an open-air location, with free admission; last year’s opening concert took place on stage outside the Hotel Thermal. The Karlovy Vary festival might be a rare chance to see Crowe’s Indoor Garden Party, outdoors.

Originally born in New Zealand, Crowe shot to fame in the early 1990s with performances in Australian classics like Proof and Romper Stomper. He quickly transitioned to Hollywood later that decade, starring in films like Virtuosity, opposite Denzel Washington, and The Quick and the Dead, with Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Gene Hackman.

In 1997, Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential cemented Crowe’s status as a major star, an he would go on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor two years later for Michael Mann‘s The Insider. While he lost out to Kevin Spacey’s performance in American Beauty, he would win the award the following year with his iconic portrayal of Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator.

In 2001, Crowe would earn another Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. He joined a rare club actors that included Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy, Paul Muni, and Richard Burton with three straight Best Actor nominations; Bradley Cooper would also join this club the following decade.

Beginning with Gladiator, Crowe has enjoyed a lengthy collaboration with filmmaker Ridley Scott, also starring in A Good Year, American Gangster, Body of Lies, and Robin Hood for the director. Scott is currently working on a sequel to Gladiator, though Crowe has not been confirmed to make an appearance.

Crowe can currently be seen in the religious thriller The Pope’s Exorcist, now playing in Prague cinemas, and his second feature as director, Poker Face, which is streaming on HBO Max in the Czech Republic.

Despite a contentious reputation with media that dates back to a phone throwing incident in 2005, Crowe has recently become a beloved personality on Twitter, where he posts disarmingly personal social media updates for a major Hollywood personality. The actor revealed his appearance at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival yesterday before the festival itself.

Crowe has been a musical artist for as long as he has been an actor, releasing three albums with his band Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts and more recently working with Canadian musician Alan Doyle as part of Indoor Garden Party. Their 2017 collaboration The Musical hit #1 on iTunes and Amazon in the UK.

Crowe’s 2005 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which earned ten Academy Award nominations (winning two) will be screened as part of this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to go along with the actor’s appearance at the opening night concert.