Russell Crowe's calm old age

May 13, 2010, 6:04 GMT

Russell Crowe is a "lot calmer" nowadays.

The actor - who has been involved in a number of altercations in recent years which have given him a reputation for having a bad temper - claims he has become a lot gentler these days because he finally feels like an established Hollywood star.

He said: "If you're carrying the weight of a production on your shoulders, you can tend to get a little serious. I had a very intense decade making movies. Everything about my life came down to what happened between action and cut. I was proving myself as an actor. I'm a lot calmer now."

The 42-year-old actor - who famously threw a telephone at an employee in 2005 - claims he has finally figured out what's important in his life and career.

He told Parade.com: "There's a reincarnation in everybody's life, and I'm not talking about being raised from the dead. It doesn't matter what your job is, whether you work in a restaurant or a garage, you can get to a point where you focus so completely on your work that you forget that there's more important things than that. I think, particularly in the West, we have this thing of living to work. But now I get to experience a type of joy that I never had before."