RUSSELL Crowe had fellow actors seething last night as he turned up at a four-and-a-half-hour awards show – for precisely four-and-a-half minutes.
The Hollywood star picked up the Actor Of Our Lifetime gong at the Jameson Empire Awards at the Grosvenor House hotel.
However, blink and you could have missed him. He rushed into the bash via a side door, made a quick speech, and then nipped out the same exit.
He was in such a rush he didn’t even have time to stop by the press room afterwards to pose with his gong.
But he did have time to read a brief poem, with lines from John Lennon, Patrick Kavanagh, Elvis Costello, the Bee Gees, Billy Bragg and Rudyard Kipling. It was an attempt to mock his appearance at the Baftas in 2002 when he was denied a chance to read a poem, which led to a row with the event’s producer Malcolm Gerrie.
But his appearance didn’t endear him to fellow A-listers, who dutifully sat through the entire evening .
A tipsy-looking Viggo Mortensen, out with pal Sean Bean, later took to the stage to pick up the Empire Icon award and mocked Russell’s “unfathomable literary dedication”.
The Eastern Promises star said organisers had “downgraded Russell’s award after he said he can stay only a second” and joked about how the Aussie had just grabbed a goody bag at the event and told his driver to leave.
“He had to run and tell his driver to take his Maltesers and shampoo and then say ‘We have to go RIGHT this second’,” Viggo told the crowd.
Brit actor James McAvoy also mocked Crowe’s poem when he went on stage to present an award, saying: “Bullshit is all I have to take this award away.”
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