“What Love Builds”, interview with director and protagonist Russell Crowe

Presented out of competition, in the Open section of the Venice Film Festival 2026, What Love Builds is Russell Crowe’s autobiographical documentary, a soliloquy set to a lifetime of his own music that traces his journey from street performances, pubs and nightclubs to theatre stages and film sets around the world. Crowe, who directs and stars in the film, talks about why music and acting have never been separate things for him.

Music and acting, impossible to divide

For Crowe, the documentary exists to make one thing clear: music runs through everything he has done as an actor. “The whole point of the movie, and of music in my life, and the reason for doing the movie, is to explain to people that music is completely connected to everything I’ve ever done creatively.” As he puts it elsewhere, the two crafts simply move at different speeds: “Film is great. It’s a cerebral adventure. You construct the performance in your lounge room, you go and do your job, and then a year to a year and a half later you see the effect of that, the series of emotional points that you may have planned and whether you’ve taken the audience with you or not. Rock and roll is right there and right then. It’s completely immediate, and that’s what is exciting about it.”

His own songwriting, he says, doesn’t follow the emotion people might expect: “I actually tend to write sad songs when I’m really happy, and not when I’m actually sad. If I’m sad about something, I tend to just get on with doing the things that I need to do to get myself into a better place, rather than necessarily sit down and write songs.” Right now, he says, that creative instinct is active again: “The last year has been very busy, but as I came towards the end of twelve months of work, songs just started popping into my head. I’ve now functionally got most of a new album, and we’ll be going home straight after the film festival to spend a week with the band and start recording again.”

From Gladiator to Prince: music inside every performance

For Crowe, music and film draw on the same instincts, even when the connection isn’t visible from the outside. “Every now and then I’ll meet somebody in life who doesn’t think music’s important, and I feel very sorry for them, because it’s a fundamental driver for all of us.” As an actor, he explains, that instinct shapes how he builds a character: “There’s an aspect to what I do as a film actor which is there because I know what it is to drive an audience, even if the audience is not in the room. Connecting to characters via rhythm, via melody, via poetry: if you get a rhythm with that character, then those lines will stay in people’s hearts and minds for a long time.” The clearest example, he reveals, comes from one of his best-known roles: “One of the speeches from Gladiator is directly influenced by a Prince song lyric. You wouldn’t think from the outside that that could possibly be a thing, but it is a thing.”

A melancholic explorer, from Pompeii to Siena

Asked whether melancholy runs through his songwriting, Crowe agrees, tracing it to a recurring theme: “As a songwriter, unrequited love has always been a big thing for me. But I don’t know, as a songwriter I’m an explorer. I’m just asking questions, trying to define things, even if it’s just a fleeting moment for myself.” Free from any recording contract, he says, he writes only when the timing feels right: “I don’t do music contractually, I don’t do it as part of an agreement that I have to produce music, so I’m probably a little freer than somebody that is burdened by a record company contract. I do it when, for me, the moment is right.” At 62, Crowe has a major European tour planned for next year, through the Czech Republic, Latvia, Denmark and Austria, though no Italian dates are confirmed yet. Behind him, though, are several unforgettable Italian stages: “We’ve played in the ancient amphitheater in Pompeii. We’ve played opposite the Colosseum in Rome. We’ve played Piazza del Campo in Siena, and Piazza del Plebiscito in Udine. It’s just been amazing.”

Plot