Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Russell Crowe says actress and producer Sharon Stone gave him his first Hollywood gig.
The 56-year-old actor recalled on Tuesday's episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers how he struggled in Hollywood before Stone, 62, cast him in the 1995 film The Quick and the Dead.
Crowe, who has New Zealand citizenship, started his acting career in his longtime home of Australia before attempting to break into Hollywood in the early 1990s.
"I used to say my theory of Los Angeles was you have to be careful because they will nice you to death," Crowe said. "They will nice you so much that you think everything's going to go well for you, and then you realize X amount of time later that you got nothing out of all that niceness."
"It took me probably about 18 months or more, and literally hundreds and hundreds of meetings, before I actually got an American gig," he added. "I only got it because Sharon Stone had seen a movie I was in."
The Quick and the Dead marked Stone's first film as a producer. Stone also starred as The Lady, and cast Crowe as the character Cort.
"She was kind of in a sword fight with the male producers on the film. She just put her foot down and said, 'I'm going to hire the person I want to hire as the love interest,'" Crowe said. "If it wasn't for her strength of commitment, I don't know how long it might have been before I got an American movie. I've got a lot to thank her for."
Crowe also remarked on the "difficult time" Stone has experienced during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Stone said last week on Instagram that her sister, Kelly Stone, is hospitalized with COVID-19.
After The Quick and the Dead, Crowe went on to star in such films as L.A. Confidential (1997), Gladiator (2000) and A Beautiful Mind (2001). He will next star in the thriller Unhinged, which opens in theaters Friday.
