Warner Bros.
Russell Crowe sat down with BroBible ahead of the release of 'Unabomber'
The man has spent the better part of four decades playing characters who are certain of their own righteousness. Sometimes that certainty saves the day. Sometimes it burns everything down. And in Russell Crowe’s latest role — Henry Murray in Netflix’s Unabomber — it does both.
There’s something almost cruel about the timing. Here we are in 2026, in an era where the most dangerous people in the world seem to be the ones convinced they’re the smartest. Tech billionaires with god complexes. Academics who believe ethics are quaint obstacles. Politicians who’ve confused conviction with truth.
And Russell Crowe, in his mid-60s and somehow still digesting the weight of every brilliant, damaged character he’s embodied, is ready to examine exactly how intelligence becomes a weapon.
Unabomber, which hits Netflix on September 25, is not a true-crime procedural in the traditional sense. It’s a study in radicalization—not just Ted Kaczynski’s descent into domestic terrorism, but Henry Murray’s descent into justifying psychological abuse in the name of science. Two men, both brilliant, both convinced they’re right, both willing to hurt innocent people to prove it.
Crowe doesn’t play Murray as a villain. He plays him as something more insidious: a man who genuinely believes he’s pursuing truth.
We sat down with Crowe to talk about the arrogance of intelligence, the nature-versus-nurture question that haunts the film, and why — despite his and Ryan Gosling’s genuine desire to make it — a Nice Guys sequel has become the most frustrating Hollywood hypothetical ever to exist.
Unabomber: the hubris of intelligent men and how dangerous they can be
ERIC ITALIANO, BROBIBLE: Something I took from UNABOMBER and your work in NUREMBERG is that brilliant people often seem to believe that their intelligence excuses them from moral constraints, and that they seem to assume that their intelligence gives them the right to decide for people. After playing these types of men in such close succession, have you gained any insight into people with this sort of intellectual hubris?
RUSSELL CROWE: Well, I think I’ve played characters with the same type of attitude a lot earlier in my career as well. Yeah, I suppose to a degree that’s something you could draw out of this. My version of Professor Murray is very singular in his pursuit and is only really looking at how things might affect him and his work as opposed to the resonance it might have on his subjects. For sure.
It’s interesting though—and we don’t really dwell on it in the film, but the implication is there, and it’s all public record. How much of the work they were doing at Harvard was connected to certain intelligence agencies and what its actual practical use may be in the future. That was a fascinating part of what the man was involved in.
EI: Where do you land on how much responsibility or guilt he might think he bears for where Ted wound up?
RC: Well, that’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? Because Kaczynski himself is on record dismissing the idea that anything to do with that study affected him. You know, he says something like, “Apart from one uncomfortable half hour, I quite enjoyed it,” or something like that.
I mean, how much of that is harbored resentment towards what he went through that manifests itself in a denial? Who knows. But certainly, I think all of us know that at certain points in our youth or young adulthood, certain things happen that influence us. So you would have to imagine that if these tests were as extreme as the documents imply they were, that for a young, impressionable 16, 17-year-old, it must have been a very heavy thing to have experienced.
I don’t think that he would be at the age to determine what kind of effect it could or could not have had on him at that point, because your brain is not even fully developed regardless, right?
Everyone wants a sequel to The Nice Guys — so, where is it?
EI: I do want to ask you about THE NICE GUYS. Why do you think it took a bit of time for it to become as beloved as it is? And now that it’s a known fact that it’s a genuine cult classic, what specifically is standing in the way of you guys just doing a new one?
RC: Yeah, it’s a funny thing. When we first saw it—because my day-to-day on-set relationship with Ryan Gosling was one of the most spectacular I’ve ever had. You know, I sort of famously on a film set—I don’t get affected by the noise on the other side of the camera—but for some reason, that kid can make me laugh at the drop of a hat. He just has a certain comedic perspective that just, you know, so to me that means that every day is like ice skating. I don’t know where we’re going to go. We’re going to have slipping and sliding everywhere.
Anyway, yeah, I definitely enjoyed that and it was interesting. The release was very soft. I mean, we came out, which was just so hilarious that Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling have a film coming out against Angry Birds. I mean, it was just hilarious at the time. But I don’t know why the release was soft, and it is very clear that it has gained a type of cult status.
RC: But you know, these things require a lot of ducks to get in a particular line. Especially as time goes by, it gets more and more difficult. You know, studio personnel changes, what people are involved in a specific production change. So you’ve got to have quite a few people—including, you know, other outside investors and what have you—all agreeing to do it.
I, you know, I don’t think there’s any negativity from the concept between me and Ryan. In fact, we were, you know, deep into conversations about what the sequel should contain when we were doing the first one. But you know, we’ll see if I do get the opportunity to be on a film set with him again. It’ll be a joyful day for sure.
EI: Let me just put it out there that men between 16 and, like, 55 would lose their minds. So thank you for your time today, sir, and congrats on an amazing career.
RC: Thank you very much, mate.