20TH ANNIVERSARY RUSTY'S GLADIATOR SECRETS REVEALED!

His character promised to unleash hell – and the actor did just that on set

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Gladiator, a movie that grossed almost a billion dollars at the box office and scored five Oscars.

Not bad considering its star, Russell Crowe, who played sandal-clad muscleman Maximus Decimus Meridius, moodily proclaimed during filming that it would be a dud – and it wasn’t even because he had to lose almost 20kg within a few months to play the ripped Roman warrior.

Given that everything that could’ve gone wrong during filming did, you can’t blame Russell for his gloomy outlook.

Sources from the set say the actor, now 56, feared the constantly changing script would put a pin on his promising career, which explains why four weeks before filming was due to start, a foul-tempered Russell was still storming out of table reads.