Russell Crowe has sparked controversy after he suggested that older actresses should be less picky about their roles.

The Les Miserables star appeared to brush off the Hollywood myth about there being less roles for older women. He claimed that mature actresses seemed reluctant to play characters who are close to their real age, in an interview with Australia’s Women’s Weekly.

Russell Crowe with Helen Mirren
Russell with his State Of Play co-star Helen (Yui Mok/PA)

“The best thing about the industry I’m in – movies – is that there are roles for people in all different stages of life,” the 50-year-old actor told the magazine.

“To be honest, I think you’ll find that the woman who is saying that (the roles have dried up) is the woman who at 40, 45, 48, still wants to play the ingenue, and can’t understand why she’s not being cast as the 21-year-old.”

Meryl Streep
Russell said Meryl is still fabulous at 65 (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Russell – who makes his directorial debut with historical drama The Water Diviner, also starring Olga Kurylenko and Jai Courtney – continued: “Meryl Streep will give you 10,000 examples and arguments as to why that’s bullshit, so will Helen Mirren, or whoever it happens to be.

“If you are willing to live in your own skin, you can work as an actor. If you are trying to pretend that you’re still the young buck when you’re my age, it just doesn’t work.”

“I have heard of an actress – part of her fee negotiation was getting the number of children she was supposed to have lessened,” the New Zealand-born star added.

“Can you believe this? This (character) was a woman with four children, and there were reasons why she had to have four children – mainly, she lived in a cold climate and there was nothing to do but fornicate all day – so quit arguing, just play the role!”

Russell Crowe with his Water Diviner co-star Olga Kurylenko
Russell with his Water Diviner co-star Olga Kurylenko (Rick Rycroft/AP)

His comments have sparked fury amongst other women.

Rebecca Rose at Jezebel wrote: “Funny how Crowe doesn’t bother to offer any opinion about the mind boggling legacy of Hollywood men playing romantic leads to women 10, 20, 30, and sometimes 40 (!!!!!) years younger than them. Because it’s clearly the sad old women daring to pretend they are outside their actual birth ages that are ruining Hollywood.”