After Gawker included him on a list of celebrities linked to Scientology, Russell Crowe clarified on Twitter that he is not a member of the controversial religion, and he told "The HuffPost Show" on Friday that he also avoided a Scientology sales pitch from the most famous Scientologist in the world, Tom Cruise.
When Crowe spoke with hosts Roy Sekoff and Marc Lamont Hill about his new film "The Water Diviner," he recounted the one discussion he had with Cruise about Scientology during his marriage to Crowe's friend Nicole Kidman. Crowe explained:
As a friend of Nicole Kidman, I got to know Tom Cruise quite well, and I was in the video store, and there was a $2.50, on-sale special video on Scientology, so I watched it. It was kind of like out of a friendship thing, really. I brought it up with him and we had a short conversation about it, but it was a moment that I kind of really established in my mind that I thought he was a very cool guy. Because I brought it up with him, I broached the subject, we talked about it for a natural length of conversation, and then his finisher on the conversation was, "If it's important to you, man, you'll do something about it." And we never talked about it again.
Crowe said he hasn't seen "Going Clear," the explosive HBO documentary about Scientology, nor has he spoken to Cruise recently.
"I haven't seen him for quite a while. Once they got divorced, I think I got thrown out with [Nicole]," Crowe said.