The New Zealand-born actor, 62, had his breakthrough role in the Australian film Romper Stomper in 1992, rising to worldwide fame with the Hollywood movies LA Confidential and The Insider.
He also starred in Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man and Nuremberg, picking up an Adademy Award and two Golden Globes along the way.
Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, where his documentary What Love Builds premiered, Crowe reflected on the ups and downs of his career.
"I've made it pretty clear that I've mismanaged my relationship with Hollywood greatly, you know, but always to my benefit," he said.
"It's taken a long time actually for people to realise that I'm not American, you know, because in that first flush of success, people just made a huge assumption.
"I'm not driven by the same things that people who come necessarily from that culture are driven by.
"My sense of humour has got me into trouble so many times because we like to call things as we see them where I come from.
"And that's not often, well not always, appreciated, shall we say."
Crowe, who moved to Australia at the age of four, said it is a sense of "connection" to a story that drives him as an actor.
"I can read 100 scripts, but I'm only going to do the one that when I was reading it - and people, I don't know why, but they always thought I was making this up, I'm not making it up - if I'm physically reading a script, and I start to feel it on my skin, even if I pre-decided I'm not doing this job, I don't want to work with that guy or whatever, if I read that script, and I get that feeling, I have to do it.
"It's like it becomes this thing where I'm connected to this.
"I know now that this is important because it came up on my skin, so I need to do this.
"It's not necessarily the right way to construct a career, but it's the right way for me."
Written, directed and produced by Crowe, What Love Builds follows his passion for music and his efforts to maintain the creative pursuit alongside his acting career.
Crowe is the host for a rotating musical collective, Indoor Garden Party, backed by his own band, The Gentlemen Barbers.
Speaking in Venice, he described the documentary as "extremely intimate and extremely personal".
He said he felt there was "so much to accomplish yet" and that he had not "scratched the surface creatively about things I want to do".
7°C