Al-Qaida wanted to kidnap me, says Crowe

IT SOUNDS like a bizarre film script he turned down, but actor Russell Crowe has revealed how Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network wanted to kidnap him as part of a “cultural destabilisation plot”.

In an interview published in the March edition of Australia's GQ magazine, Crowe said FBI agents told him of the threat in 2001, in the months before he won a best actor Oscar for his role as Maximus in Gladiator.

"That was the first (time) I'd ever heard the phrase 'al-Qaida'," Crowe said. "It was about and here's another little touch of irony taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as sort of a cultural destabilisation plot," he said.