Russell Crowe probably thinks he could have played Shakespeare better than Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare In Love.

The 40-year-old Australian actor tells GQ magazine he thought Fiennes' performance as The Bard opposite Gwyneth Paltrow was bit too "prissy."

He says of the 1998 movie, "It was 100 per cent f***ing home run except the central character of William Shakespeare was not a writer - he was not smelly enough.

"He was not unshaven enough, and obviously he hadn't had enough to drink. He was some prissy pretty boy."

Double Oscar winner Crowe stars as a boxer in Calendar Man due for release in the US in June.

Source: Press Release