Actor Russell Crowe plans next role -- at the font

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Australian actor Russell Crowe is planning to be baptized at the age of 43.

The Oscar-winning actor, whose bad-boy image has overshadowed any spiritual side, told Men's Journal magazine that he planned to be baptized in a Byzantine chapel that he had built on his country property in Australia for his wedding to Australian singer and actress Danielle Spencer in 2003.

He said both his sons, 3-year-old Charlie and 1-year-old Tennyson, were baptized there.

"I started thinking recently, if I believe it is important to baptize my kids why not me?" Crowe said in an interview in the magazine's December issue. "I'd like to do it this year.

"There is something much bigger that drives us all. I'm willing to take that leap of faith," he said.

Crowe, who is currently starring in "American Gangster," said the chapel was the most extravagant thing he had ever bought for himself.

"I needed to convince Danielle she didn't have to travel to Rome to get married like she'd always dreamed of, because I saw all the paperwork involved. So I had to manage that disappointment," he said.

"It is consecrated and everything ... And we use it all the time."

Crowe has made newspaper headlines for his bad-boy behavior including pleading guilty in 2005 to throwing a faulty telephone at a hotel concierge.

But is his reputation as a troublemaker unwarranted?

"Look, I call a spade a spade. I don't deny that," he said. "But my intention, for want of a better word, is a certain purity."

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Bill Trott)