During an oral history of the film Gladiator, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on May 5, Crowe and director Ridley Scott recalled the one time the actor narrowly escaped a tiger while shooting Gladiator.

Scott told Variety about how during one of the fierce fight scenes, Maximums (Crowe) got up close and personal with an 11-foot-long tiger. Crowe narrowly escaped what could have turned into a vicious attack.

“You’ve got two guys on a chain with a ring in the floor to control it,” Scott recalled. “Russell said, ‘OK, release them’ and when Russell would fall back, the tiger would come out of the hole and Russell would roll out of the way and he said, ‘F**k me, that was close.’ And I said, ‘We were there as well, Russell. Hey, you were two feet, I was like four feet.’”

Even though the tiger scared Crowe, he was still amazed by the majestic cat. “It’s so beautiful, it’s so regal, and you’d love to be able to just pet them and cuddle them, but obviously that comes with inherent risk,” the actor noted.

Crowe also told the publication about the intense battle sequences, and how he felt after the strenuous work. “If you’re rolling around on the ground with gigantic sequences with hundreds of moves of choreography, you’re dealing with horses and tigers and other things that can go wrong, of course there’s gonna be injuries,” he recalled.

“But when you’re younger, you’re made of rubber and you can bounce back again. I do remember saying to my mom when I got home from that shoot, she said: ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘I actually feel like a football player who’s played one season too many.”

The 2000 action film starred Crowe alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Richard Harris, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Reed. It is certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes with a 77 percent approval rating.

Gladiator was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, and won five of them including Best Picture. Crowe won an Oscar for Best Actor, which was a great surprise for him. “I had no idea at all that I would actually be winning that night,” he confessed. “I think that year was a really incredible lineup of actors. In that moment when my name was read out, it’s kind of like the ground drops away from underneath you.”