When Australian Hollywood star, Russell Crowe, watched the original 1973 Exorcist movie as a teenager, he found it terrifying.
"I saw it in 1978. I was 14. It scared the living daylights out of me," he told 7.30.
But then the script for a new exorcist movie landed on his desk, and the Gladiator star became interested in the world of devil-fighting priests.
The Pope's Exorcist was based on the real-life story of the Vatican's Chief Exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, who died in 2016.
Father Amorth claimed to have performed thousands of exorcisms and kept detailed records of his battles with evil spirits. His diaries later became best-sellers.
Crowe says the more he learned about Father Amorth, the more he wanted to play him on screen.
He went to Rome to research Amorth's character and met friends of the priest and members of his order, including some who had been present at exorcisms. Two elements of the Italian's character appealed to the Australian actor: "The purity of his faith, and his sense of humour."
"Those two things. He's dealing with the afflicted all the time … I was just very attracted to that, you know, because like, it's such a serious gig. But at the same time, he was so goofy. I really liked that combination," Crowe said.
Crowe says Father Amorth approached his job with a degree of scepticism, rejecting many who sought his help and redirecting them towards conventional medicine.
"It is very important to point out that he was very attuned to the fact that you could be suffering very deeply from a medical condition, or a psychological condition, and which had nothing to do with the core of his job," Crowe said.
Russell Crowe and the devil
To the lay public, claims of doing battle with Satan, expelling demons from the bodies of the possessed, belong in the realm of fiction. But Crowe isn't so sure.
"Let's talk about this existence of the devil. Is the devil an individual, you know, the same way that some people would like, you know, God to be sitting on a white cloud with a long flowing beard? Or is it something else, you know, because I don't think there's anybody that would say that evil doesn't exist in our lives," Crowe told 7.30.
The Pope's Exorcist is part horror movie, part historical drama. It turns the character of Father Amorth into an investigator trying to get to the bottom of a centuries-old conspiracy.
Crowe says the public has a never-ending fascination with the Vatican: "Some would say, you know, that the great secrets of world history, you know, reside inside the libraries in the Vatican."
"And I think whenever you have an organisation like that, that requires so many layers of security and secrecy that people will ask questions, that's just a natural thing," he told 7.30.
Amorth against yoga and Harry Potter
Father Amorth rode a scooter around Italy and had a rich sense of humour but he was deadly serious about the challenges to Catholicism posed by the modern world.
He disliked Harry Potter, fearful the books would encourage children to believe in wizardry. And he thought yoga was the work of the devil.
"I think you've got to also understand that the cheekiness of his humour," Crowe said. "What he actually said was, 'You should be careful of yoga because if you practice yoga it requires you to put yourself at the centre of the universe and this is a position that should be occupied by God. So just call it stretching.'
"I mean, that's some funny shit."
The Oscar-winning actor says Father Amorth had to earn his place in the Vatican.
"He went to Rome at the age of 17 and said, 'I have received a call' and they said, 'Go away, kid, you're not old enough'. You know, so he returns to his hometown."
During World War II he joined Italy's resistance fighters, the partigiani, who opposed the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.
"He's got a gun in his hand, he's shooting to kill," Crowe told 7.30.
"But he can't get away from this call and goes back to the same brotherhood in Rome and says, you know, 'I still have this calling'. They said 'Perfect. Now that you've learned something … you've got something to give.'"
Exorcists today
Gabriele Amorth began his service as exorcist in 1986 and would eventually become the founder of the International Association of Exorcists.
Every year the Vatican opens its doors to aspiring exorcist priests who learn rudimental techniques of demon fighting, as well as how to support people asking to be liberated by the devil. A number of Australian priests have travelled to Rome to learn the techniques displayed by Crowe in the film.
In 2017, Pope Francis exhorted priests to refer troubled parishioners to an exorcist.
As to the possibility of a sequel, Crowe doesn't exclude it.
"There's a lot of things in Gabriele's books, that if we were ever to consider doing, you know, this character a second time, there's a lot of things in there that I want to explore," he said.
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