Hollywood star Russell Crowe has lamented the loss of traditional masculinity, claiming the “archetypal Australian man” no longer exists.

While promoting his World War One-era film The Water Diviner, the 50-year-old said the movie focuses on a long-lost kind of masculinity.

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“Men like that are vanishing now,” he told the Sunday Times Magazine, “but were everywhere when I was a kid: the archetypal Australian man who appears stuck in his ways but is, in fact, quite an open person, willing to see people for who they are.

“That was the Australian I aspired to be. The pubs my dad ran were full of them.”

The actor also responded to accusations he was sexist after he called for Hollywood actresses to act their age.

“There’s a certain percentage of vanity that is unhealthy in my business, and it affects both sexes,” the actor clarified.

“You see it with men, dyeing their hair into their sixties, pretending they don’t have grey hair, or having plastic surgery and using sun lamps. I’m not that guy.”