Russell Crowe.

When you think of romantic comedies, you don’t exactly think of Russell Crowe.

But the phone-throwing, tempermental actor begs to differ, despite winning one Oscar and being nominated two other times, all for serious roles.

The New Zealand-born, Aussie-based actor good-naturedly joked about his rather serious reputation yesterday during the news conference for his new film, A Good Year, which reunites him with Gladiator director Ridley Scott.

“Well, there’s a lot of laughs in Gladiator, mate, but it wasn’t sold that way,” Crowe responded when asked if people have been afraid to offer him comedies over the years.

“That’s why people went back to see it, because you chop somebody’s head off the right way, it’s often funny.”

Joking aside, Crowe said his desire to do A Good Year had more to do with director Scott than the film’s genre and its exploration of Anglo-Franco dynamics. Crowe plays a British banker selling the Provence vineyard he has just inherited from his late uncle (Albert Finney).

Scott has had a vacation home and vineyard in Provence for 15 years, and actually suggested the book idea first to longtime friend and author Peter Mayle (A Year In Provence), who then gave him the film rights.

“I’d noticed that I’d got out of whack with Ridley’s schedule, and that was sort of weighing on my mind because there were things that he was doing which I wanted to do,” said Crowe, who is currently shooting his third film with Scott in New York City called American Gangster, co-starring Denzel Washington.

“So we had this meeting. We discussed 17 different projects. And this was the one that caught my imagination. I liked the idea. I liked the idea of shooting in France. I liked the idea of shooting in Provence. I just liked the idea of being in a place that (Ridely) had such a long connection with as well, ’cause I knew that he’d know how to shoot that place.

“And I just wanted to explore different things with my friend ’cause I knew we would really join at the same sort of entry level in terms of collaboration without having to have that bigger responsibility behind us. We would just enjoy ourselves, and that’s what we did.”

It also appealed to Crowe that his character’s name in A Good Year was another Max — Max Skinner, as opposed to his Gladiator character Maximus, the role for which he won his Oscar.

Crowe said there’s even a little Gladiator shout-out in A Good Year, when Max picks up the dirt in the vineyard, as Maximus did in the coliseum before fighting.

Of their working relationship, Scott said the biggest difference was that “Russell’s a great believer in lots of rehearsal and I’m a great believer in little rehearsal and turn him loose.”

Countered Crowe: “You have to work very, very fast ... The crew complained after the first week of shooting. They pulled a group of us aside, and said (puts on a French accent), ‘What is Ridley doing? He will kill us if he keeps working like this!’ ”

It also wasn’t hard filming in Provence in September during the wine harvest with plenty of vino and three-hour lunches.

“I had a fabulous time down there, it was a beautiful area,” said Crowe, dressed casually yesterday in sweats including a shirt with the words “South Sydney” on the front, a reference to the Aussie rugby league team he co-owns.

“I lived in a magnificent house. And I could ride my bicycle to work through the Luberon on a daily basis. It really did lend itself to intimacy.”