Watch: Hugh and Rusty have "Les Mis" pub sing-off

You'd think comparing Russell Crowe to a girl would earn a torrent of abuse and a phone-shaped dent in the face from the notoriously fiesty star.

Well, the angry actor has proved he DOES has a sense of humour by retweeting a fan's amusing comparison of him... and singer Britney Spears.

Twitter user @borisprso spotted that a blue outfit worn by Crowe's ruthless "Les Miserables" policeman Javert, was disturbingly similar to Spears' racy air hostess get-up in the camp music video for her 2004 hit "Toxic".

Boris then tweeted a side-by-side picture of the two stars, with the message: "hey@britneyspears did you see @russellcrowe in #lesMis maybe he is a fan of you ;-)))".

Crowe, whose hot-head reputation has even been parodied in a "South Park" episode, surprisingly saw the funny side, retweeting the picture to his 738,000 followers.

"Les Miserable" has an impressive eight Oscar nominations to its name, and leading man (and fellow Aussie) Hugh Jackman won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his role as Jean Valjean in the film. But now it has one more achievement to add to the list: proving Crowe can laugh at himself.

Watch: "Les Miserable" trailer

Mark Lankester writes for Yahoo! Movies UK&IE