Australian actor Russell Crowe's Wednesday court date was pushed back as his lawyers try to get New York assault charges against him reduced.

Crowe was charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a deadly weapon for hurling a phone at a hotel clerk when he failed to get a connection to call Australia in June. Crowe issued a public apology to the clerk and reportedly paid him $100,000 to stave off a civil suit.

Crowe told Australia's Bulletin magazine his hearing was delayed until November while his legal team tries to work out a plea deal to reduce the felony to a misdemeanor. Any kind of criminal record will make it more difficult for the Oscar-winner to travel and work in the United States, he said, but a felony conviction could bar him from entering the country at all.

Crowe said the media has unfairly pegged him as a hothead and denied he could use some anger management therapy.

Do you have any idea the level of personal control that I have, to get to where I am? Any idea at all? This thing of being a smoking gun, this lit fuse, it's just bollocks, he told the magazine.