ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There have been so many great gangster movies over the years, right up to The Departed. Did either of you hesitate before stepping into those shoes?
RUSSELL CROWE: Yeah, but when was the last character like Frank Lucas? That's a gigantic thing. That's the Mount Rushmore of gangsters right there. What amazes me is that nobody has come up with this title before.
DENZEL WASHINGTON: It's a heck of a title.
CROWE: I reckon Martin Scorsese is sitting somewhere in an office in New York and he sees ''American Gangster'' and he's like, ''F---! And I went with Casino?'' [Laughs] It should be the title of a political film, really.
Well, if someone was looking for political overtones in American Gangster, they could certainly find some.
CROWE: With this next movie I'm about to do with Ridley [the espionage thriller Body of Lies, costarring Leonardo DiCaprio], he said to me, ''I see your character as the embodiment of American foreign policy. You're fat, pustulant, and you have a weeping sore. Are you okay with that?'' I said, ''No problem, mate.'' [Laughs] You know, I worked with Leonardo when he was 18 [on the Western The Quick and the Dead]. He was a virgin, and he would talk about that constantly. So I'm hoping we have some time so he can fill in what's happened in between. Maybe show some photos. Because I'm sure life's different now.
WASHINGTON: He's a good actor, man. Done some good work.
In all the years between Virtuosity and American Gangster, had the possibility of you two working together ever come up before?
WASHINGTON: Not that I know of. It's harder than you think, you know, especially the way this guy took off. Everything's got to line up: schedules, material, this, that.
CROWE: That's one of the funniest things about this business. You get a bit of success and the next day there's 50 projects, and everybody is connected to you somehow because they met you somewhere, at a bar. And you're only ever going to pick one. So now you've got 49 whole productions who hate your guts. It's a funny thing you've got to negotiate your way through.
WASHINGTON: And you've got to be comfortable. It's no coincidence Russell has worked with Ridley now three or four times, I've worked with Tony Scott three or four times and Spike Lee three or four times — because there's a comfort zone, you know. I tell people, the time to worry about flying is when you're on the ground. There's no point in worrying about it when you're up in the air. You'd better make sure the pilot is someone you trust. It's too hard, takes too much time, for it not to be a creative joy. We've all been on movies where you're like, ''Oh, shoot, what have I done? How many more days we got?'' ''Eighty-nine, Denzel. This is Day 2.'' [Laughs]
CROWE: It's so much a director's medium, if you really want to work at your best, you've got to make sure you've got some compatibility with the person who's behind the camera.
Russell, this is your third time working with Ridley Scott — and you've already lined up two more films together.
CROWE: Ridley and I have perfected the art of the wordless argument. He'll look at me across the room and nudge his head one way and I'll go, ''No,'' then he'll open his eyes a bit wider and look that way and nod and I'll go, ''Uh-huh'' — and we've just worked out the blocking of the scene. It saves a lot of time.
NEXT PAGE: ''I try to do good work. How I'm perceived, what people think — I don't get involved in that. That's not what got us where we are — that's happening because of what we do.''
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