Josh Brolin has opened up about a tense moment between him and Denzel Washington when the two “almost got into a fight” on the set of Ridley Scott’s 2007 film “American Gangster.”
Brolin— in an interview with Graham Bensinger published on Wednesday – noted that the two are “getting along really well now” before recalling the near-dusty event on a day when Washington showed up on set “a little late.”
“There was a whole thing in there and then he showed me the rules and he said, he didn’t change any of my rules, but he did change the structure of it. He said, ‘I think I’m going to put this here and that up there,’ but he wouldn’t really look at me,” Brolin explained.
Brolin added that he was trying to remember the structure and that he didn’t have “that many lines” to remember.
“And I have to be super confident. It’s Denzel Washington, man. It’s like it’s not easy. You’re just this actor that they’re trying out to see if he’s the real deal or not,” says Brolin, who is currently on a media tour for his new memoir “From Under the Truck.”
He said he forgot a line, so he put his hand on Washington’s shoulder in a move that apparently confused the actor.
“I said, ‘What’s the limit?’ and he hit my hand off and said, ‘Don’t ever put your goddamn hand on me.’ And I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’m going to scrap with Denzel Washington. This is crazy,” said Brolin, who played Detective Trupo in a film that starred Washington as drug lord Frank Lucas.
He continued, “We’re not actors anymore, at least in my mind. In his mind, he was just doing his job. He was that guy. He was Frank Lucas. Period. But I didn’t know.”
The two would eventually get past the heated moment, asking each other if everything was okay before Brolin asked for his line again.
“He said, ‘Go for it.’ It’s like he said what he had to say,” Brolin said of Washington, who has since reunited with Scott in the filmmaker’s latest film “Gladiator II.”
Brolin has previously credited “American Gangster.” Washington’s highest-grossing filmfor saving him when he was ‘completely broke’.
The actor, in an appearance on the “Hawk vs. Wolfpodcast with Tony Hawk and Jason Ellis, recalled his lawyer calling him and urging him to check his email after the film’s release.
“I looked at it and thought, ‘Thank God.’ I thought it was like $60,000 and it literally saved me, even though it would be taxed and everything. I’d probably end up with 30,000, 25,000 after commissions and all that. And it turned out it wasn’t 60,” said Brolin, who confirmed he was off by one zero.
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“And I started fucking crying.”