And Russell Crowe in "Carbon Copy"??

"Tell you what, Denzel, you take 'A Good Year' and I'll throw in this car. …"

There's a passage of interest from an upcoming Matt Lauer interview with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington. While hyping their new movie, "American Gangster," they are asked which of the other's roles they'd like to have. …

Washington: "So you asked me is there a role that I would have done. Definitely 'The Insider.' All right, I'm done…as I think about it, and looking at the way he interpreted the role, I thought that was, for me, that's one of his best performances was 'The Insider."
Crowe: "All right."
Washington: "And– and again, it's still not– I'd wanna play that. It's more like I'd be curious to talk to him about how he got into that or where his head was at with that or whatever."
Crowe: "My answer would be — I could probably go all the way back to the beginning of Denzel's career as an actor. I'm probably wanna do pretty much every one of his choices at some point. Cause they're quality choices. It's simple as that. He makes really good movies. He puts things in front of him that are made to challenge him. If somebody would allow me to do the types of roles that he's played, if somebody offered me those roles, you know, I wouldn't say I wouldn't stop at those four men, you know, there's 'Malcolm X.' There's a whole bunch of films in there that are just very, very special. Trust me."
Washington: "Just an opportunity."
Crowe: "I would bring something."
Washington: "You'll bring something to it. Right."
(Source: NBC transcript)

There is an interesting guessing game there. How would Washington have done "Gladiator," for example? Or what would Crowe have brought to "Crimson Tide" or "Philadelphia" (and how would his presence have affected Tom Hanks's work, especially when you look at how good Hanks and Washington were together)? I'd have been real curious to see a young Washington in an Americanized version of "The Sum of Us," for that matter. And wonder if they would have allowed sexual tension in "The Pelican Brief" if it had been Crowe opposite Julia Roberts.