Russell Crowe nearly turned down ‘The Nice Guys’.
The 52-year-old actor was not initially sold on the idea until director Shane Black revealed he was considering casting Ryan Gosling to star opposite him.
Of the process of casting his co-star, he said: "It’s kind of an embarrassing story. I read the script and I really liked it … My agent said, ‘The studio is sending you a list of people that they want to be in the movie with you.’ And I read the list and called my agent and was like, ‘Listen, obviously this is not the project I thought it was. It’s something else. I must have really wanted it to be something because I read too much into it. Just don’t bother expressing interest.’
"And he said, ‘Shane Black got on the plane five hours ago.’ I was like, ‘Seriously?! Okay.’ I had a plan, where I would invite him over to my house, offer him a drink and cook him a steak, and then half-way through, I’d say, ‘You know, I really thought it was something else. I’m sorry I wasted your time.’ …
"So, he arrived and I said, ‘Hey, man, would you like a drink?’ He said, ‘I don’t drink.’ That was most of my plan … Then he said, ‘Ryan Gosling.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ He said, ‘Ryan Gosling. I had a meeting with him before I went to the airport. He knows it’s going to be you. He wants to play the other character. What do you think of that?’"
And Russell is thrilled his 35-year-old co-star was chosen for the role as they found it easy to "harmonise" with each other.
He added to Collider.com: "We had a meeting between me and Ryan and Shane, where we went through all of the beats. The thing that becomes obvious when you start to lift the scenes of the page is that the two main characters were written in a totally similar rhythm. They were almost interchangeable. So, we discussed it and we laid that out in front of us, and that was all we did."
Russell Crowe nearly rejected The Nice Guys
