Denzel Washington once cursed out the actor behind Marvel’s greatest villain and it nearly led to fisticuffs

Being an actor may look glamorous, what with all the fancy movie premieres and prestigious award ceremonies. But just like any other job, co-workers don’t always get along, and disagreements can escalate. Animosity on a movie set can sometimes stay with those involved for a long time. Marvel villain Josh Brolin recently recalled almost coming to blows with his American Gangster co-star, Denzel Washington, while filming the 2007 biopic.

Brolin recounted the incident during an appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger. “Denzel and I, by the way, get along very well now,” he said before giving fans a complete play-by-play. “Denzel was a little late to set, and there was a whole thing there. And then he showed me the lines – he didn’t change any of my lines, but he kind of changed the structure of it. He said, ‘I think I’m gonna put this down here, and I’m gonna put that up there.’ But he wouldn’t really look at me.”

“So I was trying to remember the structure, and then we rehearsed,” Brolin continued. “It wasn’t that many lines, mostly mine. And I’m supposed to be super confident. It’s Denzel Washington, man. It’s not easy. You’re just this actor who they’re trying out, seeing if he’s the real thing or not. And I forgot a line. And I put my hand on his shoulder, and I said, ‘What’s the line?’ and he hit my hand off, and he said, ‘Don’t ever f*****g put your hand on me.'”

“And I was like, ‘Holy s**t, I’m gonna scrap with Denzel Washington. This is crazy.’ We’re not actors anymore, at least in my mind. In his mind, he was just doing his job,” Brolin added with the benefit of hindsight. These days, the Marvel actor realizes that his high-profile co-star reacted while still in character. “He was that guy. He was Frank Lucas. But I didn’t know. And then we got through that moment. I said, ‘Can I get my line?’ He said, ‘Go for it.’ It’s like he’d said what he needed to say.”

Directed by Ridley Scott from a script by Steven Zaillian, American Gangster is loosely based on the life of La Grange, North Carolina gangster Frank Lucas, who smuggled heroin into the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. He was eventually arrested by Newark Detective Richie Roberts and his specialized task force. Along with Washington and Brolin, the movie also stars Russell Crowe, Ted Levine, John Ortiz, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ruby Dee, Lymari Nadal, and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Washington can currently be seen in Gladiator II, in which he stars as a former slave named Macrinus who hopes to control Rome. While attending the film’s Los Angeles premiere, the actor offered some grounded acting advice to TikTok content creator Chewkz. “You can’t learn to be an actor online,” he said. “You got to get on the stage. Find a little theater. Anything, even if you’re just the guy holding his spear in the back of the thing — you got to get on stage. That’s where I started. If you want what I got, do what I did.”