Published by Josh Horowitz on Saturday, September 27, 2008 at 8:44 pm.

How do you find an actor of Russell Crowe's caliber to play against him? Well, Ridley Scott seems to have found the answer: let the Oscar winner play both roles! That's right, in one of the odder casting ideas in at least a few days (it just so happens this news comes in the same week Johnny Depp signed on to play Tonto), Crowe is going to play both the sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood himself in Ridley Scott's upcoming flick, "Nottingham."

The news comes straight from the helmer himself, with Scott revealing "He's playing both!" exclusively to MTV News during an interview for his new film "Body of Lies," which co-stars Crowe. While Scott held additional details close to his chest - saying they would take too long to describe - he did exclaim that Crowe's dual roles would be "a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes."

It's certainly not news that Crowe is playing the sheriff in this revisionist take on the Robin Hood legend (i.e. maybe that dastardly sheriff wasn't the evil guy we all thought he was). He signed on a long while back for the title role. But the casting of the Robin Hood character was rumored to involve names like Christian Bale, not Crowe again.

Clearly Scott sees these two characters as two sides of the same coin, but will audiences find his method plausible? I mean, is Russell going to simply have a goatee as the sheriff and a pointy green hat as Robin to differentiate for the audience? It's certainly a daring move for Crowe and Scott who will be collaborating for the fifth time on the project.

Crowe to Play Sheriff *and* Robin Hood in Nottingham

Source: MTV Movies Blog, ComingSoon.net

September 27, 2008

There have been some interesting developments on Ridley Scott's proposed Robin Hood project Nottingham out of the L.A. junket for his upcoming political thriller Body of Lies. The most interesting one being the claim that Russell Crowe will not only be playing the Sheriff of Nottingham as reported earlier, but he'll ALSO play the part of Robin Hood.

During a press conference, Crowe was asked about the project and its progress since back in July, it was reported (right here) that the project had been delayed despite Universal having already claimed November 9, 2009 as its release date.

"No, we haven't done that yet," Crowe responded to the reporter's query. "It's one of those things where we're taking our time with. You don't want to be doing Robin Hood unless you're going to be doing it really f*cking well. It's got to be the best one ever done otherwise you should do something else."

He also went on to say that he would not be wearing tights because according to their research, they hadn't been invented and wouldn't be for 300 years. Crowe confirmed that he'd be starring in the movie opposite Sienna Miller, presumably as Maid Marian.

Now that's all well and good, but the actual news would come later when MTV's Movie Blog spoke to director Ridley Scott and he claimed Crowe would actually be playing two roles including that of Robin Hood:

"He's playing both!" (he said) exclusively to MTV News during an interview for his new film "Body of Lies," which co-stars Crowe. While Scott held additional details close to his chest - saying they would take too long to describe - he did exclaim that Crowe's dual roles would be "a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes."

What that means is open for conjecture--it could mean tha Robin Hood *was* originally the Sheriff of Nottingham, rather than the presumption that he'll be playing a dual role and be on-screen with himself--but it does seem clear that Crowe is playing Robin Hood in the movie. At one point, it was rumored that either Christian Bale or Sam Riley would be playing the part of Robin Hood, but those rumors seem to have proven unfounded by Scott's statement.