USHER - USHER TO PLAY YOUNG FREEMAN?

R+B hunk USHER is in negotiations to play the younger MORGAN FREEMAN in a new movie the Oscar winner plans to star in and direct.

The singer, who is starting to make his mark in the movies, has sat for talks with the acting icon, and he's confident their new movie project together will happen.

Usher tells MTV News, "I sat with Morgan Freeman to talk about a script that he put together for both of us, possibly for next year (06).

"I play an assassin. I play him in retrospective. I play (Freeman) as a younger character, and it takes place in Cuba.

"It's a very, very, very cool script. The type of script that you would want to have yourself involved in - a character that I've never seen, that I could never identify with. That's basically what I look for.

"I go after those scripts where it's a character that one, would not be typically played by somebody like myself, based off of what you know of Usher, and two, something that kind of gives you a little bit of edge."

The project will be Freeman's first directorial effort since the 1993 drama BOPHA!