Exclusive Interview with Josh Brolin
Brolin discusses the Coen mystique, his big year and Sean Astin's Goonies 2 delusions.
Ever since his debut in the 80’s kiddie cult classic, The Goonies, Josh Brolin has been threatening to break out. He had a string of successful TV work in the late 80’s/early 90’s including the popular western show, Young Riders, but nothing that really pushed him over the edge. Then in 1996 Brolin played against type in David O’ Russell’s Flirting With Disaster as Tony Kent, a gay man with a fetish for licking arm pits. With that came more TV work and the occasional feature role, often playing the heavy with the addition of his Reynolds-esque burly mustache. Still, Brolin never seemed to land exactly the right role.
2007 has been an outstanding year for Josh Brolin - quite possibly the breakout he's been waiting for. He’s worked with an astounding string of talented directors including Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino (Grindhouse), Paul Haggis (In the Valley of Elah) and Ridley Scott (American Gangster). While those were smaller roles, they certainly helped get his name out there a bit leading up to his centerpiece performance in the Coen Brother’s latest film, No Country For Old Men.
Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam vet who stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad and a suitcase filled with $2 million dollars. He heads on the lamb and soon finds himself pursued by a relentless unstoppable killer named Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Directed by the Coens and featuring an outstanding supporting cast that also includes Tommy Lee Jones, Kelly Macdonald and Woody Harrelson, No Country is drawing critical raves and Brolin might have just gotten that break he’s been on the verge of so many times.
ReelzChannel.com recently sat down for an exclusive interview at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. Upon entering the room, Brolin was all smiles, and why not? Things are going well. Brolin admits to being a little giddy over his recent string of good fortune, but knows all too well from his past experiences that it could all pass quickly. As of this moment though, the future looks very bright.
REELZCHANNEL.COM: You’re in three films generating awards buzz. Is this overwhelming?
JOSH BROLIN: It’s not overwhelming, but it is strange. It’s a really nice time and I love that I’m involved with three films that people really react to. It’s rare. I don’t minimize the feeling I have about it. I’m happy, man. I’m almost embarrassed that I’m happy but I’m happy. I’m very happy and I’d love to continue along the same trajectory.
RC: At what point did you first read Cormac McCarthy's novel?
JB: I read the novel without knowing that the Coens were doing the movie. Sam Shepard is the one who turned me on to No Country. I was in Austin doing Grindhouse and he was there doing some movie he had done for South by Southwest. We were out drinking one night and he said, ‘You have to go get this book. It’s the most amazing f***ing book and he just went off on a Cormac tangent.
I had known Cormac from Blood Meridien a long time before. I read the book the next day and was just stunned [and] blown away, just as a weighty literary work of art.
RC: As an actor, when you read a book like that, do you think about parts you could play?
JB: No, it didn’t even cross my mind. I think I looked at Chigurh and thought that would be a brilliant part to play. Obviously, I didn’t imagine somebody like Javier playing him. But it’s the Coens, so it makes perfect sense. They always pull it off, some how, some way. They have a vision unlike anyone else and I was very happy to be a part of that and to be collaborative within that. It was fun creating these characters.
RC: The Coen brothers have a sort of mystique about them as filmmakers and always seem to be on the short list of directors most actors mention wanting to work with. What have you seen behind the scenes that you can attribute to their continued success?
JB: Every time I hear the word “brilliant” or “genius” I feel them hit me in the back of the head, because they don’t see themselves like that. They see themselves as just manifesting stories that they’re interested in at that moment. They’re very technically proficient. They understand film, they understand storytelling and they love to tell stories. These are two guys that would be perfectly satisfied sitting around a campfire telling f***ed up, bizarre twisty, turny stories.
RC: Some of their most bizarre movies, like Fargo and Big Lebowski, have gone on to be their biggest successes.
JB: Exactly. If you think about it, these are the same guys that did Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men, I don’t see the connection between them at all. If you say No Country is a huge departure for the Coens and then you go back and see Blood Simple, maybe it’s not that big of a departure. But I truly don’t think there’s any connection between any of their movies. The one thing that they’re able to do is kind of make a character out of the terrain that they’re filming in, that’s what they’re truly brilliant at.
RC: Tell me how you came to work with the Coens on this project?
JB: The starting point was I sent in an audition that didn’t work. I looked very, very different. I was doing Grindhouse with Robert then and we actually shot an audition on a million dollar Genesis camera and sent it to the Coens. They’re response was, “Who lit it?” They loved it (the lighting) [but] I wasn’t who they were looking for. I have an amazing agent, Michael Cooper, who was incredibly persistent and kept saying “Just meet him.” From what I know, their last casting session, they were looking at a few different possibilities and finally, at the last minute, they called me the night before at like nine at night and said, “Look, if Josh wants to come down, no harm no foul, we’ll meet him.” So I went down the next day and got the part.
RC: So from casting to the first day on set, what sort of prep did you do or what did the Coens give you?
JB: They didn’t give me anything, they didn’t say anything. (Laughs) Both Javier and I had a lot of questions for them. We rehearsed a bit, but you know there’s not a lot of dialogue, so there’s not really a lot of rehearsal. It was really spent asking questions. How they saw the character, the tone of the film, the big picture of the film, the similarities between Chigurh and Moss and Sheriff Bell, the relationship between Carla Jean and Moss and all that stuff. But as a message or as a morality play, there was none of that talk until we talked to people like you.
I think that it’s a fairly basic story that’s just told brilliantly through the Coen’s creative vision.
RC: Were there different elements you picked up from their script as opposed to the McCarthy novel.
JB: No. They were extremely loyal to the novel and I think any time I ever had uncertainty about the silence in which this guy carries himself; I’d just look over at Joel and Ethan and watch them for a while. And I’d go, “Okay, Joel’s staring at the walk and Ethan’s rubbing his head and humming Blue Suede Shoes or something.” I’d go, “Maybe I’ll just do that.”
RC: So the Coens aren’t the type of directors that come in with two pages of back story for you to read?
JB: No, no, no. They expect you to do your work. I think their anxiety goes into casting properly, at least how they see it. I felt at the end of the day that they were very happy with me and Javier and Tommy and they felt like they had done Cormac’s book justice in casting it. They pretty much let us do our thing and then they’d come in and tweak – “What about if you didn’t lift your arm in this one?” Little small, tweaky stuff.
RC: Do they shoot a lot of takes?
JB: Very, very little, three [or] four. Subtle differences, whether they’re camera differences, lighting differences, small performance differences. I think in rehearsal, I make it a thing for me because I like to rehearse, they allowed that. The relationship that we were creating between me and Carla Jean was really important to us and how that manifested. It was a conscious choice to look at the TV and not look at each other. [When I said] “I’m gonna take you in the back and I’m gonna screw ya” and all that stuff. It was very important for us to create that bucolic relationship with two people who you knew were going to be together for the rest of their lives.
RC: Was Bardem in character off set?
JB: I don’t think method exists any more. To me, if there’s an actor, if that’s what he needs to do in order to feel that he’s filling the role, I think that’s great. The great thing about working Javier, I think in the beginning, we were very focused but I think that’s different than method. Method is something that’s been bastardized truly.
We had a ball together. We laughed more on this film than any film I’ve ever done.
RC: So playing these opposing characters, you didn’t try to stay apart off camera.
JB: I think we were focused, but there was a lot of play involved. For us, to stay open, to stay imaginative. Then if you have a hook on the character, you just find it. In the beginning, it’s not so much that because you’re looking and you’re searching and you’re like, “What is the guy and where is his foundation?” Once you find it, you can nail your buddy’s boots to his trailer floor or whatever you feel like doing.
RC: When you got injured just before production, you had mentioned you originally wanted to hide the injury, but then you discovered you might be liable so you had to fess up to the Coens.
JB: I talked to Ethan on the phone him and told him that there was a small, minor break in my collarbone. There was a long pause and I knew he wanted to talk to my doctor. His biggest concern was, can he work and how massive is the break? We just kind of downplayed the break and gritted our teeth.
RC: Were you in pain on set?
JB: A lot of pain, for sure. I didn’t let them know that then. They know now.
RC: You’ve had quite a year or so working with Paul Haggis, Tarantino and Rodriguez, Ridley Scott and now the Coens…
JB: Year and a half, and then there’s Karen Moncrief who did The Dead Girl which I’m really happy with. Very good small film. They’re all very, very different, but the majority of those people that you just mentioned, there’s an incredible lack of ego… It seems that when you work with great filmmakers, there’s an incredible lack of ego. It’s more of a collaborative experience, as opposed to guys who are a little less confident in the experience [where] there seems to be a lot of yelling and a lot of ego. I didn’t find that with the filmmakers you just mentioned. They were very mellow, very into the story and just limitless energy and creativity. I learned a lot as an actor looking at directors – how you can make something work and not have a s***load of strife…
RC: Does this string of experiences make you choosier about the directors you’d want to work with in the future?
JB: It depends. You can find first time directors that are fantastic. It depends on the project. As long as we get the job done, I don’t care.
RC: Sean Astin has been fanning the Goonies 2 flame of late. He called it an “absolute certainty.”
JB: Where does he get his information? (Laughs) I think he wants it to happen so badly that he’s just telling people it’s happening.
RC: So there’s nothing there?
JB: Not that I know of. It would be great. Or maybe not. It’s hard to say. It’s kind of great for what it is. From a business sense maybe it would be smart to do it again, but do you really want to do that to the original. But then it becomes about, “I loved Goonies, but did you see the second one? That was just kind of a bummer. Brand turned out to be a homeless alcoholic and it was awful. (Laughs).