Josh Brolin in the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men. JOSH BROLIN:
NEW RIDER OF THE PURPLE SAGE
By
Alex Simon
As an actor, Josh Brolin is one of those rare birds who hit the ground running, debuting in the now-classic Steven Spielberg/Richard Donner hit The Goonies in 1985. The eldest son of actor James Brolin, Josh hit the world stage February 12, 1968 in L.A., but was raised outside Hollywood in the more rural setting of Paso Robles, CA. Having worked continuously in both features and television since his debut, Josh carved a niche for himself as an actor of depth and range, playing everything from cowpokes to urbane sophisticates, and working with the likes of Woody Allen (Melinda and Melinda), Paul Verhoeven (The Hollow Man), and David O. Russell (Flirting With Disaster). In all of his work, Josh Brolin brings an old-school quality reminiscent of Gary Cooper, Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin: a world-weariness appropriate of a guy who’s been riding on his worn saddle just a bit too long, but who loves what the end of the road might promise too much to get off his horse and settle down.
2007 could prove to be Josh’s banner year, with his name at the top of the credits in some of Hollywood’s highest-profile titles, beginning with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror section of Grindhouse as a duplicitous doctor who gets his grisly comeuppance; Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah, sharing the screen with Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron; Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, as a corrupt breed of cop guaranteed to make your flesh crawl; and finally the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, as a hapless Texas cowpoke who stumbles on a cache of drug money, and finds himself pursued by Mexican drug runners and, quite possibly, the Devil Himself (Javier Bardem). Best Supporting and Best Actor Oscar buzz is respectively surrounding Josh for his turns in the latter two titles.
Josh Brolin sat down with us recently to discuss life, film, and the genius of John Cassavetes.
One thing that struck me while watching No Country for Old Men was how reminiscent it was of the work of John Ford. Did the Coens discuss any of their influences with you?
Josh Brolin: No, not really, but it did have that wonderful stillness, and those breathtaking vista shots that Ford loved so much. They don’t really discuss those things, they just sort of do what they do. They don’t say things like “Okay, here we want to get a very cinema-verite feel of a John Cassavetes movie.” They say very little, actually.
Are you a fellow acolyte at the temple of Cassavetes?
Yeah man, I love Cassavetes. Woman Under the Influence has to be one of my top six films.
The first time you saw it, wasn’t it the first time you felt while watching a movie that you were eavesdropping on real life?
I did. And Gena Rowlands made me so uncomfortable, yet so familiar, with all the stuff she did at the dinner table. And it’s not even that all the movies are so great. Some are just pieces of life and are totally disconnected and you don’t really know what’s going on. But when it worked, it was just brilliant. One of my favorite films is Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky, which Cassavetes acted in, but didn’t direct. That scene when he’s looking for his friend in the street…I love that kind of filmmaking.
How long did it take you to figure out that Peter Falk was setting Cassavetes up?
The first time, a while. But I’ve seen it probably twenty times.
And you still don’t want to believe it every time you see it.
Right, because that’s the only person that Cassavetes has allowed himself to trust in the midst of this massive paranoia, but some of the paranoia feels very real, based on the hit man. I love those type of films. I just finished a short film myself that I wrote and directed that Robert Rodriguez gave me notes on. It was this very complicated morality play and it got to be so big and so complicated that finally I went ‘Fuck it, I can’t do this.’ So I pulled over my truck one day out of frustration and just wrote this three character piece that takes place out in the desert. It came to me so fast and so clearly that I said I wasn’t going to change any of it, except on the set. So we did 93 set ups in three days. We shot on 720p, and it looks really amazing. There was one condition: nobody could get paid, even if it meant losing the better person. Now when I look at it, I see the influence of Wim Wenders, the Coen brothers, Cassavetes’ influence. Hopefully there’s my own voice in there somewhere.
Are the Coens really hands-off directors?
Not completely. We talked a lot during the first week and a half about characters and during rehearsals. You go through the process of where you want to earn your character. They’re very laconic. There’s not a lot of talk, but there is a lot of body language, which you start to learn from them. Ethan’s greatest compliment he gave me was non-verbal, which I had no idea what it meant at first, but later learned it was the greatest compliment he could have given me. It was like “That was great. Are you happy with it? Is there more you’d like to do?” I think the reason they operate like that, and the reason they don’t give many interviews, is that they’re really shy, maybe the shiest people I’ve ever met. Joel said nothing during my entire audition. Just stared at me.
And there’s always at least one character in each of their movies that does that. Remember Peter Stormare in Fargo?
(laughs) That’s true. Who was like that in No Country?
I thought Javier was pretty close to that, even though he had dialogue. He was like a corpse talking, like a George A. Romero zombie come to life.
I like that: “A corpse talking.” He’s already dead. The grim reaper.
That’s who I thought he was actually. When I read the book a few years ago, that’s immediately what I thought the first time he appeared: the angel of death.
Yeah, and whether he’s real, or not real, or has a sort of mythological status.
The other movie I thought of was John Boorman’s Point Blank. I always felt that Lee Marvin’s character dies in the beginning and it’s his spirit that’s enacting revenge on those who killed him.
Right, because he was also very deadpan throughout that film. That’s cool. I don’t know that they consciously reference other movies in their films. If they do, they certainly didn’t mention it. Who knows what goes on in their heads? (laughs) I’m very close with Ethan now and close with Joel, but I still couldn’t tell you what makes them tick.
You’re in two movies with Tommy Lee right now: No Country and In the Valley of Elah, although you don’t have any scenes together in either.
No, I wish we had. We were actually talking about doing another movie together recently.
You did In the Valley of Elah with Paul Haggis. Tell us about him.
I’ve known Paul for a long time. I did a series a long time ago called Mr. Sterling that he came onto as a fix-it writer. He put down a script in front of me and said “I’ve had this for a while, please read it.” It was Crash. I thought it was a great script. I was attached for a while, but unfortunately I had no monetary value to my name, so it didn’t work out. Then Valley came to me because Tim McGraw had fallen out, and I said ‘Sure, I’d love to do it.’ I loved working with Paul. It was different, much more active than Joel and Ethan. Paul is finding his way, for sure. I think it’s tough to come right out of the gate and have an Academy Award-winning movie (Million Dollar Baby) and then the very next year, win with your directing debut. It’s never been done in history. So I loved that he chose to do In the Valley of Elah as his follow-up, instead of some easy, commercial thing.
I remember when I interviewed him for Crash and asked him what inspired the script, he said “Very simple: I didn’t want my tombstone to read ‘Paul Haggis: creator of Walker Texas Ranger.’”(both laugh) And it would have been easy for him to stay in that place. He was making a really good living, had a nice house, television had been good to him. But it’s a different deal now. He has more choices.
But if you’re an artist after a while, the money doesn’t mean shit.
Absolutely. You start to feel hollow. But you do the work, and you hope for the best. I’m very happy for Paul, and I hope for the best for him.
Tell us about Ridley Scott’s process. He’s one of the few directors who is both a brilliant shooter and a brilliant filmmaker.
You know what I’ve found with all these guys is they’re easy. They’re all easy. They don’t blow things out of proportion. They’re cool under pressure. They’re not about ego. They’re about the work. And that comes through. “Here’s what you and Denzel and Russell have to do. Figure out what it is you’re going to do, then I’ll hone it, and put it on film.” And that’s all there is to it.
With all three of these films, you’ve been surrounded by the cream of the crop both in front of and behind the camera. That can’t help but raise your game.
It raises your game, yeah, but at least my game I always go about the same way, whether I’m doing film or theater or television. In those cases, the manifestation of it just happened to turn out a lot better than a lot of these other movies I’ve done, where I watch them and I go ‘What the fuck?!’ (laughs) But I’ve always tried to be conscious about quality over quantity, like you were saying about the money. I’ve had agents who get me work that I pass on, who get so frustrated and say “Why do you hassle us about finding you work, then when we find you work, you turn it down?” That’s because I like working with good people, and doing good material. On my deathbed, maybe I won’t look back at having made $20 million a picture, but I’ll be able to say I’ve worked with the Coens, with Paul Haggis, with Woody Allen, with Ridley Scott, David O. Russell. Working with these people make you feel good about yourself when you go to sleep.
But it also seems like the people who are making $20 million a picture are oftentimes the most miserable.
Yeah, I guess. I can see how you could get caught up in it all, all the celebrity and doing your 50th interview for the week. Then you look at people like Sean Penn, and you say ‘I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing. Keep doing it.’
It seems like Sean Penn has always behaved as himself. Don’t you think the trick to not being eaten alive in Hollywood is to have a strong sense of yourself going into it?
Yeah, and then they get bitter and start taking it out on themselves and other people. Sean came up to me the other night and brought up this movie I did called The Dead Girl, which nobody saw, and he said “Dude! That was such a great movie. You were great, and I love that director, would you please tell her I saw that movie and I loved it!” He was just so genuine, and there was none of that “cool” affectation or bullshit of “Hey. Saw the flick. Good stuff.” He was genuinely excited about my work, just as I’m always genuinely excited about his work, instead of looking at a movie and saying ‘Man, I should’ve been in that fuckin’ part. Fuck that guy!’ I would never, ever want to be that.
How did having an actor father shape your perspective on show business?
Well, we weren’t in Los Angeles. I grew up in Paso Robles, around country/western singers and would have people like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash around the house. So I saw fame up close on that end. Tanya Tucker…wow! But the acting thing didn’t really permeate. For me it was more like, the old man leaves, works for a while, then comes back, except for when he did The Amityville Horror, because that was such a big deal, and it was an independent movie. I remember my mom putting posters up saying that it had grossed $100 million. We were all very proud of that.
When did you know you were an actor?
You know, I never wanted to be an actor. I wasn’t one of these kids that was running around doing scenes for people, until I took an elective in high school called “improvisation.” They told me to get up and create a character. So I got up on stage and created this middle-aged, balding man and just started riffing on it. I didn’t see the creative process. I thought it was easy. It took some time for me to realize that it’s a make or break thing, that completely works, or doesn’t work at all. There’s no “pretty good.” If you were pretty good, that means you probably weren’t very good. You’ve got to nail it. I’ve always loved storytelling. I was writing stories from probably seven or eight years-old on. I loved reading people like Ray Bradbury, whose imagination was just limitless. Then later, I saw how the two met, how acting was such an imaginative craft.
Then your first film was Steven Spielberg and Richard Donner’s The Goonies.
That was a great experience, maybe still the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. Now our kids are watching that movie, so I’m getting feedback from the next generation, which is amazing. Dick Donner was, is, the nicest guy in the world. Spielberg did this great thing. Donner was so overwhelmed, surrounded by kids for six months, non-stop. He was going to take a break, go to his house in Maui, just relax, maybe smoke a joint and sit on the beach, with no children. So what Spielberg did, he flew all of us kids to Maui, and got one of his assistants to get Dick out of his house. We took a bus to Dick’s house, proceeded to throw all our luggage and clothes everywhere. He came back from the store, or wherever, he dropped to his knees and screamed “What?! No!” with tears streaming down his face. It was a great joke.
Any memories of NFL great John “the Tooz” Matuszak from that picture?
Oh man, Tooz was just great. Here he was, this giant, and he was so sweet and gentle with all the kids. Sometimes he’d get drunk, but he’d just get very philosophical with all of us. We loved him. The only guy we were really scared of was Robert Davi. He was just scary, period. (laughs)
Yeah, but he played scary, while Tooz could really have been dangerous if he’d wanted to be.
Exactly, with Robert it was an act. Tooz in many ways was a big kid himself. It’s funny, I hadn’t seen him in many years, then I ran into him at a banquet at Universal, or someplace and I said hi. “Josh!” he screamed and picked me up in a big bear hug, nearly crushed me! Then a few days later, he was gone.
Was he one of those people we spoke of earlier, who maybe didn’t have a strong enough sense of himself?
It could be. I didn’t know him well enough to answer in that context. But you know what you got me thinking of? I just saw this documentary on HBO called “Gladiator,” about this multiple murderer in prison. They interviewed this guy, and he was the most charming, articulate person. You’d never guess in a million years that he was a killer. Then you actually see the murder he committed on tape. It was maybe the most unsettling thing I’ve ever seen. It’s stayed with me for months. It’s almost like we make a choice, consciously or unconsciously, where our evolution will take us.
Yeah, I just saw a piece on “60 Minutes” about the Supermax prison in Colorado, where they have the Unibomber, Richard Reed (the “shoe bomber), and Ramsey Usef, who plotted the ’93 World Trade Center attack. The former warden said Usef was the most dangerous man he’d ever met, simply because he was so charismatic, and so charming, he’s kept in isolation from the other prisoners, because his power over others is so great.
Right, and that can go either way. On the positive side, Bill Clinton is like that. When you meet him, you literally feel like you are the only person in the universe. He has that kind of power.
And I heard on the opposite side of the coin that Charles Manson and Hitler had the same quality.
Isn’t that interesting? It’s an amazing quality, and you either go to the dark side with it, or do amazing things with it.
Yeah, it gives one pause to think that maybe all these people are very evolved souls; they just evolved in opposite directions. Mother Theresa could have been Hannibal Lecter, and vice-versa.
Exactly.
We’re digressing a bit, so let’s get back to your work. Was your time spent on television’s The Young Riders a good way for a neophyte actor to cut his teeth?
It was. We basically took control of the whole thing, and were very inspired by being out in the desert. We did it for three years. I met some great people out of it, got to ride horses a lot, learned a lot about filmmaking and production. So yeah, it was a terrific learning experience. I was just in my 20s at the time, which is funny because my oldest son is nearly that age now. He’s in college.
So you were a young dad, then?
Yeah, very young. I literally don’t remember not having kids. For me having kids was the best thing that ever happened to me: humbly, selflessly, altruistically, it helped me to get over myself and made my life about something else. I know too many fathers who are like “Great, I have a kid. Have no clue what to do. See ya.” We never had a nanny, ever.
You got to work with Woody Allen, who’s one of my heroes. Tell us about the Woodman.
Javier just worked with Woody. He called me and asked about him. I said ‘Look, we just came off a Coen brothers film where there’s not a lot of petting going on, so you’re in the perfect place to work with Woody.’ I had heard all sorts of horror stories about how he doesn’t talk to actors and all that. I experienced the opposite. I found him to be extremely present, fun, funny. He didn’t talk a lot, but I got to work with Will Farrell and Radha Mitchell, and a lot of people I really liked…there was this one scene we were shooting on Long Island and we were sitting in this Rolls-Royce, and I was talking to Radha about how beautiful the sky was and it was almost starting to rain. After the sixth take, I said to Woody, ‘It’s really overcast out, man. I’m talking about these beautiful blue skies, and it’s raining out.’ There was this long pause, and Woody says “Well, just make it weather contingent.” (laughs) I had no idea what he meant, so I improvised, and I loved working with him.
I loved Grindhouse and couldn’t believe it wasn’t a huge hit.
I think the DVD sales of those two movies will be way bigger. I was very surprised. I thought it would be huge, but I guess it was just too geeky for the masses. The idea of doing a movie with no boundaries just sounded like so much fun, and we did have a blast. Robert and I had a great time. He’s an inspired person. I’ve never met anybody more energized and committed than he is. It inspired me to do my own stuff, including my short. Watching him, you say to yourself that there’s no reason for me to be walking around talking about how tired I am. There’s a whole intensity, a whole mania to what he’s doing. He’s incredibly prolific, painting all the time. We’d paint together, get 2-3 hours sleep, paint some more…finally I’d say ‘Robert, I’ve gotta go get some sleep.’ Love him, and loved working with him. I loved Sin City, thought it was great.
It sounds like you’d like to do more directing and writing?
Maybe. I think I’ll probably go the same route that Sean has, where if I find a story that I think is worth telling, then I’d love to tell it. That was the whole point of doing the short, to see where my strengths and weaknesses were. A lot of the people who’ve seen the short have said they think its voice is unique and its voice is mine. That wasn’t my intention. My intention actually was to not show it to anybody! I had a backyard screening at my house. The movie we showed was The Shining, and we showed the short first. Haggis was very complimentary and encouraging. A lot of my friends were in it. My daughter was in it, who’d never acted before and now probably never will again! (laughs)
That raises an interesting question: did you dad try to discourage you from entering the business?
He was really supportive, but he was very honest with me about the odds involved. Plus, with me as your dad, it’s going to be a whole other thing, because they won’t want to add to some kind of nepotistic thing, so it will be that much harder for you to get a job. But I liked the odds, and I did a completely different thing than my dad, which was lots of theater, then I got The Goonies, and then I did a movie called Thrashin’ that I was horrendous in, but that a lot of people seem to love. I watched myself in that movie and thought ‘Either figure it out, or do something else.’ It might’ve looked like me, but it wasn’t. Then I went to New York, started a theater company with an actor named Anthony Zerbe, and really turned my life around. We had four readers that read 700 plays a year, out of which they would pick 35. Anthony and I would read the 35, and then we’d pick three out of the 35, and we’d do three new American plays in rep. It was the best thing I’d ever done, for sure.
Who are some of your favorite playwrights?
There are so many, but I’d have to put Sam Shepard up at the top. I was lucky enough to do True West on Broadway. Sam is actually the one who turned me onto No Country and the writings of Cormac McCarthy. So I was turned onto it as a literary work of art first, before I viewed it as a potential part I could get.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Road.” Is he America’s greatest living writer?
I think Cormac is a true genius. He has no parallel, in my opinion. He’s always one step ahead of you. Right when you’re about to say ‘Okay, now I get it,’ he goes off into another direction. Great stuff.
It’s too bad that Sam Peckinpah isn’t around anymore. He’d have been the ideal director to adapt McCarthy’s work to the screen, since they explore similar themes, particularly how man’s “progress” often leads to an erosion of clarity in society and its rules.
You know what would be interesting to me? You take a movie like 3:10 to Yuma in its original version from the ‘50s, and now you have the updated version of it. I would love to see two or three versions of the same movie within four years of each other. After the Coens’ No Country, I’d love to see Clint Eastwood’s version, and then another filmmaker’s version. Just like in the theater, when you mount different productions of the same play. Each time, it would tell the same story, but be about something new.
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