Young man in an old country
Despite being the son of actor James Brolin,
(who's married to Barbara Streisand), and the husband of Academy
Award winning actress Diane Lane, Josh Brolin is the first to
admit that his career has been more down than up over the years.
He made his film debut over two decades ago in The Goonies and
since then he's made a lot of forgettable films; The Road
Killers, The Mod Squad and Hollow Man to
name a few. But thanks to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez
- who cast him in Grindhouse - Brolin is effectively
back and on a roll. It was while he was filming Grindhouse
that he heard about the Coen brothers' new film, No
Country For Old Men. In it he plays Llewelyn Moss, a
Vietnam Vet who steals $2 million and sets in motion a catastrophic
chain of events that will see him pursued across Texas by a steely
sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) and a cold blooded killer (Javier Bardem).
In real life Brolin is down to earth, self deprecating and extremely
funny. At Cannes he was "overwhelmed" by the response to the film.
When Gaynor Flynn caught up with him at the Toronto International
Film Festival a few months later, he was in shock because now
there was talk of an Oscar.
How
did you hear about this project? Did you read Cormac McCarthy's
book before making the film?
I was given the book by Sam Shepard when I did
Grindhouse in Austin and we had a good conversation about it.
I had already read Child of God and All The Pretty
Horses. I like Cormac McCarthy's writing and I think that
Tommy Lee Jones once had the rights for Blood Meridian.
So I've always been a Cormac fan. So I said I'll read it, and
he said oh the Coen brothers are doing the movie version of it
and I hope they don't screw it up. That's what he said. So he
didn't say you should be up for this role. I think he looked at
me and thought, there's no way you could get through it.
What happened then?
I couldn't go see the Coens because I was in Austin
filming, so I filmed the audition there during lunch with a $950,000
camera. It is probably the nicest looking audition tape and we
sent it to the Coen's and they didn't respond. I had a very good
agent who tried it again and again. I only wanted the Coen's to
meet me. That's all I wanted. They said "No." for a long time.
They put so much effort into casting the film and I think that
if you do the casting correctly you don't have to do so much after
that. I know that they had their last casting call and they had
to make a decision. At 9 o'clock on a Friday night they called
me to come in for the final casting call. We hadn't met before.
At 9 o'clock the next morning I got the call that I had gotten
the part.
What was it like going from Tarantino to the
Coens?
It was really good. Well, Robert Rodgriguez and
I have been friends for a long time, so there was a familiarity
between us when we did "Grindhouse". What I like about the Coens,
and I didn't like it in the beginning but I love this now, is
that there is no ego. There's no petting. A lot of time on sets
you have a lot of ego and there's a lot of 'god you're doing great',
and 'great job' and 'you're such a great actor'. The Coens never
did that one time. So Jarvier (Bardem) and I in the beginning
were like are we going to be fired. Do they hate us? What's happening?
And then Jarvier on top of it had the bad haircut and he gained
weight so he was depressed. Me I'd lost a lot of weight, two weeks
before I started the movie I hit a car on my motorcycle so I snapped
my collarbone so we were in a bad way man. We needed somebody
to go, 'you guys are the best' and not until Woody (Harrelson)
came onto the set and we did the hospital scene and Woody stumbled
through his lines and right afterwards they said cut. They were
like, 'oh my god Woody you're fantastic' and I said what the f***'s
going on? Throw me a bone here. No they're great to work with.
I have never seen the brothers argue, it's like two heads melting
into one head.
As a hypothetical question, would you have
taken the $2 million like Llewelyn?
No I would have done two more films and made that
kind of money. [laughs]. I know a lot of people who would have
but no I would never have put myself in that situation in the
life that I'm living right now. It doesn't make sense. If I was
him, why wouldn't you? The guys been to Vietnam twice, he has
amazing resources. He may come across as a dim bulb in the beginning
but then it turns out he's not at all, he's amazingly intuitive
and I think it makes perfect sense out of love for his wife he
wants to make a better life for them, it makes perfect sense to
me and also the money's drug money, death money. He's going to
make something good out of a horrible situation.
Did the Coens ever talk about changing the
ending?
No, we were very loyal to the book. The people
who had read the book liked the character so much so they didn't
want the character to die. That's the biggest compliment to the
story. We had a close-up of the dead body but we didn't put it
in the film. People said: "It was too sudden." But that's what
it's like in real life. It goes "Bang". That's what happened to
my mum at only 55. One day she was there, and the next she was
gone. She would be here if she was still alive, she was so funny,
drop-dead-gorgeous, a real Texas woman. Angry.
You grew up on a ranch right?
Yes.
Did
this role and this environment feel very comfortable for you then?
No, its very different setting, every one is playing
that kind of tune now. Josh Brolin grew up on a ranch and so he
was tailor made for this part and all that kind of stuff, I grew
up on a horse ranch. It wasn't fun it was a lot of work, it's
a very different setting. West Texas is a whole character unto
itself. It's lethal. It's a tough, tough setting. Where I grew
up on central coast California, its like Tuscany. Then I had my
own ranch but I had to sell it.
Why?
I needed the money!
Was your lifestyle becoming too expensive?
Not very expensive, but I didn't have any money.
And I had taken so much out of the bank. I have been very fortunate
to have been doing what I have been doing but I drove my agents
crazy because I would still turn down things that I didn't want
to do just because I didn't like them. They said: "Keep working.
It doesn't matter." I understand that. I agree with that. It is
just not for me. Perhaps God was smiling down on me, or it was
a kind of reward for my integrity because I was given the opportunity
to be in "No country for old men". I don't want to insult any
filmmaker but for me there are certain films that I know I could
have been doing to keep the ranch, I would have made a little
more money. But selling the ranch enabled me to continue to do
the films I wanted to do. And this year has been really good.
Why were you out there in the first place?
I loved living in the country and there were times
when I'd work once a year and that was it. I'd just do theatre
in between so I moved to the country.
There's no money in theatre right?
I love doing it but it doesn't pay any money and
you know you create a hole, I mean not to get so serious about
it but you create a hole and the hole is going to be filled with
something and I knew at that point in my life, I said I want to
mix it up so I'm willing to do this. I could have borrowed money
from people but I didn't want to.
Were you familiar with the area where the film
was made?
Yeah I know the area. I spent time there by choice
strangely enough. I mean I don't want to insult anybody in west
Texas but nobody really looks forward to driving through west
Texas when they drive across the country because there's nothing
there. Its like the meanest terrain there is. But it makes for
a great character in a film. I think it plays as a character in
this film and I think with Cormac, who lived in El Paso for many
years, which I don't understand personally because El Paso is
a tough town. It's a border town. It's a hot town. It's a dirty
town, but it makes sense if it instigated this amazing writing
in any way. I'm a huge fan of his. Huge fan. I think he's probably
our best American contemporary writer.
What I like about the Coen movies is the relationship
between characters and landscapes. Did you talk about that?
We did, but that's more from Cormac again and I
think that's one of the reasons they were drawn to the story because
the landscape is such a major character and then you look at Fargo,
and O Brother Where Art Thou, they're very landscape
driven stories so we talked about the setting and what that is
and how it affects people and the similarities between Tommy's
character and my character and having grown up in the same area.
So
you didn't have to work hard to feel comfortable in that landscape?
No, I'm very comfortable in that area. I don't
like West Texas necessarily but I enjoy the country. Javier came
from a different place so I think he was slammed by it. Which
made me laugh. I think because I'm American and I'm from the west
and I like the west, I'm not an actor who feels he needs to be
in New York to be a real actor.
How did you get along with Javier Bardem?
We got along very well. We don't anymore. No, no.
He is a great actor and a great person on top of it. He is not
too precious and it is not all about him. He is not: "Oh, this
is my moment." He takes it all with a grain of salt, which is
something I like. He is out of his mind. I like the character,
too. It was a really risky character. It was a great creation,
not only of his but of the Coens. Take the haircut for example,
when Javier got the haircut he looked in the mirror and then at
me and said: "I'm not going to get laid for three months."
You talk about Al Paso as a tough town, and
you grew up on a ranch, did you relate to the tough guy mentality
depicted in the film?
I am not a tough guy at all. I think I am quite
the opposite. I still fight. Is that tough? A lot of people I
grew up with are perceived as tough guys but are not. They are
also regional country people perceived as being tough but that
is just because they're quiet. That's what I like about my character
in the film. Without being insane he talks to himself, he is just
keeping himself company. I love that. I completely understood
that and spending a lot of time by myself working with cattle
I got it. I think there is a lot of integrity with the boys I
grew up with, they are very attached to their families. I have
been in situations where people came up from LA and tried to find
where I live. And people in my town would give them the wrong
directions. I am very protected there. It is a very loyal bunch.
I love that because you don't find that so much in urban settings.
There is so much going on. I don't think it is a wrong thing but
it is very narcissistic, you get very caught up in yourself. Country
mentality means that people take care of each other. It is more
primitive. It is the man with the clubs still. But the women run
everything. My mother was from Corpus Christi, Texas. She was
a loud Texan woman. She ran the show, man. When she spoke, everybody
was listening.
Gaynor Flynn
