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Josh Brolin’s Killer Year
"Overnight" success has been more than 20 years in the making
Josh Brolin stars in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror (2007)
Some movie buffs and film historians will tell you that no actor—at any point at any time in the history of cinema—ever had a better one-year run than Thomas Mitchell in 1939, when he appeared more or less back-to-back in Stagecoach (for which he earned an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor), Only Angels Have Wings,
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Charles Laughton version) and a little flick called Gone with the Wind. Josh Brolin can’t match that—not yet, anyway—but not for any lack of trying.
Consider: In 2007, audiences got to see Brolin as a mad scientist in Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez’s half of Grindhouse; an adulterous police chief in Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah; a crooked narcotics cop in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster; and Llewelyn Moss, the Vietnam War vet who learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished, in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men.
But wait, there’s more. On the other side of the camera in 2007, Brolin directed his first movie, X—as in “‘X’ marks the spot”—a spare, Sam Shepardish short about an escaped convict (Vincent Riverside) bent on reconnecting with his estranged young daughter (Eden Brolin, Josh’s daughter) by arranging a proper funeral for the girl’s mother, who was buried somewhere in the desert after meeting an untimely (and violent) end years earlier. So far, X has been well-received at a handful of festivals—including Austin’s SXSW, where he chatted with MM—and there’s already talk of expanding it into a feature.
Before he can think about that, however, Brolin has to complete a couple of challenging acting assignments, playing two real-life figures in a pair of high-profile films: He’s been cast as Dan White, the San Francisco supervisor who helped introduce the “Twinkie Defense” to the U.S. jurisprudence, in Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and George W. Bush, the, well, lead character in Oliver Stone’s W. Truly, it never rains but it pours.
The son of James Brolin, the journeyman TV and movie actor, and Jane Cameron Agee, who raised him and his younger brother on a ranch in Paso Robles, California, Brolin made a memorable impression in his first movie role, as Sean Astin’s protective older brother in Richard Donner’s The Goonies (1985). Ever since, he has remained active in movies, television and regional theater, starring in no fewer than three TV series (the most popular being “The Young Riders,” in which he played a cocky Wild Bill Hickok) and occasionally playing supporting parts for such notable auteurs as Woody Allen (Melinda and Melinda) and David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster). Along the way, however, there have been acres of dry stretches, work for hire in dubious projects—did anyone just say The Mod Squad?—and even periods when a possible career change seemed like a viable option. (Between gigs, Brolin has successfully dabbled as a day trader and actually co-founded a trading company, MarketProbability.com.)
As his career renaissance continues apace, you might look at his current frenzy of activity and think Brolin is making up for lost time. But he doesn’t see it quite that way. For one thing, in his view, the years before 2007 were neither lost nor wasted. In the years ahead, he hopes to take a “less is more” approach to selecting scripts. Unless, of course, the scripts are too good to pass up. In that case, well, look out Thomas Mitchell…
Joe Leydon (MM): First off, congratulations on your very good year. But, you know, it’s a funny thing: You read some of the recent articles about “The Comeback of Josh Brolin,” and you get the feeling some of these folks don’t know that, hey, you actually were a steadily employed working actor between The Goonies and No Country for Old Men.
Josh Brolin (JB): And very happily a working actor—very happily. Look, people create what they need to create, and that’s fine. It’s their spin on it. And that’s okay, whether it was one guy in the media and then everybody else got on that bandwagon, I understand that. I’ve heard people say, “You were doing C-minus work, and now you’re doing A work,” but that’s not how I feel. To me, doing No Country for Old Men was the same thing as a really great experience doing black-box theater. Or being in Rochester, New York with Anthony Zerbe [as part of the Reflections Festival at the Geva Theatre]—which was one of my great experiences of all time, running two slots in a theater for five years. For me, it’s all pretty much the same. I do like that I have more choices now, that’s the biggest thing. When someone asks, “Would you like to do this?” if I turn it down that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll feel that I may not work again for two years. The choices happen more often than they used to. That’s nice.
MM: On the other hand, like your wife, Diane Lane, you’ve been around for a while, and established yourself with consistently good work—but it’s only relatively recently that things have really turned around. With her, you could say it was after Unfaithful. Can you think of the point where you started thinking, ‘Oh, I guess I’m at another level now’?
JB: When No Country for Old Men was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, that was a big turning point. But it wasn’t really until the Oscars, which was very surreal for all of us. It’s so great, because the last movie I did where I felt similar to this was Flirting With Disaster. It was a movie where I actually watched it and—forget public perception—I said to myself, ‘Thank god I’m in this movie. I love this movie. I love what it’s about, I love the characters, I love the writing, I love everything about it.’ That was kind of the same feeling I had when I first saw No Country for Old Men. I think the Coens felt this way, too.
But, you know, at first I thought, ‘No one’s going to see this movie. It’s too bleak, it’s too much, the way they’re doing it. There’s too much mystery in it, there are too many questions. People don’t want to philosophize about movies right now. They want Transformers; they want it right in your face. They want it like commercials, with the editing so fast. They want immediate gratification. And this is the opposite of that.’ But it turned out that people embraced the movie. They saw it over and over and they loved talking about it, whether they disliked it or they loved it. They talked about it for days, weeks, months. And they’re still asking questions about it. The Q&As I’ve been through for this movie are the most interesting things I’ve ever been through. And then the Oscars. Man, for this movie to win Best Picture, it’s crazy.
MM: Crazy?
JB: Look, my own sensibilities are such that, personally, this is a movie I would see over and over again. Even I weren’t in it, this is a movie I would truly embrace. Because I love this kind of writing, I love this kind of storytelling. But it’s pretty amazing, man. It’s a unique film.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Kristin Rusher on 7/12/09 at 1:59 am
He was on the Goonies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But he was 17 then..........
_KNR he he Korn
This story was published in the Future of Moviemaking 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
The Year of Josh Brolin
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