Caffeinated Clint
Clint talks to the “No Country for Old Men” star
Josh Brolin, son of the legendary James, is one of today’s most accomplished actors – as evident by his bravura performances in the likes of ‘’Flirting with Disaster’’, ‘’Into the West’’, ‘’The Dead Girl’’ and the recent, ‘’Grindhouse’’. It’s only now though with his role in the award-winning ‘’No Country for Old Men’’, directed by the Coen Bros, that Hollywood is really starting to sit up and take notice of the former ‘Goonie’. CLINT MORRIS reports.
Josh, people are creamin’ over your performance in “No Country for Old Men” but as far as I’m concerned, you’ve always been great.
Thanks man. Thanks.
That’s OK; I’m just buttering you up for all the “Goonies” questions I’m going to ask.
Yeah man, Yeah.
And your wife (Diane Lane) would have to be my favourite actress on the planet.
Man, thank you so much. That means a lot. Why don’t you come over?
I wish I could, man. It’s pouring raining here.
Where are you?
In Melbourne. And it’s supposed to be Summer. Typical.
Yeah it’s a bit like that here – overcast.
But to this great movie. How did you get involved in “No Country for Old Men”?
I knew about it way before it was a movie. I’d read the book by Denis Leahne. Sam Shepard, the Playwright, who I did True West with, was in Austin promoting a movie he did with Wim Wenders, and I was doing Grindhouse at the same time, so we went out drinking one night. He told me that I had to read this amazing fucking book. I swear, I’d never seen him like this he was like ‘You HAVE to read this book’. He was just so jazzed about it that I went to the book store the next day. I read it in like a day-and-a-half and I was just blown away. It had great characters, a great story, it was uniquely cold. I was just really into it on a literally level. And I found out about a month-and-a-half later, I think, that the Coen’s were doing a movie [based on the book] but they were looking for someone much younger than me. And I said ‘Well, can I at least put myself on tape?’ – I couldn’t leave because I was still doing Grindhouse. So I put myself on tape. They saw it. They did not respond to it. In the least. Anyway, I have a great agent who just kept banging away and kept telling them ‘All you need to do is meet him.. just meet him’. I found out that they called my agent the night before the very last casting session for the film and said ‘First of all, leave us the fuck alone. And second, we’ll give him a shot – but we’ve already seen him, we know it’s not what we’re looking for. Anyway, they sent me the scenes. I stayed up half the night reading them. The next morning I was down there and by that afternoon I had the part.
Fantastic. Persistence of your agent, too!
Amazing. It’s a rare thing.
It’s a really heavy going movie – was it easy to turn off at the end of each day?
You know, contrary to what people would normally think – and yes there was a lot of focus – but I so much fuckin’ fun on this movie man! [Laughs]. We laughed. We just laughed the whole time. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had on a movie. Javier [Bardem] and I were just busting each other’s chops – his haircut, my mullet, the fact that I had to have blood on me for three quarters of the film. You have to compensate – there’s no way you can live in that for so long, you’d go insane.
So that was my next question actually – how was it going from something as fun and hammy as ‘’Grindhouse’’ to this. But you’ve just answered it.
As heavy as Grindhouse?
No, hammy…
Oh, but that takes more focus for me – because you’re thinking ‘How much can we ham it up?’ ‘How much is too much?’. You’re constantly looking because that’s what kind of happens with absurd comedies like that. I don’t know if you really see it as a comedy… I’ve always seen it as a comedy.
Oh yeah, definitely. I thought it was hilarious. Laughed all the way through it.
I always find it comedies the focus is way, way, way more. Maybe it was different for American Gangster – because that was just straight-up focus. But it was a different feeling. So yeah, No Country was a ball… for me.
Was it a physical kind of a role?
Very. Yeah. I’d broken my collar bone about two days after I got the movie – before I started it – by ramming my motorcycle into a car. Snapped my collar bone.
Jeez. Nice. Ouch.
Ouch. Yeah. So it was worse…. It was a physical movie and all that, but with the broken collar bone it was made a little tougher.
You’re in a lot of the movie by yourself. Any pressure?
There was only pressure because I was afraid I’d over compensate. I felt naked at some point because you’re out there by yourself. I had all those inner dialogues going on in order to react to… something. The biggest challenge was to learn how to convey ideas without over compensating. This is a dialogue-driven business, for the most part, so I had to do something. I said to Coen’s “If you see me taking a trip to Tahiti in my eyes, just tell me!’[Laughs]
If it looks like you’re acting in ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ they were to wake you up, then?
Yeah. Nice. [Laughs]
Tommy Lee [Jones] was great in the movie – but I take it you guys didn’t even work with each other. Did you even appear in a scene together?
No, we never shared a scene – we were on the set together, talked a lot. I think I’ve talked to him more on the promotional trails than I did on the movie. I actually did two films with him – the other was In the Valley of Elah – in which I didn’t work with him. I love Tommy – he’s a scary guy in the beginning; very intimidating, and he doesn’t really feel the need to say anything, he doesn’t feel the need to be charming or hold his end of the conversation but then when you get past all that shit, he’s an amazing guy. Amazingly smart. A great conversationalist. He’s a decent cat. We were actually looking at a film afterwards to do together – but we both decided not to do it. I’m sure we will work together again though. He left me probably the nicest message that I’ve gotten. After he saw the film – he saw the film with Oliver Stone, who I’m guessing he’s done a couple of movies with – he left a message on my machine, my favourite line was “It has extended moments of originality”. I love that.
You’ve had a fantastic year this year haven’t you? “Grindhouse” was one of my favourite films of the year…
Me too, man. I don’t understand why it didn’t do better – I just hope that it has a whole other resurgence with DVD. I’ve known Robert (Rodriguez) for a long time and we came up with that character. What a gift.
It was such a blast. They split the films here.
They split them? Two different theatres?
No, they separated “Death Proof” and “Planet Terror” for release – the latter hasn’t even come out yet.
Really? You didn’t get to see the trailers in the middle and all that?
No. Everyone missed the whole big screen experience of seeing the double.
I think it was important to keep it together because that was the intention – and that’s the way it works the best. I mean people were crying that it ran over three hours, but look American Gangster is two hours and forty minutes – what’s another half hour in your seat?
They weren’t crying about sitting through “Titanic” either.
Yeah, exactly… but they should’ve been! [Laughs]
They should’ve been. The wife actually got it out again this week and near made us watch it again.
Ha Ha Ha! Yep.
And you’re doing “Milk” next?
Yeah. I’m really happy about that. I’ve had a lot of scripts come across that’s edible, and I’ve been reading them all, and I read Milk and I think Sean [Penn], who I’ve known for a while, kinda lobbied for me to do it. I think Matt Damon was supposed to do it, but he left. I read it and I just loved it man. There was no question. A lot of the scripts you read you’re asking yourself ‘is this really going to come together?’, ‘will they change some of the dialogue?’… this script is just perfect. It’s an amazing story that should be told. It’s Sean, it’s Gus Van Sant, and it’s Emile Hirsch – who I love – so it’s all good. But I’m basically doing it for free – these great roles, I don’t get paid shit. I don’t know why.
I don’t know the answer, man. All we need now is this “Goonies” sequel to happen and your year is complete.
Why do people want there to be a Goonies sequel? There’s two ways it could go – to me, it’d be interesting to see a sequel because it’s been so long, 23 years or something. So now, you’d have me, a 40-year-old guy who’s probably drinking now, chain-smoking… I don’t fuckin’ know (Laughs). But to me, the whole idea of going from “I love The Goonies, which is a classic” to “I love The Goonies, what a classic, but did you see the new one?” You know what I mean?
They’re doing a sequel to “The Lost Boys” at the moment.
Are they doing that?!
Yeah, it just wrapped.
With Corey Feldman?
With Corey Feldman.
Of course it is. And Jason Patric? Did he do it?
No, no. no. Nobody of those guys returned.
Corey’s the only bleedover?
Corey’s the only guy.
There ya go. That’s a bummer.
Why do you think audiences have latched onto “No Country for Old Men”?
I’ve had people calling me saying ‘Why did it end like this?” “Why didn’t they show this or that?” and “Why is it this?” and my response is “Aren’t you sick of seeing the same thing over and over? Aren’t you relieved to have something a little bit different? As a movie experience? I don’t understand why you’re angry, you should be happy!!?”. But then again, I’m glad those people exist because people are going to see and they’re wanting to pull more out of it. They get to talk about it. It’s just great. When you see a movie don’t you want to have an experience where in the days afterwards you’re still thinking about the movie? That to me is the ultimate experience. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know.
I have to ask this, because it’s something one of my editors likes me to ask – what would we find in your DVD collection?
In mine? Oh I dunno, it’s pretty boring man. “Dog Day Afternoon”, for sure, it’s one of my top two movies. There’s a movie I’ve seen so many times called Layolo (sp?), there’s… I should probably tell you. Let’s go have a look…
Ah, let’s see. “Last Tango in Paris”, “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, “Mikey and Nicky”, “Memento”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, “Mondays in the Sun”… it just goes on and on.
Great taste. And great taste in picking what movies you do, too. So whaddya think Oscar Nomination for “No Country”?
Just keep thinking that way [Laughs]. I love that people are thinking that way, because it just means that people are liking the movie… they’re really responding to it. I know we just won some awards – National Board of Review – and got best picture, which is really a nice, nice perk. I don’t know. And you never know. But yeah, I’m not gonna shy away.
We will definitely be championing a Josh Brolin Oscar next year.
Thanks so much for saying that. And thanks for all the sweet compliments – especially about my wife.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN commences December 26
