In a new GQ “Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters” video piece, actor Josh Brolin reveals that when director Denis Villeneuve wanted him for a part in “Dune” and offered to send the script, Brolin immediately said, “No need.” As in, having worked with him already, he was taking the part without having to read a word. “I had a feeling first of all, and it was Denis, second,” Brolin explained about why he gave an immediate yes.
But it wasn’t always that way. Before he worked with Villeneuve, Brolin revealed in the same video that he had turned down “Sicario” several times, evidently not persuaded enough by what the script offered his character.
Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, however, who had already worked with Brolin on “No Country For Old Men,” and Villeneuve on “Prisoners,” was already convinced of the director’s talents and apparently sent Brolin a strongly worded message to convince him otherwise and also to reveal that he was already in the concept art and the team wanted him badly.
“I had turned down ‘Sicario,’ strangely enough with Denis, a couple of times, and Roger Deakins said to me at some point, ‘stop being an asshole and get down there, your face is on the drawings,’ and I was like, ‘Ok, I’ll stop being an asshole,’” he laughed. “I didn’t know I was being an asshole, but…”
Brolin suggested he didn’t love the script, and when Villeneuve told him, essentially, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it better and fitted for you,’ he didn’t believe him because this is what all directors in Hollywood say to convince you to take a part—and there’s usually little follow through.
“Denis had said this thing, ‘we’re going to develop it,’ and all that, and you hear every director say that, and it’s usually bullshit, and it’s kind of a go-to for every director to make the actor feel super important,” he smiled. “Anyway, we did develop it; Denis is that kind of director where he’s like, ‘What’s working? ‘And what’s not working? And this is what we had planned, but it doesn’t feel right, so let’s try something else.’”
Brolin’s Matt Graver, a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer character, is extremely confident in the part. But Brolin admitted he was extremely nervous at first. But then he found the hook that he says basically became another character in the movie: the chewing gum he’s always vigorously masticating on.
“In the beginning, I told Denis at first, ‘I need a hook, I needed something to have a foundation, a base that I can always rely on, that I can always fall back on. And I was doing the first scene, and I was really nervous, I got really nervous. And if that’s called for in the scene, that’s great, but it wasn’t called for cause I was supposed to be super confident. Denis pulled out a piece of gum, I think to chew it himself, and I said, ‘Can I have a piece of that gum?’ and I put it in my mouth, and I said, ‘I’m good. I’m there,’ and it was the gum. The gum became almost this whole character in the movie.”
Brolin also told a humorous story of trying to shoo away Villeneuve from his trailer because he knew what it meant was the production would be dropping lines of expository dialogue away from Benicio del Toro and then giving it to Brolin.
“I remember Denis coming to my trailer and knocking on my door, and it got to the point where I’d say, ‘Go away!’ Because I knew that the less Benicio del Toro said, the better, so then they would give the [dialogue] to me,” he laughed. “They would say, ‘Josh likes to talk a lot; why don’t you just give it to Josh?’ And I didn’t want to necessarily have all the dialogue in the movie, but it worked out.” (Note: a good companion piece to this story and more “Sicario” stories is Benicio del Toro on Roger Deakins’ filmmaking podcast; listen to that here).
Brolin would go on to appear alongside Del Toro in the sequel, “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” and the producers of the film say there is talk of a third film that will reunite the entire cast. Denis Villeneuve, however, said any plans for a third film would likely not involve him.
Regardless, It’s a charming piece. Watch the full interview below.
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
