Josh Brolin on ‘Weapons,' ‘Dune 3' Teases, and Why He Hates Modern Marketing

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Josh Brolin had had the kind of career most actors can only dream about. He's done it all, working with all the biggest directors, writers, and producers in every genre, from western to sci-fi and back around again, sometimes both at the same time. And, when you talk to him, you feel that experience. That gravitas. That expertise. It's incredibly cool, very impressive, and just a tiny bit intimidating.
io9 spoke to Brolin recently about his latest film, Weapons, which opens August 8. Written and directed by Zach Cregger, it's the story of how a town reacts when an entire classroom of children mysteriously disappears into the night. Brolin is Archer, the father of one of the boys, who makes it his own personal mission to figure out what happened. It was a role that Pedro Pascal was first attached to but had to drop out of. Brolin is not usually a second choice actor though, so we talked about if he had any hesitation coming into the role as well as what Cregger brings that reminds him of other filmmaking legends.
From there, we touched upon the film's marketing, his thoughts on spoilers, as well his involvement (or lack there of) with Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three. He got honest about Goonies 2, the cancelation of Outer Range, and more. Check it out.
Germain Lussier, io9: The press notes for Weapons said you didn't immediately decide to do this, but that you just kept coming back to it. What was it about the film that made you finally decide to do it?
Josh Brolin: No, I just think I'm a skeptic anyway. I mean, there are very few things in the last 20 years, like [the Coen Brothers] or Denis, where it was like, 'Hey, do you want to do Dune? We'll send you the script.' And it was like, 'Yes,' before I even read it. You know, it's one of those things. But I think Zach had done one movie, and I know somebody had dropped out of this movie, and then they called me. 'Do you want to read the script?' And I was really taken by the design. It's just a very smartly designed script. It's a very smart script in a genre that's always perceived to be only cosmetic. And I think something's changed recently with a couple of filmmakers, with Get Out and Sinners and all this kind of stuff, and they're mixing it up. And I just think it's timing. I don't think they're all kind of playing off each other. And oh, we got a copycat this and all that. But I think Zach is a very unique, very emotional guy who is using the horror genre to his benefit in a lot of ways. And using the sketch comedy that he did, and incorporating that somehow. So it's a very unique voice in a very tired, or seemingly tired, genre.
io9: You mentioned some of the fantastic directors you've worked with. Even though this is just Zach's second feature, is there anything about him that makes you think he could eventually get to that Coen Brothers, Denis Villeneuve level?
Brolin: I mean, he reminds me of the Coens in that he embraces absurdity. He embraces this idea of how we get in our own way. And how kind of, for lack of a better word, 'stupid' we are sometimes, making it way harder than it needs to be. And that has nothing to do with the kids disappearing and all that. But you have Julia [Garner]'s character, who's an alcoholic. You have Alden [Ehrenreich]'s character, who's going out with this married woman. You know what I mean? It's like what we do to just make chaos out of our lives in order to what? Feel like we're living a full life when we're actually doing quite the opposite. And then he takes this massive subject to what's the thing that you value the most, and what if that was taken away from you? Are you going to come back to a self that's actually reliable? Or you're going to have to work yourself through all that chaos in order to get to a place that is valuable yourself. Then if you finally get that valued thing back, then suddenly you treat it differently than you had before. And I think that's what happens with Archer. He's a changed man by the end.
io9: You've done a lot of movies, especially of late and this one is no exception, where you can't really talk about a lot of the spoilers before release. So I'm curious, what are your feelings about this kind of fear of spoilers that's become so incessant in the last decade? Do you think knowing beforehand things about the movie will ruin the experience?
Brolin: I do. I think it totally ruins your experience. And that's a new thing. If you look back at some of the promotion of the '70s and the '80s and even the '90s, it created a mystery. The whole thing with PR is it pulled you in and gave you hints of what was to be. And then there was some, like, saturation. It almost was like an insecurity. It's like, 'We don't know what to do now, so we're going to show you the whole movie, what everything is about. We're going to ruin all the spoilers, all that kind of stuff, and then we expect you to see the movie.' It doesn't make any sense. So that's why I love these trailers. It's not only the first trailer. There was a teaser, and then there was a trailer, and then they started resorting back to different teasers. And it's great because look at what's happened. People are embracing it. The views are a ton. And everybody's talking about the movie like it's its own character. It's kind of great.
io9: Yes, it is. And that actually leads me to another question. As somebody who's been in the business so long, do you enjoy, or have you ever enjoyed, following the marketing and the PR of a film? After you're done with it, you go off and make something else, then this whole other team comes in. Do you like to observe and find yourself surprised by how the movies you're in are sold?
Brolin: Yeah, sadly I really enjoy that. I enjoy the business aspect of anything. People are like, 'Oh, business is not creative, and you're in the creative business. You're acting, or you're writing, or you're painting, and all that.' And I don't agree. I think the best business people I've seen and experienced are the people who are most creative. And usually the people that didn't finish college. You know what I mean? It's just my experience. People who just said, 'I'm not getting what I need out of this, and I'm going to go self-educate.' And very motivated people. Self-motivated. So, I love that aspect of it. It's interesting. Sociologically, it's interesting. It's like reading a Malcolm Gladwell book.
io9: I love that. Okay, I have three nerdy non-Weapons questions. First is Denis just started making Dune III. Gurney is a big part of Dune III. Can you say if you're in Dune III, and if so, are you excited to go back?
Brolin: [Silence] No. Somebody's shaking their heads. No. I'm not in Dune IV.
io9: All right. Understood.
Brolin: No, I don't know. I mean… no, that's not true.
io9: [Laughs]
Brolin: I think it's out there. I mean, if I check, I'm not there right now.
io9: That's true. You are currently in Los Angeles. [Note: This interview was on July 21.]
Brolin: And if I check, I read that I'm in Dune III. Fingers crossed.
io9: Well, we hope you are. Warner Brothers officially has somebody writing a Goonies 2 script for the first time. Considering how beloved that movie has become, if it worked out and your character was in it, would you have any trepidation going back to that?
Brolin: I would.
io9: Why so?
Brolin: Because I love The Goonies, [but] it's been 41 years. Let it lay. I mean, no, I love the idea, but I don't know. If they made one with different kids, then it becomes a different thing, and I think it taints the original one. I think people get excited, and people who were in the original movie, they get excited about being able to work with that group again because it was such an amazing experience. So do I think it should be done? I don't know, man. I love it just standing like it does.
io9: Last non-Weapons thing is I work for a sci-fi site and we were really big Outer Range fans. Were you okay with how it ended, leaving so many things open, or you wish you'd had some more time with it?
Brolin: I was mad when it happened. I didn't agree because that show got better. If you look at it again, from a business sense, and you look at it was like a 78% approval rating to a 92%, and we did it for way less budget and all that kind of stuff, it only makes sense that you would try and hold on to that and explore it more. I love that it was a big swing. I love that we got two seasons out of it. I think there were great actors that now have gone on [to great things]. Look at what Lewis Pullman is doing, look at what Imogen Poots is doing. I think it was pretty stupid not to hold on to some of those actors, but you make your decisions and you move on, and you hope for the best later. So we're good.
io9: Yeah, that's cool. Weapons allows us to see scenes from multiple points of view. And I just talked to Zach, and he told me he'd shoot them all at the same time. How does acting change at all in that scenario? Obviously, you do a lot of takes of things, but is there a differnece when you know multiple takes of the same thing are going into the movie?
Brolin: You're the first person who's asked that. It's all written in different… So say we're doing the same thing, it's not just written once, it's written twice, and I just figured he'd use the one from before. Just do a different angle on it, but he didn't. So he wanted it shot as it was written, which I appreciated. It surprised me! Because you go, 'Oh, I already did that' and then he wants it done again, which I appreciated. But yeah, he wants a different perspective as a different moment, which I love that it's a different performance and not just a different take.
io9: My last thing is, in the last couple of years, you've become a pretty prolific author, from the Dune poems to your memoir. Do you have more writing in your future?
Brolin: Right now. Right now, yeah. We're not going to work… I mean, we're lucky enough to work five jobs this year from June to June, and then I'm going to take the rest of the year off and just write.
io9: But not in the desert, though.
Brolin: Not in the desert.
Weapons opens August 8.
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