Josh Brolin arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2014. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
"Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" Star Josh Brolin Says He's An Absurdist Who Likes PB&J Sandwiches
By Kristina Skorbach, Epoch Times
August 21, 2014 Updated: August 21, 2014
Hollywood actor Josh Brolin took out an hour and a half of this schedule to answer some burning fan questions during a morning Reddit AMA session. The actor, who stars in the upcoming "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" is right now working in Albuquerque on his new crime drama starring Emily Blunt "Sicario."
Brolin talked about his love for absurdity, working with the industry's greatest filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, and the Ethan and Joel Coen on "No Country For Old Men."
After his session, Brolin simply concluded by saying that even though the AMA was instigated by promoting his film, he felt grateful for the honest and absurd questions from his fans.
Blow is what he had to say:
Q: To prepare for your role as a young Tommy Lee Jones in MBIII how many hours a day did you practice making your face extra weathered and wrinkly?
A: I have been practicing my whole life.
Q: Did you enjoy playing Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy? What do you think of the final product?
A: I'm becoming enough of a fan now that it's Thanos, okay? I was incredibly satisfied with the final product as a film. And really look forward to seeing what they'll do in the future.
Q: Follow up question: do you enjoy paying a villain, hero or the anti-hero ala Llewellyn?
A: I would say most of the people who know me would not parallel me with the roles I've become most known for. I'm an absurdist who embraces the absurd.
Q: What's your daughter's favourite movie: A. including you B. not including you?
A: My daughter, who is standing right here?
Oh god, my favorite movie with you… is probably…there's two. It's probably No Country and Thrashin' because it makes me laugh all the time, because your hair changes in every scene, I'll never forget that. And then not including him? God, I don't know, there's too many….I don't know… Dude, I have no idea.
What's a movie that we watched a lot as a kid? Like the Godfather or something?
Dog Day Afternoon!
Q: is Barbra Streisand a cool stepmother ?
A: (hashtag: yentl)
Q: Would you agree that the coolest thing anyone with the last name "Brolin" has ever done was that cameo your dad did in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure"?
A: Yes, first of all. And the guest episode he did for the Batman series. That's where he met my mom, who was an assistant casting director. He played a cop on Batman.
Q: You've spoken recently about your troubled youth and how some of your childhood friends were unable to move beyond their troubles, often resulting in their unfortunate demise. Your turn around in life can be quite inspiring. What advice would you have for troubled and at risk youth looking to overcome and succeed in life?
A: Erase labels. We were proud to label ourselves as "teen-agers" and got stuck on those labels as adults, to the demise of many of my friends. I'm just one of the lucky ones.
Q: "The Goonies" is the all time best adventure kid's movie for my generation. Do you have a funny or interesting story from making that movie?
A: They didn't show us the – actually, I do! They didn't show us the ship that was being built, which would now be CGI I'm sure, so this was long enough ago that everything was practical (which made things much more fun & fantastical) – so it was on a stage, the stage was a massive pool with a practical 110 foot boat built in it. And they backed us up into the stage, into the water, had the camera set up so that we could have an "organic" reaction, put us underwater, I came up out of the water, turned around, we all came up out of the water, I turned around and said "Holy s***!" which ruined the whole take. And the surprise. So we had to resort to acting in the end.
Q: Did you guys giggle everytime someone said "one eye Willy"? I never realized it was a euphemism until I went back and watched it in my teens! I've heard this story before…Why would "holy s***" ruin the take? S*** was said at other times in the movie.
A: My first day at work, half the day was ruined because I giggled so much. My dad didn't often bring me to the set, being an actor himself, so my infancy as an actor was wracked with a lot of giggles and nervousness.
Q: Josh, your remake of "True Grit" was, in my opinion, better than the original. If John Wayne was alive today, what is something you would ask him?
A: "Would you ever quit smoking?" "At which point did you come up with the persona?" There's early John Wayne, and late John Wayne. It always seems that with success, here's a cultivation of persona, which can make an actor's career, or ruin it.
Ooh, that's so deep.
Q: Be honest, Christian Bale is your half brother isn't he? http://imgur.com/a/9RZOL
A: Yes. The milkman's his dad.
Q: What's your craziest on-set story?
A: My craziest on-set story comes from during the Goonies, when I came up to Spielberg and said that I wanted to climb the walls of the tunnels and that it represented my mother's womb, for some odd reason. I was reading Stanislawski at the time and Spielberg's response was "Why don't you just act."
Q: What did George W think of your impersonation of him?
A: Oliver Stone saw Clinton at a art exhibit in China, where Oliver was selling some of his art. They started talking about W, Clinton (who's very close friends with W) loaned him his DVD, Oliver found out, and when Oliver asked Clinton how W liked it, his response was "Funny, but kind of sad."
Q: Is there a possibility of a sequel to "The Goonies"?
A: We just wrapped! There's always a possibility. Seriously, no teasing. About every 5 years it comes up. I've never read a script. It seems that recently in the last year, there's been more talk of it than usual from the likes of Corey Feldman and Richard Donner. But that's as far as it's gone for me. I don't know how I feel about a sequel, given that I love the original movie so much.
Q: What was it like working on set with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington? Did any thing wild happen on set.
A: Yeah. With Russell, I told him before when I was doing "No Country" that I was going to lose weight for the role, so they had the measurements of what I was supposed to be. When I showed up, apparently, I had forgotten to lose the weight, so I put on my wardrobe and went to rehearse my first scene with Russell. I was nervous (obviously) and excited, I asked Ridley if it was ok if we just ran through the scene once, I grabbed a chair and sat next to Russell. Halfway through the scene, and the seat of my pants ripped wide open. I missed the mark in making it a joke to break the ice between Russell and I. Once the scene was over, nobody was very impressed, and I went back to my trailer waiting to be fired. So while I was in my trailer, pantsless, there was a knock at the door, waiting there was Ridley, who said "I love the vulnerability you've brought to the role. Let's go more with that."
Q: Tell me which is grittier: Tommy Lee Jones' glare, or a literal bucket of grits?
A: Glare. Hands down.
Q: What was it like working with the cast and crew of No Country for Old Men? Do you have any off camera memories from Sin City: A Dame to Kill For?
A: Nobody gets that title right, ever! Phenomenal. Very distinctive personalities. All amazing actors. Garret Dillahunt and Kelly MacDonald gave phenomenal performances, you would never know she is from Scotland on that film. It was a special time, in that nobody had the idea that the film would be seen by anyone. Again – so deep! And heartfelt! All my memories are off camera, even when I was on-camera, it felt like I was off camera. A lot of painting with Robert Rodriguez and George Yepes (who is a painter, our teacher when Robert & I worked together – Robert has a studio out back, and we did about 8 paintings during that time).
Q: What was it like working with Quentin Tarantino? He seems like he'd be… an interesting dude.
A: More than interesting was going to screenings at Quentin's house, and having him break down the movies for a half-hour or more of what we were about to see. I think he's the only filmmaker out there that is as knowledgeable or more than Scorsese.