Opening this weekend is director Ruben Fleischer's (Zombieland) Gangster Squad. The movie is set in 1940s Los Angeles and stars Sean Penn as real-life gangster Mickey Cohen, who became the target of special task force known as the âGangster Squadâ made up of Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, and Robert Patrick. The film also stars Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, and Mireille Enos. For more on the film, be sure to check out our set visit coverage here, and watch six clips.During the recent Los Angeles press day, I landed an exclusive interview with Josh Brolin. During our wide ranging conversation we talked about what the last few years have been like as he's been in some high profile movies, how he got involved in Gangster Squad, what changed on set, future projects like Spike Lee's Oldboy, Jason Reitman's Labor Day, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sean Penn's Crazy for the Storm, Pitz and Joe, Under and Alone, a possible project with Jessica Chastain, and a lot more. Hit the jump to read.Collider: Did you wrap Oldboy yet?Josh Brolin: I did, already started gaining weight.I was going to say, does it feel good to be done with that?Brolin: It does, it does. I had one of, and Iâm not kidding, one of the best timeâs Iâve ever had on a movie set, ever. Labor Day was an amazing shoot for me for very different reasons. Not only did I- Iâm not going say hate, I did not have a good experience during Jonah Hex in New Orleans. I was staying down in the Quarter, which was a massive mistake that I made. And now Iâm staying on Magazine Street. I was in the Garden District; I fucking fell in love with New Orleans. I absolutely feel deeply in love with Spike [Lee], I feel in love with Sean Bobbitt, the DP, who did Shame and Hunger, fell in love with him. Fell in love with Lizzie Olson, thought ultimately that if itâs edited together, which Iâll be a part of later, if itâs edited together even close to what the experience was, it will be really good. It should be really good.I have so many more questions on that, but Iâm going to jump into other things first.Brolin: Yeah, totally.I went to New Orleans before seeing Treme and I thought one thing of the city, and after watching Treme I now have a whole different appreciation -Brolin: Whole different perspective right? -and I love it down there.Brolin: Yeah, I love it down there.Itâs great, totally different way of life.Brolin: Totally; whole different mentality.Youâve been acting since basically The Goonies.Brolin: Sixteen.So a long time ago.Brolin: Long time.But it seems to me within the last few years youâve really landed some juicy parts, especially the last four or five years.Brolin: On film. Yes.Brolin: I landed juicy parts before that in theater, but never, not never, but seldom in film. Like Flirting with Disaster, I thought that was a really nice part to be able to fuck around with and stuff like that, but it was very random and it didnât come often. Yes, I agree.The last few years-Brolin: Six years.Have seen a spike in high-profile projects, if you will.Brolin: And great directors.That too. Whatâs it been like for you in terms of like working in theater, paying your dues, and all the sudden being able to work at this high level of Hollywood?Brolin: I never saw it as paying my dues; I was just a blue-collar actor who was working for a mortgage and to put his kids through school. People imagine that because my dad was really successful early on that we were in a situation where, âOh, your dad can give you money, your dad can do this, your dad can do that.â My dad was on a one-bedroom apartment down in Pacific Palisades with fucking magazine articles all over the place, all over the floor, 150 vitamin bottles in the kitchen, losing his mind basically. So we were all not down and out, but we were all struggling for the next job. âWhat job are you going to do? What job are you going to do?â âI donât know. I havenât worked for a year.â I think the longest I went without working was sixteen months. So when Grindhouse and No Country for Old Men happened just because of working with those people then Ridley Scott said âOh, whoâs Josh? I know heâs been around for a long time.â Or he doesnât know who I am, never heard my name, said, âWe have this part, would he be good in it?â O.K. Iâll audition for that. Then you get American Gangster and In The Valley of Elah because Iâm friends with Paul [Haggis] and he said, âCan you do this little part for me? Great.â And then things start to change and the biggest thing for me is how do I elongate what can very easily be a flash? I think that was my biggest- it was like look, I donât care how any one of these films do, thereâs a perception right now, thereâs an interest right now how do I elongate that as much as possible? And I remember my agent and I, thank god for him, man. Heâs probably the only agent that any actor can say that about. Heâs the greatest human being who has truly kept his sensibilities.You should drop his name.Brolin: Michael Cooper, CAA. We just had a talk the other day and heâs in the same mentality that he was before I did Grindhouse. Itâs just like, âGood projects are going to be the only thing that matters, money will come, you donât have to make the most money, weâre really fortunate right now making any money doing the projects we love that resonate the most.â So what do I do now? Do I try to find a money gig? Or, you know, there are a couple of filmmakers that have come out of the woodwork right now who are amazing filmmakers like âDo you want to this? Itâs not going to pay a lot.â And I read the movies and these are just great movies, theyâre just great movies. You know theyâre going to be great movies, you know theyâre going to be directed well, they may not be huge hits, or they may be. No Country shouldnât have been a huge hit and it was. Itâs the biggest movie I did to date. Or True Grit, that wasnât going to be a huge hit, who wants to fucking see a western where you canât understand anybody in the whole thing? And then suddenly it makes twice as much as No Country.Thatâs just a damn good movie.Brolin: Itâs just a really good movie. When youâre with good filmmakers who donât get it right every time, but the ratio and the possibility and the probability factor of them making a decent film that is not pandering, that still has a lot of integrity and yet is still a really fun, interesting or great story to be able to ride on is the best bet for us. Jumping into Gangster Squad, the reason I get to talk to you today, what was it about that project that pulled you in? Was it the crazy cast that you guys assembled? Was it the script? What was the thing?Brolin: The cast wasnât assembled until later. [Jeff] Robinov came to me when I was making Men in Black 3 about playing Mickey Cohen, and I was like, âReally? Alright.â And then I got together with Christian Tinsley, my makeup guy that I use often, and who did Oldboy, he did W, he did a lot of these movies that Iâve done and will do Hunchback of Notre Dame and all this stuff. So we did a couple tests of me as Mickey Cohen and I ended up looking kind of like Oliver Stone. I donât know how, but I was like, âWell, I look like Oliver.â And then I just said, âYou know what? Itâs a great part, it sounds like a lot of fun, I just donât buy it. I just donât buy it ultimately, and if I donât buy it nobody else is going to buy it. So I think we should go to Sean and figure out what he needs and wants and letâs give it to him, because I think heâs going to kill this part.â So Sean doing it, finally getting him to do it I think was a huge factor. I like the fact that it honored LA, that it was an homage to LA. That was huge as a seventh generation Californian. I have massive pride around Los Angeles and especially California. And that was the biggest thing, and then Ryan was involved which was a factor. Then we started putting together the gang, and who is going to be? Is it going to be Anthony Mackie? Is it going to be Giovanni Ribisi? Thatâs my fourth movie Iâve done with him. Then you start to go, âThis works, I like this.â And then you always know at least for the first time in my life, if I donât love it I can pull out as were putting it together before real pre-production starts. Itâs just like look, I know I want to work with the studio, I love this studio, Jeff Robinov and I have a great relationship, but is this really what we want to do? Letâs maybe find something else, letâs maybe develop something else. O.K. Letâs do that. This just seemed- every step of the way seemed like a right step. Ultimately, I think we had to much dialogue for me, expositional bullshit dialogue that we ended up cutting out and making him a little more laconic and a little more Eastwood-esque, which I think was absolutely appropriate and was a great balance with Sean. Heâs kind of up here doing his thing and then Ryan whoâs doing his kind of idiosyncratic thing and itâs a great triangle of characters.; none representing the other at all.Iâm definitely curious about deleted scenes, was this one of those things where thereâs like thirty minutes on the cutting room floor?Brolin: No, no, no. Definitely not, no. Mostly mine, mostly my expositional dialogue that I just couldnât stand. I couldnât stand saying it, I couldnât stand doing it, and I couldnât stand it when I saw it. I think all of us were like, itâs un-needed. The movieâs showing you what happened. Weâre not doing a TV series, weâre doing a film. People have intelligence; they can see whatâs going on. I donât think we have to say more than twice or three times âWeâre going to go down the street, if we make a right turn and somebody shoots at you donât forget to shoot back. You can protect yourself here. Come on letâs move, letâs go!â Itâs just like, dude, shut up.Sometimes less is more. Thatâs true in almost everything.Brolin: I think almost everything. And then if you have a character within that less is more genre, or tone of the film, then you can have people like Sean who is like doing his thing, which I think is great, is needed in order to better motivate that story.Jumping into Labor Day for a second, what was that experience like?Brolin: Amazing.Can you talk a little bit about the film? Who do you play? All that stuff.Brolin: I play a guy, right before he gets out, during an appendectomy actually jumps out of the second story window of a prison hospital and escapes and kidnaps a woman and her son and they end up having a relationship over the five days that heâs with them.Which is, by the way, so not what Jason Reitman has done before.Brolin: No, no this is very, very different. I actually see the movie on Tuesday, I believe. I see the first cut of the movie on Tuesday, which I know several people have seen it, theyâre very happy with it. I know heâs very happy with it. I know itâs tonally very different for him and Iâm excited man. Iâm nervous, but Iâm excited. Itâs hard to talk about Oldboy where heâs got twenty years in prison, then youâve got this guyâs got eighteen years in prison and youâre like, âOh, Iâm that guy?â But theyâre very, very, very different; very different.Iâve actually liked all of Jasonâs films.Brolin: Yeah, me too.I really have. I think heâs a very talented filmmaker.Brolin: Yeah.I definitely want to address Oldboy real quick. Obviously I donât want to have you give away too much; I donât want to spoil anything for people, but I think a lot of people want to hear that this is not some watered down version of this great story.Brolin: Definitely not. Thereâs this whole idea, which I donât like and I donât appreciate, I donât even like talking to people about, âHollywood is this. Hollywood does this. Hollywood waters down.â It really depends on who the filmmakers are, it depends who the actors are and how much control they have, or not even control, how much influence they have over the final cut of something and all that. And it was like, look, Iâm not going to do a movie that is watered down. Iâm just not. [Gangster Squad] is a watered down movie of sorts, this is more of a commercial, fun rollercoaster, not a lot of consequence or that kind of thing. It is what it is. Itâs within the genre that itâs in and tonally what weâve created. With Oldboy, look, it's Spike Lee, its myself, the DP Sean Bobbitt, who's a fucking amazing man and me talking, like I said, to Chan-wook Park and saying, âDo you mind if we do this?â and his only request was just donât do the same movie and itâs like no were not interested in that. Structurally, as a scaffolding, itâs the same movie, but what we do with is very different. It looks very different. Spike, about two and a half weeks into the movie cut together this four minute compilation just for me to look at. Not that I needed it, not that I felt like Iâm lost, I donât know what Iâm doing. He just gave it to me and said, âDonât look at this until you get home.â And I watched this four minute compilation and it looked fantastic. It was a massive, massive inspiration. We were out of the motel room at that point, so I didnât have to do that anymore. But we spent more time in the motel room. We did eight minute to eleven minute long takes where he would just let me go and do whatever. Iâd be sitting there naked in the room and he would say, âYouâve been in the room thirteen years; go.â And I would do eight minutes on that and whatever would come up. Some of it was really stupid and unusable. Some of it was really fun and interesting.By the way, just to go on record and Iâll say this, I think Oldboy is a really good movie, but I donât think itâs flawless.Brolin: I donât either.And Iâm not-Brolin: No, youâre not one of those where itâs- which I donât understand also, âWhy would you remake the film?â Just donât see it if you donât like it, if you donât want to see a remake of the film. Why do another Star Wars? Why do three more? The first three are amazing. Why do the second one when the first one was great? Why do a remake? Who cares? My attitude, and Iâve said this many times to many people, as long you make a good movie thatâs all that fucking matter.Brolin: Thatâs all that fucking matters.Thatâs it.Brolin: And you can choose to see it or not to see it.And also a lot of people donât realize that like 99.9% of the people that are going to see Spike Leeâs Oldboy, will have never seen the first one.Brolin: Absolutely. So thank god itâs out there as a story as some kind of like mythological, or Shakespearean, or Greek story. Why not?Thereâs a big fish scene in the original and thereâs also some really big fight scenes, and Iâm curious about-Brolin: An octopus is involved.[Laughs]Brolin: Iâll say that. Iâll say that. In what way, I wonât say.Sure and my other question for you is, there are some great action scenes in the original Oldboy that-Brolin: Ours are amazing.One of the things I love about the original Oldboy is the very long takes with action.Brolin: I remember talking about this with you before.Right exactly, but my question for you, without giving away too much do you guys match some of that?Brolin: We donât match anything. The only matching is that we do it in one take. Thatâs the only matching. Thatâs the only similarity. Well, no, thereâs one more similarity, but itâs basically the only similarity within that sequence and I think I can be safe to say that itâs not anything like the original other than it is one take and Iâve never experienced or seen anything like it. And I think what J.J. Perry did as the fight coordinator is something phenomenal. I will say this, I thought there is no way I could possibly pull it off until about a week before we did it after rehearsing it for quite a while.Iâve heard some fight scenes that are like 114 moves, or 180 moves, which is fucking bananas to me.Brolin: Somewhere in between.Yeah, so youâre on that level, thatâs unbelievable.Brolin: Somewhere in between, somewhere in between. I havenât actually counted, it could be more than that, it could be less, I donât know. But I do know that it was a lot and I do know that Iâm still suffering consequences because of it.I just interviewed Jason Clarke and he told me that he broke two ribs and hurt his ankle on White House Down fighting Channing [Tatum] My next question for you, youâve been doing all this stuff up to this point; 2013 is just about to open, what are you thinking about for next year in terms of projects that want to do?Brolin: There are a lot of projects, especially my relationship with warner brothers is pretty close, with Jeff Robinov and all that. We have Hunchback of Notre Dame with them that were closer and closer with. We have Crazy for the Storm that Seanâs going to direct with, which looks like it will probably go in the summer. We Pitz and Joe which is a play that I adapted and Maya Forbes helped me adapt, Iâm going to direct and act in. We have that. We have a documentary on Dean Potter that Iâm producing. We have Under and Alone as a possibility, which is about the Mongols motorcycle gang. We have Tammy Wynette and George Jonesâs story possibly with Jessica Chastain and me. All those are stuff that Iâm developing. Itâs just a question of which script-Brolin: Itâs just which one reaches its peak or is doable enough whenever itâs doable enough. I definitely have to ask you, you obviously were a part of Jonah Hex, but the comic book movie right now is bigger than itâs ever been. Avengers doing a billion dollars, Dark Knight Rises, a billion. Itâs preposterous how big these things are.Brolin: Oh, yeah, yeah. You have a great relationship with Warner Brothers, theyâre going to do Justice League for 2015, have had any sort of conversation about being a part of that?Brolin: No. Weâve got other conversations and if that conversation comes up Iâll have a conversation with anybody about anything. Thereâs nothing that I donât like. Somebody said recently that Iâm not a big-budget guy.Gangster Squad has some money in it.Brolin: Gangster Squad has money, I donât care if it has money or not. All I want to do is keep switching it up, thatâs all I care about. So whether I do a big movie or a smaller movie, there are bigger movies that Iâve turned down just because I didnât feel like- I said, âLook, Iâll be the first person to see this movie I just donât want to be in it. I donât want to spend the next six, eight months doing something that I get to show up and have the biggest trailer and do green screen do that.â Whereas Men in Black I was totally willing to do that because itâs a great character, and itâs a very difficult character.Well you also said something at the beginning of this conversation which is important and itâs true, and Iâve talked to a lot of different actors about this that the most important thing for the longevity of a career is doing good movies.Brolin: Thatâs it.You can get, as youâve said, a big paycheck for doing some summer movie that in two years everybodyâs forgotten about, but if you ended up doing a great project thatâs seen by the right filmmakers-Brolin: You said in the beginning, âYouâve been doing this a long time, since you were sixteen.â Iâve seen so many people come and go. Iâve seen so many people. Theyâre it, theyâre like the next thing, and then Iâve seen them go away. Then Iâve seen some people have resurgence then they go away and you never see them again. Iâve seen moments where you have two movies and itâs like theyâre going to be there for the next ten years and then you donât see them again and youâre like, âWhat the fuck happened?â I have no interest in any of that.
Josh Brolin Talks GANGSTER SQUAD, Spike Lee's OLDBOY, LABOR DAY, His Career After NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Future Projects, and More
Josh Brolin Talks GANGSTER SQUAD. Josh Brolin talks about Gangster Squad, Spike Lee's Oldboy remake, Jason Reitman's Labor Day, and more.