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Josh Brolin Finds No Country for Old Men
By Fred Topel | Image property of Miramax.
Josh Brolin has few lines in No Country for Old Men. Playing a hunter who makes off with a bag of cash he finds at a murder site, he spends most of the film making careful preparations and putting his plans into action, without speaking to people. The actor concentrated on body language and other subtle tricks to communicate with the audience.
Brolin Talks No Country for Old Men
"It was a fear, for sure, because dialogue that’s what you kind of rest upon as an actor," said Brolin. "Drama and all the stuff is all dialogue motivated. You have to figure out different ways to convey ideas and you don’t want to overcompensate because the fear is that you’re going to be boring if nothing’s going on so you start doing this and this and taking off your hat and putting it on again or some bullsh*t that doesn’t need to be there. So I was a little afraid of that in the beginning but I also knew people like the Coen’s who feel absolutely no need to uphold their end of the conversation or only really say what needs to be said and they don’t sit there as directors and manipulate you and go into page after page to try to get you to a certain place. They may come in and say one word or two words so that was nice to be around in order to feed the other thing. What should I do right now? I’ll just watch Ethan go humming to himself and pacing maybe that’s what I should do too."
The directors actually helped Brolin find his character's signature sound. "For me there was a part that we actually rehearsed that I said, 'Hey, I think we should inject something here and I think it’s important and I’m afraid if we put something here he’s going to be talking to himself so much that it’s going to seem like he’s crazy and we don’t want him to come across as being crazy.' He’s just a guy who once in a while answers an inner monologue, an inner dialogue that he has because he spends so much time alone. So anyway, when he finds the money, flips open the money and looks at the dead guy and then there’s a moment where he goes 'Mm-hmm,' that was my added dialogue. Every time we do it and we had a whole conversation about it and we tried different ways and every time we screen it no matter where Ethan is in the theatre I can hear him [laugh] so he loves that moment. The whole thing with that is I’m used to improvising and this is a whole different monster. The fear is being boring and the fear is overcompensating. So hopefully we pulled it off."
No Country for Old Men
Brolin worked through pain. After suffering a motorcycle accident, Brolin told the Coens he was okay to work two days later. "It’s really boring but I lied and I told them it was much more minor than it was and then I was told I was liable if anything happened to me and then I talked to my doctor and then he lied for me and then really the only reason I was able to do the movie is I remember Ethan said to me after he talked to the doctor he said, 'What shoulder is it?' I said, 'It’s my right shoulder.' He said, 'Moss gets shot in the right shoulder. We’ll be fine,' he said and we never had to change anything in the movie. I couldn’t plate it because of the risk of infection of cutting me and going in an plating it, so it was a floating break so during the river scene it was moving all over the place."
When you watch some of Brolin's action scenes, know that he was suffering for your amusement. "The dog didn’t friggin’ help, the untrained dog, the non-movie dog. They thought that was funny. I remember the trainer saying at one point, I was sitting in the water and the trainer goes to the crew, he’s not talking to me, but the trainer looks at the crew and says, 'If the dog runs after you on the beach, do not move.' I was like, 'What the f*ck, man? He comes swimming after me every take.' So it wasn’t fun."
That turned out to be the perfect rehab for Brolin though. "Even doctors they go, 'It doesn’t heal like that. When you have a floating collarbone it doesn’t heal like that. What did you do for rehab?' and I said, 'I swam away from a rabid dog. I got shot. I got this and that. I ran away from the Mexicans in the truck. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that technique. It’s a good one.'”
No Country for Old Men goes wide this Friday.
For the trailer, stills, review and more movie info, go to the No Country for Old Men Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of Miramax.
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