Jonah Hex-Josh Brolin

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/04/29/josh-brolin-jonah-hex-absurdist-tone/

Josh Brolin On The 'Absurdist' Tone Of 'Jonah Hex'

Jonah Hex"Jonah Hex" arrives in theaters June 18, featuring Brolin as the scarred bounty hunter out to bring down Quentin Turnbull, an evil plantation owner (played by John Malkovich) who's out to raise an undead army.

As part of MTV's Summer Movie Preview Week, we're bringing you interviews, clips and previews of some of the hottest films hitting theaters this season. And with the first "Jonah Hex" trailer arriving online today, it seems like the timing's perfect to bring you our exclusive interview with the film's star, Josh Brolin.

MTV Movies Editor Joshua Horowitz chatted up the "Hex" star to get his take on the film's evolution, where "Hex" fits in Brolin's impressive Hollywood career, and why he's hoping a movie he once said was "horrible" will become "even more absurdist than it already is."

MTV NEWS: We spoke over a year ago about "Jonah Hex." You talked about how the script might be "awful," but you were really excited about it. Did the movie live up to what you were hoping for?

JOSH BROLIN: I wouldn't say it lived up to it. It was something else entirely than what I thought it was. It's kind of a crazy, absurd journey through that movie, in that we were changing a lot of things while we were shooting, and it started to surface as a different movie than we had initially thought it was. Because of the actors we had, I thought we captured some really interesting performances, between Michael Shannon and Michael Fassbender and [John] Malkovich. I said to you before: "It's a horrible movie." It's not a horrible movie, and it was never a horrible movie. It was just something that I wasn't used to. It was a genre I'd never done. I thought it'd be great because we'll do something unique and original if we find [a director] who can help pull it off. And that's exactly what it's done — it's created an original, bizarre take on a supernatural subject.

MTV: Has the tone changed? Is it more absurdist than it was initially?

BROLIN: I think so. And, if anything, in post [-production], I'd like it to become even more absurdist than it already is. My feeling is, this isn't a straightforward Western. There are supernatural elements to it, and the more campy humor we go for, the better. We're still in the process of solidifying that tone. There's a lot of humor to use in this cut. We've been going, "How much humor do we use? Do we stay with the emotional line of the story? How can we release some of the exposition so we can just rely on the action?" All this kind of sh--. We're in the midst of it, man!

MTV: That sounds a bit like what happened with Oliver Stone's "W." He had a different cut at first ...

BROLIN: It's the same thing, but it's a different genre. It's a new entity for me. It was much more of an experiment from my end of things than "W." ever was. I like the cut of "W." that Oliver put out. Who knows if it was a timing thing. They made their money back and then some, so they were happy. You have a visionary with Oliver, and you know he's going to create something interesting. This is almost a little easier, because you can rely on visuals and tricks to entertain people, and they don't necessarily have to have bigger meaning.

MTV: This is probably the last summer movie that we've yet to see footage from. I know the trailer is about to drop, but is the delay because you've been trying to find the film in the edit? Are you concerned? The fanboys are wondering, "Is this a train wreck, or is it the greatest thing ever?"

BROLIN: Does it matter? I don't know. To answer your first question, no. I think when we did additional shooting and all that, there was some concern at that point. But I think we covered ourselves. And then — what adjectives did you use? Disaster? — ultimately, that's not up to us. You make the movie you make, and then we'll see how it's perceived. I remember Ethan Coen saying during "No Country for Old Men": "No one's ever going to see this." And then, voilà! With "Jonah," what is the right formula? Nobody knows what the right formula is, but there are some unique things about it that hopefully will resonate and audiences will hold on to that.

MTV: Has this been your closest brush with a superhero film? Have you come close to any of these other properties out there?

BROLIN: I was sweetly offered some other things that I won't tell you what they [were]. One turned out to be a huge movie, and one turned out to be OK and made some money. I talked to you about this. You were f---ing one of the reasons why I made the decision [to do "Jonah"]! I told you that a couple times, and it's still the truth: "Should I do this? Why not do this?" It's a risk.

MTV: Did you have the comic creators working with you?

BROLIN: Everybody was involved, including the guys who created "Jonah Hex." They were at the initial shoot in New Orleans, and they were extremely happy with what they were seeing. But this is much more of a movie that finds itself in the editing room than on the set. What we were doing on set always looked great, especially given the budget. For these kinds of visuals and special effects, we didn't have a major budget at all. We had to cheat a lot, and it has a lot grander scope than it should

MTV: This was a hell of a physical role for you.

BROLIN: Most physical I've ever done. It's the toughest movie I've ever done. The stunts and the makeup ... a lot of pain. The prosthetics on the face, they were holding my mouth back. And then putting a mouthpiece in that held my mouth back further. And then painting it and filling in the beard. I was walking around New Orleans with half a beard for three months, which was horrible. F---ing horrible! That combined with being in 100-degree heat, 98 percent humidity, three layers of wool on ... I don't know if I'd do it again.

MTV: What can you say about Megan Fox's role in the movie? She plays a prostitute.

BROLIN: She was great. There was one cut where I really thought Megan was the best thing in the film. When we did additional shooting, we just incorporated her more in the middle and the end, because she had only done eight days of shooting when we were in New Orleans. I think she did a fantastic job.

MTV: Tell me about this horse with Gatling guns that we've seen in that first bit of footage.

BROLIN: That was [director] Jimmy [Hayward]'s idea. I think they were supposed to be attached to the horse's abdomen. I was like, "If they are, I'll shoot his legs off. That's not really gonna work. But maybe we should try that! Maybe that'd be funny!"

MTV: Do you think there's franchise potential here?

BROLIN: Of course. I just said I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't do that version again. I think we learned a lot about what we can do with the prosthetics and how we can hybrid it with CGI. I talked to Robert Rodriguez a lot about it at Comic-Con and afterwards. I think it could be really interesting. The only thing that's going to facilitate a sequel is if people see it. Whether Jimmy would do a second one or if we'd go out and find someone else, almost like the "Bond" movies, I don't know.

There were a few foreign directors who we had in mind and almost did it but didn't feel they had enough prep time. Park Chan-wook, who did "Old Boy," was somebody I spoke to for hours three different times. I almost had him. He felt he didn't have enough prep time. At the last minute, I said, "Look, if you really feel you can't do it the way you want to, don't do it. We'll do something else together." And he was like, "Thank you!" I gave it to Oliver at one point. I gave it to everybody. You just have different versions. I think this version is as good as it possibly can be and hopefully will get better before we actually release it.

http://www.411mania.com/movies/news/138975

[Movies] Josh Brolin Discusses Working On Jonah Hex
Posted by Larry Csonka on 05.13.2010

The star speaks…

- Josh Brolin recently spoke about his work in Jonah Hex, here are the highlights….

On Describing His Makeup Routine: I'll tell you the sequence of events in the morning. We have a piece of fabric that's glued on this side here, and that has a piece on it. Then behind my ear, there's another piece of fabric glued. We attach it, and it pulls back one side of my face. Then we do a full prosthetic from here to here, then we put pieces in with wire that pushes in my cheek, and it holds part of my mouth back, then over that we do this prosthetic. Then we paint. See, I walk around in New Orleans, where it doesn't really matter, with half a mustache and half a beard. Nobody cares, no one can tell. So we put hair on here, and then we paint my face.

Who Is Jonah Hex?: Well, he's a loner, he's a guy who has lost an incredible amount. He's watched his wife and his kid die right in front of him. He accidentally killed his mentor's and his best friend. There's also this revenge factor, but it's so emotionally wrought with all these different feelings of love, and of loss, and revenge, and avenging, and all of this stuff. I love how convoluted it is, because the hero's not necessarily the hero. That guy isn't necessarily the bad guy. Everybody's kind of intertwined, and its something I've always believed in [real] life – that the greatest guy is capable of doing the worst things, and the worst guy is capable of doing something wonderful. You don't see that a lot in film. And then on top of it – and that's if you want to watch it in a serious way, look how I'm talking – the other side of it is, it's a fun, entertaining... I don't say that as a pitch. It is entertaining to me. And we found yesterday in that scene with Jonah, or at least I did, a lot of humor where I took his alcohol, and drank it, and it started flowing out of my mouth. That wasn't scripted or anything, we just start improvising and playing, which I like to do. And also with Jimmy Hayward on the set, it brings a kind of I don't know, a spasmodic, adolescent tone to it, and I like that, because he doesn't know what the rules are yet. So anything goes with Jimmy. He brings an incredible energy to it, and he doesn't understand what not to do, and I love being around that. It reminds me of Robert Rodriguez.

Did He Have An Input Into The Character?: Yes. Yes, structurally. But I also improvise a lot, it's just what I do. If it was up to me, I'd never cut the camera, I'd just go and go, and you feel this, and you do this and then something happens, and then you worry about it in editing. You know, editing to me is where it all happens, so you create as many options as you can here. So as it's this work of art in process. Yeah, we collaborated. Yeah, we talked a lot together, got together a lot. We watched a lot of different movies, we talked about who we wanted to be the DP and all that. I'm the one who pulled Jimmy in. [Laughs] Bringing Jimmy to the studio, I had to write a really long e-mail to Jeff Robinov to prepare him for Jimmy, because when you see him, he's just like "f*cking rad, dude! It's going to be awesome!" as he pitched him the idea, "All I know is that it's going to be f*cking awesome, dude!" And I knew, how is the head of the studio going to go for it? And yet when you really get into Jimmy, and past all those adolescent idioms, that he's really an accomplished guy whose worked for a flawless company like Pixar. They do not do failure. So yeah, I like the idea of that.

Did He Read The Comics To Prepare For The Role?: I did. For me, the collaboration with Jimmy (Hayward) was getting together and extracting those lines that were fun, fun lines that were right on the verge of being dramatic and absurd, and kind of humorous, and all that, so we tried to take a lot of those lines out and say what we could incorporate into the script?

http://www.collider.com/2010/05/13/josh-brolin-interview-jonah-hex-on-set-read-or-listen-here/

Josh Brolin On Set Interview JONAH HEX – Read or Listen Here
by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub Posted:May 13th, 2010 at 10:00 am

Almost a year ago to the day, I was on the set of Jonah Hex in hot and humid Louisiana. While on set, I watched Josh Brolin stand on top of a huge ship trying to find a way to defeat John Malkovich. Even though comic book movies might have been a small genre ten years ago, nowadays, some of the biggest actors in the business are lining up to play comic book characters. As a huge fan of the genre, it’s awesome to see.

Anyway, while Josh Brolin was under hours of makeup and involved in most of the shots, towards the middle of the night he sat down to talk about the challenges of the makeup, the character of Jonah Hex, what was it like to go up against John Malkovich, how much of the action he could do himself, why he wanted Jimmy Hayward in the director’s chair, working in the scope (anamorphic), and so much more. It’s a great interview that’s absolutely worth checking out.

Before you read the interview, if you missed the trailer for Jonah Hex, I’d watch it first.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen to the audio of the on set interview. Jonah Hex hits theaters June 18. And just to be clear, this interview was done with a number of other online journalists who were also on set with me. This is not an exclusive.

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Question: I’ve definitely been wanting to ask you, are you happy you took my advice to do the movie?

Josh Brolin: Oh that’s right. I remember you. You were on the right side of me.

Yes, exactly.

Brolin: I was talking about what a piece of s$#! this was and then you were like “no it’s not”, right? Maybe you did have an impact.

You seemed like you were doing a lot of decisions right there in that room about do I want to do this project? It seemed to me at that moment that you were really debating internally because it seems like you do a lot of internal debate whether or not you want to take a project. You kind of mentioned that during “Milk” and it seemed like at that moment…

Brolin: No “Milk” is not…that wasn’t the case. I read “Milk” and immediately I was very emotional after reading it and then I saw the documentary—the one that Rob Epstein did—and I said that’s it. I saw it with my daughter and that was it. This thing is a different thing. It’s like I’ve been offered these kind of superhero movies or “Terminator” or whatever those movies are and I just go ahh. If it really resonates, and “Terminator” when I read it, I thought was really dark and cool and interesting, but then I knew they could go this way with it or that way. With this thing I don’t know wherever they went it was still going to be absurd. It was still going to be anti-hero. It was still going to bring back sort of this hybrid of spaghetti western genre, you know the balls of westerns and I’ve been watching, and I don’t want to insult anybody, but I’ve been watching these westerns recently and they don’t have any cojones anymore. And what I love about this is you don’t really get into the supernatural elements. You’ve got this guy who refuses to die for some reason whether it be a physical or metaphysical reason or spiritual reason so you can do anything. You can kill off anybody and you can still bring them back because he’s kind of half there and half in reality, you know? What it reminded me of, at least in a positive way that allowed me to go in this positive route…travel along this positive route was Javier in “No Country”. You know, is he in the room? Did he leave the room? Does he exist? Does he not exist? Is he a figment of Tommy’s imagination at that moment and all that? So I just started kind of going off on that. Did that make any sense at all?

You did and can I just say the makeup looks amazing. It looks great on you. How is it to wear?

Brolin: It sucks man. It does because we didn’t want to do the CGI thing and because of a certain movie that I thought it was extremely distracting for me personally. I said we have to go practical with this but so you know I have a piece of tape here, I have this thing that hooks in the back. I have this thing behind my ear so it pulls my face back, then we put a facial prosthetic on, then we put teeth in with wires going up here. So we had these teeth, so this thing holds back my lip and then we do another prosthetic over here and then we paint the face, so it’s a lot of work.

But for you as a performer, does it put you in the right place by the time you hit set are you revved up and ready?

Brolin: Yeah, I mean usually I’m telling jokes on the set and I haven’t really got time and I’m like walking around here just like growling at everybody. I don’t know why. I think it’s because of this, I don’t know. Yeah, it does. It helps for sure. For sure it helps. I don’t like it personally but professionally it works, I guess.

Would you have hesitation about doing it again if this a success; they wanted you to return to the role, would the prosthetics…?

Brolin: Yeah, but I know what happens. I do have hesitation, honestly. We’re half-way through it now and I’m like never again, never again.

Never go through it again?

Brolin: Yeah, but we’re talking about doing “John Brown 2” which would be absolute full prosthetics, you know? It starts at 56 years old, so we’re talking…I’m becoming that actor, you know? Like the Lon Chaney.

This is right after “W”.

Brolin: We had prosthetics in “W” also. Not this massive. But you know what happens with when you finish and if you’re really proud of the job and all that and then you go “why not?” you forget. It’s like having a baby I guess from what I heard from my ex-wife. You know she’s like “oh I’m never doing it again” and then 2 months she’s like “want to have another one?” So it’s that kind of a thing, I think.

Had you heard about the character prior to hearing about the film?

Brolin: A little bit. I wasn’t a big…I read comic books and stuff but I didn’t know a lot about it. I wasn’t one of those graphic novels freaks, you know, who…and I don’t mean it negatively, I’m just…I didn’t do that. I read a lot of Ray Bradbury. I read a lot of that kind of stuff, you know Isaac Asimov and things. But no, I didn’t know a lot about it but I liked the idea of it and I liked the idea that it wasn’t a huge success. Do you know what I mean? There’s not a lot of expectation and I love that. It makes it riskier for us. It allows us to do things that you wouldn’t normally be able to do and being loyal to Comic-Con people. Yeah, we’re going to be loyal but the guys who write Jonah Hex now came on the set and they were flipping out. They were like “this is unbelievable” and they were truly feeling that, you know? And we wanted to make them happy but at the same time we have a luxury to kind of do what we feel like doing because it’s not a failed comic book necessarily but it’s the comic book that just won’t go away. It has its loyal audience. People like it existing. It’s not “Watchmen” but they love that it exists because they need it. They need the guttural visceral primitive thing always. So it’s kind of a law of balance right now—law of averages where we have all these superhero things and where’s the other guy who’s sort of a protagonist but he’s kind of an antagonist and he’s a drunk and he’s kind of curmudgeony and then so are the other characters, so who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy? I like that, you know?

It’s like the spaghetti western. It won’t die.

Brolin: Absolutely.

You were talking about how westerns—modern westerns—a lot of them don’t have the same kind of cojones or the same sort of gravitas to them, what are your favorite westerns? What are the ones that are touch stones for you?

Brolin: I mean there’s a lot of them. There’s a lot of them. There’s things that I saw recently and there was a director and I don’t mind saying so that we were trying to get Chan Wu Park, who did “Old Boy”. There was a Japanese director, can’t remember his name right now, who did “Itchy the Killer” that I liked very much.

Oh Miike, sure.

Brolin: We talked to Sergei Bodrov who did “Mongel” who I thought was incredible. There was a lot of people who’ve done a lot of things that I really appreciate and then you go back to the Italian spaghetti westerns that our spaghetti westerns were based off of so I’ve seen everything. Everything. I don’t have a favorite I like and then I’ll go and watch “Days of Heaven” and I go how beautiful is that. So I think, at least my idea, was lets bring something again that’s primitive and guttural but then let’s also do something beautiful where you’re outside and this isn’t a typical western setting. It’s lush. It’s green. It’s beautiful. So I don’t know, to me I love that the studio is like we don’t have a model for this. We don’t know. They don’t know whether to be supportive or angry or anything and I like that. It’s good. So if it works we’ll have created something original that other people can copycat, other people can splinter from and try to make their money based on what we did. That’s my hope. Who knows if it’ll work or not but that’s my hope.

So many of the characters you’ve played recently have been guys who it seems you as an actor have to find a way to make them empathetic to an audience to a certain extent despite everything about them from George W. Bush to doing “Milk” and things like that. You’ve got to find a way to make the audience follow you along. I mean with “Hex” what is that to you? What do you present to the audience? Obviously he’s not a character who has his…he’s Superman with his big heroic arc, I mean it’s a different kind of thing.

Brolin: No, but he has a past you know? The fact that his mother was a prostitute. The fact that…I mean that’s why I like the relationship between Lila and Jonah because Lila…and I said this to somebody yesterday, I was like well you’ve got to have Megan Fox in your movie because everybody wants Megan Fox in your movie. No, we were looking at a bunch of different people. We were looking at people like Melissa Leo at a certain point. And we really went through the gamut and I woke up one morning and I was like it has to be Megan Fox. If I can get a performance out of her it has to be Megan Fox because to me this whole beauty and beast thing and then you also have Megan surrounded by these toothless whores and she’s the most beautiful and yet she’s the most broken, you know? And I like that. It’s like everything is not…that’s my understanding of life. What you perceive. You might be an interested guy, an interested reported then I get to know you and then I know you’re this also and you’re this also and you may hide it in a certain way. That’s what I love. It’s like the Dan White thing. Dan White was a good guy. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy. He was a good guy who just snapped. What creates the snap in somebody? So that’s why I like the contrast between what you’re perceiving cosmetically and what’s going on underneath. To me, Lila is the most broken character of all. Jonah’s probably next, you know? Turnbull is probably the craziest. He’s caught up into this romanticism and revenge factor of losing. He refuses to lose. Anyway it goes on and on and on.

You had a relationship with John Malkovich prior to this. How is it working with him where you guys are head-to-head in so much of the movie?

Brolin: It’s great. It’s Malkovich. “um….Josh I was like…” He does this whole thing. It’s f#%@#&! great and blah, blah, blah anyway. To me he’s a genius. I mean he really is. And when I saw him do, what was it, Burn This on Broadway he was one of the reasons why I did “True West” on Broadway. I didn’t want to do it because Phil and John had already done it and I knew it was doomed. Vin Vrantely already told us it was doomed because he didn’t want to continue but you look at John and you go “how can I not do this great play. Look at what he did with it. I’m curious what I’ll do with it” you know? So he’s been a huge inspiration for me and he became a great friend and I called him about this and it was like “will you please do this?” “Yes, Josh I‘d like to read it and see how I feel afterwards and then I’ll ring you afterwards” or whatever. I just think the guy is freaking fantastic. And then the studio they have an idea of somebody or John plays all the crazy people and I was like no, man. We started going through a lot of really wonderful actors and I said you know the thing about those actors—and I won’t say who they are—is because there’s a lot of rage in the part is that I won’t mention any actors but usually with these certain actors they feel rage and it comes out straightforward. It comes out…I’m trying to do you guys a favor by not looking at you too much….but it comes out straight, you know? John, he feels rage and he may pick up a poodle and start petting it and reciting a poem or something, which to me is far scarier than somebody who’s just screaming at you, you know? So John always does something very interesting and eclectic and I don’t think forcefully. I think maybe when he was younger that was a force thing. I think John is truly eclectic now. I think he’s become what he was aspiring to become.

How much action and stunt work do you do personally in this?

Brolin: A lot. My stunt guy, who’s my guy and comes from movie to movie, Mark Norby, when I broke my collar before “No Country” he was the happiest guy on earth because he knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything. There’s a lot of stuff for him to do on this. He was the coordinator on “W”, you know not a lot of stuff to do but he’ll do a lot of stuff on this. I would prefer to do pretty much everything but this movie’s freaking killing me. I mean it is. Everyday is like…if you saw me wake up in the morning and walk to the bathroom, it’s a joke. I mean I’m limping. I jammed my finger yesterday…before yesterday I can move that better now…this one I can’t bend very much. I have bruises everywhere.

When you’re breathing heavy in like an action scene, are you able to breathe properly with that on?

Brolin: Yeah, I just slobber a lot. I do. I was going to incorporate the thing but I’ve gotten used to it now because we have different ones I use for different times, so more action stuff I can talk better now than I can usually talk. But I was trying to incorporate like a little thing that I held in my belt loop and I would do that but then that was too Malkovichy because that’s something that Malkovich does. So I decided to do away with it.

You talk about some of the other filmmakers who you were sort of inspired by sort of when you came into this. What made Jimmy sort of the right collaborator for you on this?

Brolin: He wrote me a brilliant e-mail. A brilliant e-mail. It was one of the best. And I’m an e-mailer and I do a lot of my enticing through e-mail and I’m a decent writer so I guess I’m sort of good at that and I read his e-mail and I was blown away. It was extremely passionate, extremely intelligent, extremely knowledgeable — not of the character necessarily but technically. You can’t take away from the fact that the guy’s worked for a company that can’t fail. They just don’t fail and at Pixar you’ve got to be good man. It’s like Apple. They just keep…they just challenge after challenge after challenge. And Jimmy knew the comic book really well. He had a first edition of the comic—that I don’t think he went out and bought after he knew we were going to meet. I think he had that. And there was a great new adolescent energy to him, you know? And again, there’s no expectation. There’s the opposite. And there’s no reason why he can’t make a phenomenal film even as a mistake. He has the vision. He has the fashion. You look at Quentin Tarantino, when Quentin was working in the video store, you would never say oh let’s get that guy to direct a great film—you know a big film—and this is a big film but it’s not a huge film. We’re talking abut you right now dude. He’s incredible to me and if he pulls this off, he’ll have an amazing career and we don’t’ have…we’ve got in the 30’s or something as a budget. This is going to look…this is huge scope. Big, big, big scope. And it may be ridiculous at times but it doesn’t matter because that’s the genre. We can do that. That’s what I like about it. A mistake maybe an asset to us in the future so, yeah I’ve never done anything like this. You know me I’m just like I get into all the complicated characters and s$#!. To me this is not what this is. It’s very simple. It’s very linear. It’s very straightforward. My big thing was to get somebody like him, if we weren’t going to get Danny Boyle we were going to get somebody like him and then at that same time was to get brilliant actors. That was my thing and that’s where I came in and I called Malkovich. I called Fassbender. I called Megan. I called..who else is in it?

Will Arnett?

Brolin: No, I didn’t call Will.

Michael Shannon?

Brolin: Michael Shannon. There we go. Thank you. Jesus. Who I think is just, I mean and I don’t say it lightly when I say it, he cannot do…to me he can do no wrong. I mean he is such a brilliant presence and I like that. I want to be surrounded by that.

I was just going to ask you quickly about you guys are shooting this anamorphically.

Brolin: Yeah.

And could you just talk a little bit about that?

Brolin: 2:35 man. It’s hard. It’s hard for the camera people—the operators—to hold everything because it’s so thin and it’s so wide.

You have to be aware of it in a different way, don’t you?

Brolin: A totally different way but if you can pull it off, again, when you see it in the theatre it’s going to be a whole…a genius experience. And then that’s when you bring the kind of (inaudible) feel into this, you know what I mean? It’s not like you’re doing a thing—oh it looks like the 70’s. I don’t want that. I don’t want—oh it looks like a low-budget B movie in the 70’s. Even Jimmy will say “God this looks so 70’s” and I’m like no, I don’t want to hear that. And I don’t want it to look crisp like what we have now. I want something in between.

You’ve had this incredible run of filmmakers you’ve worked with recently and an amazing set of films you’ve worked on. Sounds like you’re very involved in making this one happen like you were a big driving force in this. Is that something that you’re bringing these experiences to each film now and you really see yourself kind of driving the material that you’re going to be doing?

Brolin: You either want to live up to that or you don’t and I was very, very lucky in that the studio said to me do you want to helm this in finding the most appropriate director, at least for you, who you deem to be the most appropriate person and I said for me I know that’s usually bullshit. You’re going to jerk off the actor to make him feel good but ultimately you’re going to make the decision yourself and they were very honest with me and straightforward and they said we want to be in business with you and we’re going to let you do it. Obviously they have the final say, which is just obvious but they gave me a lot of range here, you know? And it’s not…if it doesn’t work again I don’t feel like a total failure. You do what you do man and it turns out you can come out with a perfect movie and it just doesn’t hit the pulse of society at that moment. Or you can come out with a movie that’s OK and it just works at that time when you release it. Everybody wants that. They want to embrace it. So between this and between the people speak, yeah I’ve been in much more of a producer mode and we’ll continue with that. “John Brown” with Mark Gordon is a possibility right now. “Pits and Joe” is a thing I’ve written that I’m probably going to direct in the next couple years and we’ll see what happens, man.

John mentioned that you guys were…from what John said it seemed as if you were crafting your performances with each other in mind. He seems to be the almost, from the scene we saw, a Shakespearian type orator where it seems like and he mentioned you’re quite the laconic protagonist.

Brolin: Thank God, man. Yeah,….look at him. He’s so careful. (laughter) I could watch that guy forever, man. Yeah, I think that happens unconsciously. I mean we got together beforehand and we were talking about what we wanted to do with accents and the southern thing and how far we wanted to go with it or if we wanted to stay generic and just very typical talks and finding out the tone of the film. Not really actor talks but more how is this going to affect the big picture. And then now you just do your thing and when you have an actor like that or I would never assume that I’m this type of actor but I know that I can look at somebody when I’m acting and even though we’re in the scene and we’re…and Sean is a perfect example…we’re still figuring out and looking at each other. It’s almost like a boxing match. You’re hitting each other but you don’t hate each other, so it’s technique. It’s all this stuff and seeing what works, what doesn’t work and where you’re going to get your best punches in but you don’t want to kill the guy, you know what I mean? That’s kind of what I feel with John. It’s a great ballet. With Sean it was a ballet, with John it’s more of a boxing match.

Is there a reason why Jonah Hex that you feel still wears a Confederate uniform?

Brolin: Because those are the only clothes he has. I don’t know. No, because it’s a comic book, that’s why. Yeah. That’s what I feel. Is there an emotional reason? I think that’s what he represented. He doesn’t want to not represent what he grew up being and yet at the same time you can do that and like what he says in this movie he says look, it turned out that I think you should always strive for your country but we were 2 countries but none better than the other. So I realized that at one moment so he went and turned himself into a Union post to sit out the rest of the war in a prison cell and it ended up backfiring on him and killing a lot of his, you know, compadres. But I do, I think there’s a pride that you have. My mom was like that -and not Confederate – but a southern girl and she carried that wherever she went, even though I know she could have lost the accent, she could have done that. She carried that with herself. She had that pride, but then she also never wanted to go back to the south, do you know what I mean? It’s that kind of a feeling. Anyway, thank you guys.

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/05/13/interview-josh-brolin-talks-jonah-hex/

Interview: Josh Brolin Talks 'Jonah Hex'

by Elisabeth Rappe May 13th 2010 // 8:15PM

When I joined Cinematical and the wild, wild world of movie reporting, I expected all my "geek out" moments would be confined to my desk as they always had been -- watching trailers, the "first look" at a big comic or fantasy character, interviews, whatever. I didn't think I'd actually be sent out in the field to meet a man like Jonah Hex, and I'm pretty sure I won't ever get an introduction like this again. We'd been told earlier in the day that Josh Brolin was pretty sick, and might not be able to actually speak with us. At one point, they even called a doctor in, and we watched Brolin strip off all his gunbelts and duck into a Civil War tent to get checked out. (He returned with all his limbs. The set may have been historical, but the medical care was modern.)

But Brolin is nothing but professional and considerate. He's also mysterious. To this day, I'm not sure where he was lurking, but the set emptied for lunch, and he appeared at the far end of our camp. He clinked across the open field in that gunslinger gait you only expect to see in movies -- no rush, his face twisted in that ugly sneer. It was a High Plains Drifter entrance. As a fan of the character, I was inwardly jumping with joy, and I wish I could've taped the quirky, eerie moment to accompany this. But now you know how the interview started.

Is that [make-up] as painful as it looks?

Josh Brolin: Yep.



Can you talk about that piece in the back of your head, and what that's doing to your face?

Brolin: I'll tell you the sequence of events in the morning. We have a piece of fabric that's glued on this side here, and that has a piece on it. Then behind my ear, there's another piece of fabric glued. We attach it, and it pulls back one side of my face. Then we do a full prosthetic from here to here, then we put pieces in with wire that pushes in my cheek, and it holds part of my mouth back, then over that we do this prosthetic. Then we paint. See, I walk around in New Orleans, where it doesn't really matter, with half a mustache and half a beard. Nobody cares, no one can tell. So we put hair on here, and then we paint my face.

What does it add to the performance? Does it makes it much easier to get into the character if it's there, rather than adding it in later with dots and digital effects?

Brolin: I feel like I just got [the character] yesterday. I feel like I was just doing a scene with John Gallagher and I just got it for the first time. I mean, I hope I'm wrong. But there's such a razor's edge between this kind of drama, and absurdity, and kind of comic book feeling to it. I'm not sure where we are tonally. My wife put it best. She goes "It's a strange set, it seems like everyone's at sea in their own canoe, but tethered together." And so I think we're doing extremely well, in spite of ourselves. Because there's no model for this. Even the studio's going "How are we supposed to sell this? What is it, what's the tone?" If we succeed, I think we'll succeed in incredible originality. And then if we don't, you just move on to the next one, you know?

Do you see this as a return to genre, or a way to mix the two things you've done over the course of [your career], like the Western stuff in No Country for Old Men?

Brolin: No, it is a mix. You know, I've been offered a lot of comic book stuff, and big movies and all that. And the money's really attractive because I do like money. But this was really original to me. I read it the first time, and I didn't like it at all. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. I kept waking up – I dream a lot, you know, and I kept waking up in the mornings going why [does] this thing keep coming back? There's something within it that I really enjoy, and this kind of anti-hero thing, and this kind of Western with cajones as opposed to these new, stylized Westerns that I don't care for very much. It brings that into it, and it also brings this idea of one foot in death, one foot in reality where you can get away with anything, and justify it, and I love having that luxury. We can pull off anything and justify it, because of that, and no one can really call us on our s$#!. No "Well, Jonah Hex doesn't do that." Well you know what, Jonah Hex can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, whether it's here or in the afterworld. It becomes, to me, very metaphysical, very spiritual, existentialist. That's what keeps me interested. I may be full of sh**, but that's what I create in order to keep me interested.


At the core of this guy, who is he to you? Who is Jonah Hex?

Brolin: Well, he's a loner, he's a guy who has lost an incredible amount. He's watched his wife and his kid die right in front of him. He accidentally killed his one of his mentors' son, and his best friend. There's also this revenge factor, but it's so emotionally wrought with all these different feelings of love, and of loss, and revenge, and avenging, and all of this stuff. I love how convoluted it is, because the hero's not necessarily the hero. That guy isn't necessarily the bad guy. Everybody's kind of intertwined, and its something I've always believed in [real] life – that the greatest guy is capable of doing the worst things, and the worst guy is capable of doing something wonderful. You don't see that a lot in film. And then on top of it – and that's if you want to watch it in a serious way, look how I'm talking – the other side of it is, it's a fun, entertaining ... I don't say that as a pitch. It is entertainign to me. And we found yesterday in that scene with Jonah, or at least I did, a lot of humor where I took his alcohol, and drank it, and it started flowing out of my mouth. That wasn't scripted or anything, we just start improvising and playing, which I like to do. And also with Jimmy Hayward on the set, it brings a kind of I don't know, a spasmodic, adolescent tone to it, and I like that, because he doesn't know what the rules are yet. So anything goes with Jimmy. He brings an incredible energy to it, and he doesn't understand what not to do, and I love being around that. It reminds me of Robert Rodriguez.

Did you have any input with Jimmy when he was doing a rewrite on the character, did you collaborate with him a lot on that?

Brolin: Yes. Yes, structurally. But I also improvise a lot, it's just what I do. If it was up to me, I'd never cut the camera, I'd just go and go, and you feel this, and you do this and then something happens, and then you worry about it in editing. You know, editing to me is where it all happens, so you create as many options as you can here. So as its this work of art in process, and in progress, yeah, we collaborated. Yeah, we talked a lot together, got together a lot, we watched a lot of different movies, we talked about who we wanted to be the DP and all that. I'm the one who pulled Jimmy in. [Laughs] Bringing Jimmy to the studio, I had to write a really long e-mail to Jeff Robinov to prepare him for Jimmy, because when you see him, he's just like "F****ing rad, dude! It's going to be awesome!" as he pitched him the idea, "All I know is that it's going to be f***ing awesome, dude!" And I knew, how is the head of the studio going to go for it? And yet when you really get into Jimmy, and past all those adolescent idioms, that he's really an accomplished guy whose worked for a flawless company like Pixar. They do not know failure. So yeah, I like the idea of that.




You mentioned that you screened some films, what movies did you watch during that process?

Brolin: Oh, a lot. We watched Italian spaghetti westerns, we watched the wackiest B-movies, there was a ton. There was a ton. I even turned him on to Martin McDonagh's plays, To Kill a Man, Lieutenant of Inishmore, which has that dramatic [element] that makes you cringe, but you can't stop watching it, you're laughing but you don't know why you're laughing. You know what I mean? That's the tone that I wanted for this, personally. It's not my movie, but you know, I'm a control freak.


Obviously this thing has franchise possibilities. How appealing is the possibility of playing this role a few times?

Brolin: Now that I have this on my face? No, but I know that when it's done, and I go home, and I forget. It's like having a baby – until you feel it again. I like the idea of it. I like the idea of it for me, selfishly, only because ... I don't know, it's not obvious. It's not obvious. As a character, and as a tone, and what we could do with this. We can do anything. With Megan Fox's character, I love that character, I love what it represents because you have this beauty and the beast idea. You have this incredibly beautiful girl – you know, people say "Oh, well you hired Megan because she's Megan Fox." No. There were a lot of people we were looking at. We were looking at Melissa Leo at one point. We were looking at a lot of different people. But to me, Megan – I watched Megan on an interview one day, and I was like .. God, you know, there's a lot of pain. I saw pain. This girl was just kind of being rebellious, but youthfully rebellious, and there was something there. Then I heard about a strip joint, or something like that, and I was like, I want to meet this girl. Seems to be who I'm attracted to. And she was something. I really really liked who she was, and I liked the idea of this incredible beauty being amongst this setting, and her being the most broken out of anybody, you know? And then that's the connection between her and I. Well you'd never put that gorgeous of a girl with this guy, but yeah, you would. You really would, as long as there's this emotional parallel. It's not all this serious, but honestly, this is the stuff that I do at home just so I have something to talk about.


The comic book artists were really inspired by Clint Eastwood, are you guys trying to avoid any self-conscious links to Eastwood?

Brolin: Totally. But it's also there, and we're not going to deny it. It is. It's the wandering nomad with no name, but he has a name, but he doesn't really have a name. There's also some parallels, just as easily, with Javier's character in No Country For Old Men. Very, very similar. Is he there, is he in the room, did he go out the vent, was he even there in the first place? I like that. There's a lot of hybrids between character and genre, and who I wanted to do, and I'm not going to go out and do exactly Clint. I was really worried about coming out and doing this deep voice, because it seems like all these characters are doing deep voices now. You look at Batman, you look at Watchmen, [lowers voice to a Bale rasp] and everybody's talking like this. You go, why is everybody talking like that all of a sudden? Me in Grindhouse! But it's a generic character, and it's ok that it's a generic character. We're almost making fun of the generic character, and then allowing him to be fun, and allowing him to be emotional and allowing him to be all these different facets that you wouldn't necessarily get in a normal "genre" film.

Can you talk about the humor of the piece? We had Will [Arnett] here, and he's being completely serious –

Brolin: Kind of.

But in the comics, there's a kind of humor that comes through because of who Jonah is, and the fact that he doesn't seem to care about anything –

Brolin: But he does. Again, there's an exaggeration to the character. We'll only know this when we see it, but there's a bit of absurdity, a theater of cruelty and bizarreness of the character. So it allows me to go further, allows me to – [laughs] – I mean, there's sometimes that I do a scene, and I think I'm Carl from Sling Blade! I start going mm-mm, hmmm, and I go, that's what it is! It wasn't thought out, it would just happen and I go, that's ok.

So [the comedy] comes from improvisation rather than the actual script?

Brolin: Absolutely. And you know, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti from Jonah Hex came to the set, and that was huge for us, to get their approval. They were very approving, and they were very hyped about what we were doing.

Did you read a lot of the comics to prepare for the role?

Brolin: I did. For me, that was one thing [in] the collaboration with Jimmy [Hayward] was getting together and extracting those lines that were fun, fun lines that were right on the verge of being dramatic and absurd, and kind of humorous, and all that, so we tried to take a lot of those lines out and say what we could incorporate into the script?

Are you now going to become a collector of Jonah Hex back issues?

Brolin: It's funny that you say that, because I have all these drawings that Jimmy and the guys did at Pixar, and I like them. And I want to have a big one in my office.


Jonah Hex as a comic book is kind of popular again. Did that help at all to get this going again, or was it just a coincidence that DC had a comic book which people were liking again?

Brolin: Well, there were three series, and almost a failed comic. It's this thing that won't go away, and yet it's not a huge hit. It's not like Watchmen where its the most read graphic novel of all time. Jonah Hex, you have to be a real geek to know what it is. I like that aspect of it. I'm as much of a geek as you are.

But the new series is actually pretty popular. Did that help get it made, did it make it easier to get [the studio] to understand that people wanted it again?

Brolin: I don't know if people want it again. It's not because of public demand that we're doing this, you know, very obviously. It was one of these things that it almost went away, and I really kind of tackled it again. I talked to Warner Bros and I said hey listen, if I put together actors that ... it's more obvious with Batman because again, it's one of those things, it's been around, it's been proven to be successful. You have a guy [Christopher Nolan] in who is an incredible filmmaker, that everybody knows because of Memento. But if I bring in this wackadoo, and if I pull together some amazing actors, why for this? It's only because of like favors and stuff like that. And yet these guys are coming in – Michael Shannon, Michael Fassbender, John Malkovich, and Megan, I just couldn't be happier. They're giving performances that are unreal to me. I look at what Michael Shannon did, and I was just like oh, thank you God! It's like a godsend.

So you were responsible for bringing in a lot of these guys? I remember you said 'If I could get Malkovich in this script!"

Brolin: I'm not going to say solely, but I was on the phone a lot. Oh, did I say that before? It's true! It's true. I talked to John. And the other thing is, we're not making this for a lot of money. That's another way to entice people – you say hey, I'll give you three million bucks to come and do this thing for three weeks, and people go yeah, ok. I can figure out the character without even reading it. But you say hey, I'll give you a third of your price, will you do this with me? This is what I think it could be if we really get together and really create something wonderful. Then you know they're doing it out of some kind of inspiration.


Haven't you worked with some of these people before?

Brolin: Shannon, this is my third time [working with him]. Fassbender I know through my agent, we have the same agent, and we hung out a bit – me, him, and Sean in Toronto for a couple of nights. And I saw Hunger, I thought he was just phenomenal. And who else? Malkovich, I've known as a friend for quite awhile.

You mention that you're a big geek. What are some of the franchises that you're really into?

Brolin: Not franchises. I just love movies, man. I've always been a huge [fan]. I remember when I was living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, and we were one of the first people – just because my dad had access to it – to get a VCR. And we had Grease, we had Saturday Night Fever, and we had The Warriors. I've seen The Warriors 65 times.

Whose your favorite character in The Warriors?

Brolin: Probably Ajax. Ajax or Swan. I like Swan just much. Ajax is kind of an idiot.

How do you feel about the remake? Would you like to be involved in that?

Brolin: I would love to, man! Walter Hill, is that who is doing it? Tony. Right, right. No, I thought that might be an interesting thing to do, but ....

What's next? What are you going to go on to from here?

Brolin: I'm going to go to London, and I'm going to do the Woody Allen thing. I was doing to do a Martin McDonagh play, but I don't think I can do that now. I think this has really kind of taken it out of me. We're working crazy hours and all that, so I think I'm going to wait to do that, and just spend time with the family. We're developing a lot of things. I'm much more in producer mode now. We've got The People Speak that's coming out, that thing that I'm doing with Matt Damon, and Howard Zinn. So we're developing a lot of interesting projects. One is John Brown, with Mark Gordon. Mel Gibson and I are talking about doing Under and Alone. There's a lot of good possibilities. I'm very happy.

Were you a producer on this?

Brolin: On this? No. I should be, but I'm not! But in the future, if we continue ....

What's this about the John Brown project?

Brolin: John Brown is a great project. A great, great project. The script was already out there, I read the script, and I loved it. It would be a very tough character for me to play. I'm going to do some tests, once I'm done with this. I'll be like the new prosthetics actor. But it's a great script, a great story. Somebody that I know because of the Howard Zinn project, and I know the character really well, and Mark Gordon and I had a conversation and we said let's do this, let's get this thing done. People have been wanting to do it forever, and there's a lot of directors that would love to be involved.

http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2010/06/who_is_jonah_hex_josh_brolin_o.html

Who is 'Jonah Hex'? Josh Brolin offers peek at what movie fans can expect
Published: Saturday, June 12, 2010, 5:00 AM Updated: Friday, June 11, 2010, 10:28 AM
Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune

Chances are, you'd never heard of Jonah Hex before Josh Brolin came to town last year with Megan Fox and John Malkovich to shoot the Warner Bros. film inspired by the disfigured DC Comics gunslinger.
Jonah HexMichael Fassbender prepeares to change the life of Josh Brolin's title character in the New Orleans-shot supernatural Western 'Jonah Hex.'

Rest assured, however, you're not alone.

The anti-hero of the dark, cult comic that is described as a supernatural Western is a far cry from the mainstream superheroes populating the DC stable. Even Brolin admits he was only marginally aware of who this Hex dude was before he agreed to don his boots and endure hours in the makeup chair to play the part.

"I had seen it, but I wasn't really (familiar with it)," the actor admitted between shots in June 2009 on the film's St. Francisville set, one of many south Louisiana locations used by the production. "I was never a comic book guy. A little bit, like 'The Incredible Hulk' and stuff. 'Thor' -- I read 'Thor.'"

Audiences got their first glimpse of the man behind the horse-mounted Gatling guns when the film's high-octane trailer landed in theaters in late April, touting the film's release this Friday. But the question remains: Who exactly is this mysterious gunslinger? And what the heck can audiences expect when they see the movie?

Well, that's hard to say, even for the Oscar-nominated Brolin.

"I think that's why the studio was a little scared in the beginning," he said, "because there's no model to base this on. It's kind of like re-creating a genre -- creating your own genre. It's a Western, but my assistant put it the best that I heard. She said: 'It's a dark circus with a Western running right through it,' and I love that. It is -- it's very circus-y . It's very absurd. Is it supernatural? I guess there's elements (of that)."

As he talks, Brolin's face is pulled back in a grotesque sneer, the result of a branding his character suffers at the hands of a spiteful plantation owner named Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich).

When Jonah's face was scarred, however, something else happened to him. Something mysterious.

And so, armed with that scar and what some say are supernatural powers -- as well as an arsenal of turn-of-the-century weapons that would make James Bond proud -- Jonah wanders around in his old Union Army uniform, making money as a surly, merciless bounty hunter.

And searching for Turnbull.

"He has one foot in this life and one foot in death. He's living this constant purgatory, so he feels all the pain that he feels, he feels all the guilt, the torture that he feels, but he can't die -- it's impossible really for him to die. But you're not really sure if it's really an impossibility. Maybe with the right person, maybe with the right gunshot ..."

He added: "It's dark -- but it's fun dark."

"Jonah Hex" is filled by a legion of similarly dark characters, including Fox's gun-toting New Orleans prostitute, Michael Fassbender's tattooed, bowler hat-wearing henchman and Michael Shannon's psoriasis-stricken Doc Cross, the leader of a gladiator circus.

Weird stuff -- which is fitting since Jonah first appeared in what would become the old "Weird Western Tales" comics series. But director Jimmy Hayward said an effort has been made to make the movie fun as well.

"The tone of the movie is using the spaghetti Westerns as a jumping-off point, where there's comedy in it but everybody in the movie takes everything seriously," Hayward said. "They're not aware of that, that things are funny. There's not an awareness in the movie that there's any comedy in the movie."

Given that Hayward's only previous directing experience was on the animated "Horton Hears a Who," his appointment to helm "Hex" took many by surprise. But unlike Brolin, and many others, Hayward is a "Jonah Hex" fan from way back, and he brought a palpable passion to the table. On the day he showed up to pitch the studio his vision, he said, he carried a "Weird Western Tales" digest he has owned since the 1970s.

The big question is how audiences will respond to it all. Almost from the beginning, the online fanboy community has discussed the project with disdain, although that seems to be rooted less in an informed opinion of the film than in an aversion to letting the masses in on their "secret." But, really, it's those oblivious masses who will decide if "Jonah Hex" is a success -- and warrants a sequel, as producers are hoping it will. Hayward, for one, thinks they'll dig it.

"I know women who had no idea who Iron Man was until they saw 'Iron Man,' and they loved it because Robert Downey Jr. was in it and it was funny and it was an entertaining movie that Jon Favreau made. To me, the cool thing about doing this film is exposing people to the awesome character of Jonah Hex."

Brolin, on the other hand, doesn't pretend to know how audiences think.

"You never know. You don't ever know," he said. "I remember the Coen brothers saying to me when we were in the middle of 'No Country (for Old Men),' Ethan walked by me at one point, and he goes, 'Nobody's ever going to see this.' So who ever knows?

"But I think it's interesting. I think this kind of absurdist phantasmagoria is pretty cool."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/notyetamovie/news/?a=19054

Josh Brolin Talks Jonah Hex Sequel
Although the film isn't out for another week, the star of Jonah Hex is already discussing a sequel, and reveals that he is very pleased with how the first film turned out...
Speaking exclusively to movieweb Brolin talks about the film's potential success, the shoot, and a possible follow up..

When asked if he would do a sequel if the first film is a success Brolin replied..

"Always and I said that during the shooting. This was a very, very tough shoot as you well know, Once you're out there, its hot, you've got the prosthetic on and you think, oh my god I'll never do this again, but then afterwards you look back on it and you go, wow I really appreciate the way this turned out and we could take this movie in any direction that we wanted to. So yeah, all of this is going to be determined by whether it does well and this and that. But whatever man, I love the movie, I'm happy with it, you know? Anything can be a franchise at some point, but the movie itself and by itself I'm proud of it for sure, Absolutely!"

Nice to see optimism, and Brolin would certainly seem to be very happy with how the final film turned out. Johan Hex never really made it onto our radar in a big way here at CBM because of some pretty late advertising and marketing on the part of the studio. Ansd then , even when the clips, posters etc started appearing, the early word on the advanced previews wasn't very encouraging. Personally I think it looks like it could be decent, but I was disappointed with the trailers over all. Lets hope when the actual film opens that its as good as Brolin thinks it is!

Jonah Hex comes to theaters June 18th, 2010 and stars Megan Fox, Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Julia Jones, Michael Shannon, Aidan Quinn. The film is directed by Jimmy Hayward.

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00033208.html

Josh Brolin Up for 'Jonah Hex' Sequel

June 14, 2010 09:41:31 GMT

'Always and I said that during the shooting,' the depicter of the titular character says when asked if he would do another 'Jonah Hex' film.
Josh Brolin Up for 'Jonah Hex' Sequel

"Jonah Hex" is yet to be unleashed in U.S. theaters, but Josh Brolin has shown a positive attitude when talking about a possible sequel. Asked by MovieWeb whether or not he is interested to reprise his role as the titular character in the follow-up should the movie is successful, he replied, "Always and I said that during the shooting."

"This was a very, very tough shoot as you well know, Once you're out there, it's hot, you've got the prosthetic on and you think, oh my god I'll never do this again," he further shared. "...but then afterwards you look back on it and you go, wow I really appreciate the way this turned out and we could take this movie in any direction that we wanted to."

Brolin then noted that the sequel will be determined by the performance of the upcoming June 18 release, saying "So yeah, all of this is going to be determined by whether it does well and this and that." To conclude his explanation, he told MovieWeb, "But whatever man, I love the movie, I'm happy with it, you know? Anything can be a franchise at some point, but the movie itself and by itself I'm proud of it for sure, Absolutely!"

In "Jonah Hex", Josh Brolin plays a scarred drifter and bounty hunter of last resort, a tough and stoic gunslinger who has survived death. In exchange for his freedom, Jonah Hex is ordered by the U.S. military to stop a terrorist who is ready to unleash Hell on Earth. He is hired to track down Quentin Turnbull, with whom he shares a troubled past.

Megan Fox is tapped to portray a prostitute named Leila who will join Hex in the adventure. John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender also join the cast as villainous characters, Turnbull and Burke. This thriller is directed by Jimmy Hayward.

http://www.hollywoodnews.com/2010/06/15/interview-megan-fox-and-josh-brolin-on-bringing-jonah-hex-to-life/

Tue, Jun 15 2010 | Published in *NEWS, FEATURED, HEADLINE, HEADLINES, MOVIES/FESTS
Interview: Megan Fox and Josh Brolin on bringing ‘Jonah Hex’ to life
By: Todd Gilchrist

By Todd Gilchrist

HollywoodNews.com: Not two weeks ago, Megan Fox was in the news because Michael Bay and the producers of Transformers 3 announced that she wouldn’t be returning for the third and presumably final installment in the series. But the in-demand actress doesn’t seem to be too concerned about losing that gig, especially since she has another potential franchise-launcher opening this week: Jonah Hex, an adaptation of the cult supernatural western comic book series of the same name.

Hollywood News joined journalists in Beverly Hills, Calif., for the Jonah Hex press day, where Fox and her leading man Josh Brolin fielded questions about starting their own franchise. In addition to talking about the challenges of taking on her tough role, the actress reflected on fulfilling the desires and demands of fan boy audiences, and offered some hints about what’s in store for her next.

[Note: Although "Hollywood News" is used to distinguish questions from answers in the text below, our journalist was just one of many reporters asking questions of the filmmakers.]

Hollywood News: Josh, what was it like to create a superhero from scratch, whose reputation didn’t precede him? And Megan, what was it like to get away from those robots?

Josh Brolin: What robots? Oh, that’s a different movie. [This was] stemming from a comic book that has had three lives and that wasn’t necessarily very successful, but I loved the idea that it refused to die, so it was a survivalist comic book. But it allowed us to take luxuries and do what we wanted to do as long as we had the blessing of the comic book artists. The core of the characters is there, but we go off on all these different tangents – we’re allowed to.

Megan Fox: I like working on action films, and I like working on movies that are comic book based, or that have this theme, because they’re things I watched or loved as a kid. So it wasn’t really about getting away from the robots, if that’s what you were saying. I enjoyed making both films.

Hollywood News: Megan, having done other action movies in the past, what was more challenging: doing the action scenes in this movie, or squeezing into that corset everyday?

Fox: Actually, there was one gunfight scene that stunts had been choreographing for a couple of weeks, and I had minutes to get it down and rehearse it, and it was really difficult for me to shoot the old-style gunslinger guns, because I have tiny little baby hands, and they’re really large and really heavy, so just the physicality of having to pull that off was really difficult. This was more action-heavy for me, it was more intricate, the action, in this movie, than in previous movies that I’ve done.

Hollywood News: But what about that corset?

Fox: I loved the corset. When I showed up for camera tests, everyone thought I was in pain, or hurting, that something was wrong with me, because my waist was so small, but I enjoyed it, and I wish they’d come back into style.

Hollywood News: Historically, is that what women of the day, or even, women of the night, wore?

Fox: I’m not the person to ask about that, but I would assume so.

Brolin: The question is, how did you like the corset? Trying to project it onto her and pawn it off on her, but it’s really about you.

Hollywood News: We assume too much by looking at your character and how she got there and everything, but did you build this up in your head, and did you come up with any character back story?

Fox: Well, Josh and I had a conversation about what their past relationship could have been, and why she would be so dedicated and so in love with someone who sort of treated her the way that he did, and was not able to love, and we came up with a back story between the two of us, what things had gone on in the past, and why she was so dedicated and loyal to him.

Brolin: It’s a Beauty and the Beast thing, physically, cosmetically. But then, I think the parallel and the kinetic connection is because they’re equally broken. Then there’s also – I mean, I hate saying this, but I will – an older-younger type of thing. I don’t think that’s really true, but it might be.

Hollywood News: Megan, Josh said it’s been a crazy few years for you. How have you handled everything and not gone insane? And Josh, what’s your favorite John Malkovich moment in or on the movie?

Fox: I don’t know. I think I’ve maintained the same relationships that I’ve had before this happened to me, and I kept people close to me that I love and respect, and look out for me and take care of me, and I’ve distanced myself from the Hollywood crowd. I don’t go out and socialize that way. You wouldn’t think it, but I’m sort of oddly very domestic, and I think that keeps me sane. My personal relationships keep me grounded.

Brolin: We were doing the clay fight sequence, me and John, this was fairly early on in the movie. We finished a take, and it was fairly violent. The great thing about John is he’s so in character, but he doesn’t stay in character. So we’ll finish a take, and will be looking at each other, and we’ll be yelling GRRRR!, and they yell cut, and he goes, “So when are you doing the Woody film?” So there was one take that we did, and John says, “Josh, can you come here for a second?” And I said, “Yeah, John, what’s up?” and he says, “Um, can you pull my finger?” And I said, “Seriously?” And he says, “Yeah, just grab my finger, and just pull it.” And I pulled his finger, and I heard a crack, and I go, “Oh f*ck, man. Are you alright?” And he goes, “Yeah, I think you broke it. But I’m fine.” That’s my best John Malkovich.

Hollywood News: Megan, Josh talked about seeing you as rebellious, but in your earlier comment you said you’re more domestic. How do you see yourself, and how does it feel to be 22 and have to deal with all this fame?

Fox: Well, I’m 24 now. Well, you have to be a strong person to survive this kind of fame, because it is very difficult to be under the microscope every moment of every day. Everything that leaves your mouth becomes this sensationalized news story, no matter what your intentions were when you first said it, so it becomes overwhelming. Am I that rebellious? I think there are many sides to me, and my personality, and I think the only thing that is rebellious about me is that I don’t really have a lot of fears as far as this industry is concerned, and I’ll do things that maybe other people are afraid to do, or afraid to say. But in my personal life, I’m actually very responsible with my personal relationships. I’ve always been that way.

Brolin: And rebellion, just to be clear, can mean holding onto some of your own integrity, of not playing into the idea of sensationalism. We all have our moments, and that’s your guys’ job – to take those moments and make them turgid, gaseous, make them big, and it’s bigger than the person is. When you start believing your own press, that’s when it gets really sad. But that’s part of the rebellion that I responded to, because she was still her. She’s still very grounded, very gravelly, which I like.

Hollywood News: A lot of women in Hollywood are beginning to develop their own projects for production companies. Do you see directing soon in your future?

Fox: Definitely not directing. I have absolutely no skill set that would suggest that I would be able to do something like that. But possibly producing I guess at some point, if that. If I were able to, I’d like to get into that, sure.

Hollywood News: What other projects do each of you have lined up? Also, Megan, when you get a character described as a hooker with a heart of gold, what do you say to yourself about making this clichéd character something real or convincing?

Fox: Well, hooker with a heart of gold was not in the character breakdown when I got it, but I felt like it was an amazing opportunity for me to be involved in a project with Josh, and John Malkovich, and Fassbender – with all these incredible actors, who were coming in to make this movie, and I just wanted to be a part of it any way that I could. I don’t really feel like she’s that stereotypical. Perhaps you’re responding to the fact that I’m playing the character, that that sort of makes it stereotypical. But it’s something completely different from anything I’ve done, and no one can accuse me of doing the same thing twice, which I’m proud of. As for future projects, I have a movie with Mickey Rourke hopefully coming out this fall called Passion Play, which I was really excited to work on. It’s an independent right now, and I’m really proud of that, and I had an amazing experience making that movie. It’s sort of a modern film noir, and Mickey’s character is a down on his luck trumpet player and is a heroin addict, and he comes across my character, who is part of a traveling freak show. She has bird wings that sprouted out of her back when she went through puberty, and it’s sort of this very bizarre strange relationship that they have, and it’s very tragic.

Hollywood News: Megan, there’s an inside joke about your character that reveals she is a character from the comics. If this is a big hit, would you be interested in reprising the role?

Fox: Of course. I mean, if that was an opportunity that was presented to me, absolutely. I would love that.

Hollywood News: Josh and Megan, given the existing fan base for the comic, did you feel freedom to take those liberties or did you feel obligated to be faithful to the source material?

Fox: Well, I feel like it’s impossible to really please the hardcore comic book fans, because they’ll never be happy no matter what you do. I go on to Lord of the Rings forums, because I’m a fan, and they’ll complain that Frodo was eating the lembas bread outside of Mordor instead of the mines of Moria, and they get really mad. But Peter Jackson and company won like, thirty-something Oscars for that movie! So you can’t focus completely on pleasing them, because you’ll never win, and then you’re excluding a whole other world of people who weren’t aware of the comic in the first place, so I think you have to take some kind of liberties to make it into a live action film, or it wouldn’t work.

http://filmreviewonline.com/2010/06/16/jonah-hex-josh-brolin-on-crafting-a-superhero/

Jonah Hex – Josh Brolin on crafting a superhero
Posted by Judy Sloane on Jun 16, 2010

Based on the long running DC comic book character, which traces back to the 1970s, Jonah Hex has finally made his move to the big screen, embodied by actor Josh Brolin. Hex is a scarred drifter and bounty hunter of last resort; a battle-hardened gunslinger who can track down anyone.

When the U.S. Military, under the orders of President Ulysses S. Grant (Aidan Quinn), asks him to track down the sinister terrorist, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), the man who killed Hex’s family and mutilated his face with a branding iron, the bounty hunter’s quest for revenge seems complete. That is until Turnbull kidnaps the one person Hex cares about, a prostitute named Lilah (Megan Fox).

Josh Brolin spoke with filmreviewonline about his love of the comic book and the character.

You’re obviously working off a script and a graphic novel, but the character isn’t that well known. So what was it like to craft a superhero that you could create from scratch, whose reputation didn’t precede it?

(The character) stems from a comic book that had three lives, and that wasn’t necessarily very successful, but I loved the idea that it refused to die, so it’s a survivalist comic book. But it allowed us to take luxuries and do what we wanted to do as long as we had the blessing of the comic book artists. So the core of the character’s there, but then we kind of go off on these different tangents.

What were the challenges of doing the make-up every day?

It was a pain-in-the-ass. And it’s not even that we didn’t have the money, we chose to go practical, which Lon Chaney did. And being one of my heroes, and loving the idea of morphing and any opportunity to do that I embrace.

It’s kind of like the story that Alex Baldwin told before he did The Edge, which was out in Alaska with the bear, with Anthony Hopkins. He was sitting in his nice really warm apartment in New York reading the script, saying, ‘I think this could be cool,’ and then cut to being out in the middle of nowhere where it’s 40 degrees below zero, and going, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done this movie.’

We did three hours of make up a day, it was very tough. I had a mouthpiece that held my mouth all the way back that was attached to the back of my neck, and then we did three more layers (of make up) on top of that. Then I walked around with half a mustache and half a beard in New Orleans for three months, so there was nothing attractive about it.

We actually had the eye which was in the comic book and I started to get an infection within the hours, so I’m not that dedicated. And I couldn’t eat, so I would stuff myself in the morning and then just drink water throughout the whole day’ And it was 100 degrees, so it was a pain. Would I do it again? Yeah, because it’s like having a baby, now I look at the end result and I go, ‘That’s pretty cool.’

I hear you were instrumental in casting Megan Fox for the role of Lilah.
Jonah Hex - Megan Fox and Josh Brolin

I know (critics) will go, ‘There wasn’t that much thought put into it.’ But there actually was. Even though this is a kind of absurd, ridiculous, fun, escapist film, (I said), ‘Hey, we could go a little further with the acting here.’ Even though we made it fun, we did a lot of different takes where she’s crying, where she’s not crying.

When I read some of these articles that she had done and is as acerbic and rebellious as she could be, I wanted to see how real that was. Nobody can handle that kind of fame that fast, at 22 years old. And I thought she was handling it really well. So when we met, I just wanted to make sure that she was the real deal, and a scrapper, and that she could go head-to-head with John (Malkovich) and really hold her own. And there’s definitely a truck driver mentality there.

Did you build up a back-story for your relationship with Lilah?

When people like that get together, it’s a beauty and the beast thing physically, cosmetically, but then I think the parallel and the kinetic connection is because they’re both equally broken. Then, there’s also, I hate saying this but I will, an older/younger type of thing.

Are you happy that the movie is rated PG-13, and will there be an R-rated version on the DVD?

I think (an R-rating) belongs on DVD. I was very against this thing going PG-13 in the beginning. Then I was very, very happy and think they made a much better decision by going PG-13, because (the violence) is not gratuitous. This movie, when you watch it, or when I do, you expect it to be gratuitous and it’s not and I think that’s much more interesting then if it were the Grindhouse kind of thing where it’s all just out there.

Are you doing another comic book adaptation? The Men in Black film? You would play a younger Tommy Lee Jones? Any truth to that?

Uh-huh (he nods and smiles)
What do you have coming up next?

I’ve got Woody (Allen’s) movie (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) that was in Cannes and I’ve got Oliver (Stone’s) movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps that was in Cannes, which was really something that was very special to have those two movies in Cannes. And we’ve got True Grit coming out Christmas. Men in Black, if it all works out, is going to happen.

http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1190:josh-brolin-grunts-er-talks-qjonah-hexq&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=167

Josh Brolin grunts, er, talks "JONAH HEX"

JONAH HEX rides into theaters this Friday, and star Josh Brolin had a few things to say about the movie and makeup FX that transformed him into DC Comics’ supernatural bounty hunter.

Comic Book Resources spoke with Brolin, who co-stars in JONAH HEX with Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender and Will Arnett.

“We chose to go practical,” Brolin explains of the FX that created his character’s facial disfigurement. “Which—with Lon Chaney being one of my heroes and loving the idea of morphing and any opportunity to do that—I embraced.”

The makeup application took several hours. “There were many different layers,” Brolin says. “I had a mouthpiece that held my mouth all the way back that was attached to the back of my neck, then we did three more layers on top of that. Then I walked around with half a moustache and half a beard in New Orleans for three months, so there was nothing attractive [about the look].”

Originally, the plan was to give Brolin a half-dead right eye just like the comics character. “I started to get an infection within the hour, so that wasn’t really [working],” Brolin reveals. And that wasn’t the only encumbrance the actor had to deal with. “I was definitely [in character]. I couldn’t eat. A lot of movies, you say I work fourteen hours a day, but really, you only work six and you’re in your trailer playing Nintendo the rest of the time. We actually worked fourteen, sixteen hours a day, so I couldn’t eat that whole time. I would stuff myself in the morning and then just drink water through the whole day and it was a hundred degrees. So, it was a pain. Would I do it again? Yeah! It’s like having a baby—I look at the end result and go, ‘That’s pretty cool.’ “

Look for FANGO’s review of JONAH HEX this Friday.

http://www.artistdirect.com/entertainment-news/article/interview-josh-brolin-of-jonah-hex-jonah-hex-would-listen-to-a-lighter-metal-ratt-or-maybe-black-sabbath/7292243

Interview
Josh Brolin of "Jonah Hex" —"Jonah Hex would listen to a lighter metal…Ratt or maybe Black Sabbath…"

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:38:49

Jonah Hex star Josh Brolin talks to ARTISTdirect.com editor and Dolor author Rick Florino in this exclusive interview about what Jonah Hex would listen to, the psychedelic aspects of the film and favorite bands...

Interview: Josh Brolin of "Jonah Hex" —"Jonah Hex would listen to a lighter metal…Ratt or maybe Black Sabbath…"

Jonah Hex doesn't need an iPad or an iPod. He's got a horse outfitted with two gattling guns that run on pure unadulterated vengeance. Steve Jobs still hasn't been able to make an APP for that!

That's the beauty of Josh Brolin's portrayal of the classic DC hero in Warner Bros' big screen adaptation of the graphic novel. He's an undeniable badass in the most classic "Clint Eastwood" sense of the word, which makes the movie the perfect bullet-riddled revenge romp through the old West. Jonah's going to avenge his family, so he's after John Malkovich's nefarious Quentin Turnbull with the aid of some dead amigos and a smoking "Lilah," played by Megan Fox.

However, while discussing the character, Brolin had some interesting theories about who Hex would listen to. He laughs, "Ratt…I think hair band metal. It's a lighter metal. It's not speed metal. It's not black metal. Maybe Black Sabbath…"

Well, either Ozzy or Dio at the helm of Sabbath would be perfect for Hex's iPod. There's nothing like mowing down outlaws to a little "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" or "Neon Nights."

Jonah Hex star Josh Brolin sat down with ARTISTdirect.com editor and Dolor author Rick Florino for an exclusive interview about what would be on Jonah Hex's playlist, the psychedelic aspects of the film and his own personal favorite bands…

Check out the interview here and below and don't miss Jonah Hex Friday June 18th!

http://thestamfordtimes.com/story/487848

Brolin's Jonah Hex 'isn't Superman'
Posted on 06/17/2010

By ROSSITER DRAKE

Hour Correspondent

Jonah Hex, who first appeared in the pages of DC Comics in 1971, may not boast the same marquee value as DC colleagues Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. But, after several cancellations and subsequent resurrections, the half-dead bounty hunter has found new life on the big screen, as the titular antihero of director Jimmy Hayward's latest adventure.

Although Hex's failure to earn a huge following in print must have tempered expectations for the movie's box-office potential, it afforded Hayward and star Josh Brolin some creative latitude in their depiction of a hard-drinking former Confederate soldier determined to avenge the murder of his wife and child.

"Hex isn't Superman," says Hayward, 39, who credits Brolin with recruiting friends like Michael Fassbender and John Malkovich to co-star in this high-octane Western.

"People don't have preconceptions about him. There are a lot of different stories about the character, including those that explain his origins. He's even been to the future -- there's a 'Road Warrior' version out there. So this isn't Batman. We have leeway in what we can do with him."

Through all his various incarnations, Hex has remained aggressive, foul-tempered and, thanks to a brutal run-in with the nefarious Quentin Turnbull (played in the movie by Malkovich), horribly disfigured. Brolin credits Hex's unsightly scars, and the grueling process of recreating them, with helping him find the tone for the role.

"We did three hours of makeup a day," says Brolin, 42, who found that playing a near-invincible warrior reminded him of the envy he felt watching Jackie Chan in 1995's 'Rumble in the Bronx.' "I had a mouthpiece that held my mouth all the way back, and I walked around with half a mustache and half a beard for three months in New Orleans. It wasn't attractive, but it contributed to the curmudgeonly feel of the character.

"I couldn't eat. A lot of times people say they worked 14 hours a day, but they really worked six and spend the rest of the time in their trailer, playing Nintendo. We actually worked 14 hours a day. I'd stuff myself in the morning and drink water the rest of the day in 100-degree heat. But would I do it again? Sure. It's like having a baby. Now I look at the end result and I think it's pretty cool."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/joshw24/news/?a=19220

Josh Brolin On The Jonah Hex Post-Production Changes!
The actor talks more about Jonah Hex's rough road to the big screen and reveals just how happy he is with the final cut of the film...

"Extremely." the actor said when asked how satisfied he is with the final cut of the movie. However, he did go on to reveal that it: "went through a lot of manifestations of what this was going to be, especially in post-production."

"The more involved I get in film, you see what you get and all the footage you get when you're shooting, and once you get into the editing room you go, 'Wow, if you take this scene and put it into the beginning, and actually cut up these two scenes and inter-cut them, it's a lot more dynamic than we initially thought. So whatever initial intentions I had in the beginning were kind of blown apart once we were shooting, and those were all reconstructed by the time we got into the editing room."

"There was a lot of humor I saw the opportunity for that we didn't necessarily see on the set," he added. "I always wanted those great one-liners — those Charles Bronson-esque and Clint Eastwood-esque one-liners. I'm a huge fan of those, so I wanted to bring that back as much as I could without doing any kind of copycatting."

"Once we saw the opportunity for that, we thought, 'Wow, if we did additional shooting, we could bring that out more, we could extrapolate on that more, we could exploit that more,' and I think we did. So this last cut, I'm very very happy with."

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/movie-news/Josh+Brolins+Costume+Struggle-81525.html

Josh Brolin's Costume Struggle

Monday (21st) 09:37


Josh Brolin has revealed that his Jonah Hex costume gave him an eye infection.

The Oscar winning actor is back on the big screen this summer as DC Comic character Jonah Hex is just the latest to get a big screen makeover.

Brolin takes on the central role, and stars alongside Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender and John Malkovich, and admits that the makeup required for the movie left him unable to eat properly.

Speaking to ContactMusic he said: We actually had the eye, which is in the comic book and I started to get an infection within the hour. I'm not that dedicated.

On a lot of movies you say, 'I worked 14 hours a day,' when really you only worked six and you're in your trailer playing Nintendo the rest of the time. We actually worked 14, 16 hours a day, so I couldn't eat that whole time.

"I would stuff myself in the morning and then just drink water throughout the whole day and it was 100 degrees. It was a pain."

Despite this Brolin admits that he would happily reprise the character if a sequel was on the cards: "Would I do it again? Yeah. It's like having a baby, you know? Now, I look at the end result and I go that's pretty cool."

However a sequel may not be on the cards for Brolin and co as the movie struggled at the U.S. box office this weekend as it too just $5.08 million and opened in eighth.

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/movie-news/Josh+Brolin+Disappointed+With+Jonah+Hex-84748.html

Josh Brolin Disappointed With Jonah Hex

Monday 13th September 2010 - 10:02:35

Josh Brolin has revealed that he is not proud of his new movie Jonah Hex.

The Oscar nominated actor takes on the title role alongside John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender and Megan Fox in the latest DC Comic big screen adaptation.

The movie has been plagued with production problems and Brolin has revealed that he is disappointed with the final version of the movie.

When asked if he was proud of the movie he told MTV News: "No, no. We had an original intention and that got away from us.

"It got so derailed at a certain point that the assemblage of what we could use was so disconnected to what our original intention was that it just got mixed up.

"I still think it's a lot of fun. If you go in there, kind of like Piranha 3-D, when you go and see that movie and you go and think, 'This is ridiculous,' and, 'This is fun,' then you could still go in there and have a good time."

But Brolin has plenty of projects in the pipeline as You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps are both due for release later this year.