Josh Brolin plays the lead role Dune: Part Two, What could be more natural for this denizen of blockbusters? avenger? And yet the actor survived in memory for “20 years.” Goonies, Success of the 1980s.
The Californian, now in his fifties, was repeatedly brought back to his role as the older brother of the toddler hero of this adventure film by Richard Donner until the mid-2000s.
“However, after that I did a lot of other things, but they went unnoticed,” he slips without bitterness at a meeting in Paris with four journalists, including AFP, before the February 29 release of “Dune: second part.” .
In this sci-fi blockbuster, he plays star Timothée Chalamet's fencing master. He was also on the set as a mentor to Austin Butler (Elvis), a newcomer to the saga.
“Austin said, 'People always see me as Elvis.' I replied: “For seven months people talked to you about Elvis, for 20 years I only had the Goonies, shut up!” he says with a hearty laugh.
Josh Brolin admires his younger brother and enjoys his success – after Elvis, the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks-produced series Masters of the Air – while he was struggling at the same age. When Brolin was approached for the series 21 Jump Street, Johnny Depp beat him to the post.
“Masochistic”
The son of American comedian James Brolin – married for the third time to Barbra Streisand, who is not Josh's mother – even ran the market for a while to pay the bills.
The man who spent his youth on a ranch was put back in the saddle in the 2007 Coen Brothers film “No Country for Old Men.”
He says he then benefited from a “domino effect”. The other directors thought, “Why did they choose him? I want him in my film too!” he says modestly.
That same year, his square jaw and cavernous voice, as if hollowed out by the strong alcohol he no longer drinks, worked wonders for the corrupt cop in Ridley Scott's “American Gangster.” And in 2009 he was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in Gus Van Sant's Milk.
Then come the blockbusters (Men in Black, Guardians of the Galaxy…) that will never limit him to comfort.
“I must be a masochist, I choose films that are emotionally or physically difficult, like Everest, where we were so cold we couldn't sleep, or Dune, shot at 45 degrees Celsius and sand in our mouths, at 2:30 “Minutes from Abu Dhabi” in the morning.
“Iceberg photos”
He associates this attraction to films that “consume you” with “Apocalypse Now,” which his father took him to see when he was just 11 years old: “It was irresponsible,” he laughs.
On the set of Sicario in 2015, he met director Denis Villeneuve, who is now directing Dune. “We are so close to Denis that in the second part of Dune I had the impression that we were sleeping in the same bed [rires]”.
For this science fiction fan, a film like no other. “My brain exploded when I read Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles as a child and then devoured it all. After that there was Isaac Asimov (Foundation), and then at 15 I immersed myself in Frank Herbert and Dune.
A rock fan – he listened to Kiss as a teenager and was close to Chris Cornell, the late leader of Soundgarden, as an adult – Josh Brolin sings briefly in Dune: Part Two.
He wrote the lyrics. “I worked with Hans Zimmer on the music [compositeur renommé de la bande originale]I asked him for ideas and he sent me photos…of icebergs. He was on vacation [rires]. I doubted him at that moment, which was stupid because his music is great.”
As a good Dune expert, he knows that his character would also have a place in a third episode. “It would depend on the success of the second part,” replies the Hollywood veteran.