Josh Brolin has revealed he called his agent after a day of filming Ridley Scott’s upcoming The Dog Stars to tell him he wanted to “get the f*** out of here.”
The 58-year-old Weapons star said he had serious concerns about working with the legendary Gladiator director on the apocalyptic drama about the aftermath of a deadly flu virus, which also stars Jacob Elordi.
Speaking to Empire, Brolin recalled that when he landed in Italy to begin filming: “Ridley was talking a lot of stories and not really rehearsing, and it bugged me out, and I got really scared.”
He continued: “I went back, called my agent and said, ‘I want out. Something’s really wrong, and I’ve got to get the f*** out of here.’ Luckily my agent is a close friend and he said, ‘Rest for a day.’ I was like, ‘No, man, I know what the f*** you’re doing. It’s not one of those day-things.’ And I was right.”
Brolin went on to say that he did eventually come around to Scott’s unconventional process, which relies on little rehearsal and a brisk filming pace.
Brolin remembered Scott showing him footage from the film that relieved him of his wariness, explaining : “He goes, ‘Come here,’ and he brought me into his trailer, and played the scene we had just finished. It was a really good, very dynamic scene between me and Jacob, and he goes, ‘Okay?’ I go, ‘Okay,’ and then I started to feed off that.”
The No Country For Old Men star continued: “It took about a day or two for me to really embrace that, and then I got super into it because it was stratospherically creative and stratospherically dangerous. It was like, ‘This is what I’ve been asking for but now I’m getting it, I’m fighting it, because there’s zero comfort in it.’ It became one of the more creative, satisfying projects that I’ve ever been involved with.”
The Dog Stars, which is adapted from a 2012 novel by Peter Heller, is set to be released theatrically on August 28.
Last November, Brolin spoke to The Independent at length about his film roles and his view of the U.S. president.
“I’m not scared of Trump, because even though he says he’s staying for ever, it’s just not going to happen,” said Brolin at the time. “And if it does, then I’ll deal with that moment. But having been a friend of Trump before he was president, I know a different guy.”
