Josh Brolin talks Goonies, Thanos and Sin City

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR is almost upon us and Josh Brolin took to Reddit to talk about all things film, whether that be his turn as Dwight, Thanos, or even his early work as a Goonie. You can check out the entire AMA here, but I've included a few of the highlights that are worth checking out.

Josh Brolin on his memories shooting GOONIES:

They didn't show us the ship that was being built, which would now be CGI I'm sure, so this was long enough ago that everything was practical (which made things much more fun & fantastical) – so it was on a stage, the stage was a massive pool with a practical 110 foot boat built in it. And they backed us up into the stage, into the water, had the camera set up so that we could have an "organic" reaction, put us underwater, I came up out of the water, turned around, we all came up out of the water, I turned around and said "Holy shit!" which ruined the whole take. And the surprise. So we had to resort to acting in the end. My first day at work, half the day was ruined because I giggled so much. My dad didn't often bring me to the set, being an actor himself, so my infancy as an actor was wracked with a lot of giggles and nervousness. My craziest on-set story comes from during the Goonies, when I came up to Spielberg and said that I wanted to climb the walls of the tunnels and that it represented my mother's womb, for some odd reason. I was reading Stanislawski at the time and Spielberg's response was "Why don't you just act."

If he'd be up for a sequel to GOONIES:

There's always a possibility. Seriously, no teasing. About every 5 years it comes up. I've never read a script. It seems that recently in the last year, there's been more talk of it than usual from the likes of Corey Feldman and Richard Donner. But that's as far as it's gone for me. I don't know how I feel about a sequel, given that I love the original movie so much.

Working with Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott on AMERICAN GANGSTER:

Yeah. With Russell, I told him before when I was doing "No Country" that I was going to lose weight for the role, so they had the measurements of what I was supposed to be. When I showed up, apparently, I had forgotten to lose the weight, so I put on my wardrobe and went to rehearse my first scene with Russell. I was nervous (obviously) and excited, I asked Ridley if it was ok if we just ran through the scene once, I grabbed a chair and sat next to Russell. Halfway through the scene, and the seat of my pants ripped wide open. I missed the mark in making it a joke to break the ice between Russell and I. Once the scene was over, nobody was very impressed, and I went back to my trailer waiting to be fired. So while I was in my trailer, pantsless, there was a knock at the door, waiting there was Ridley, who said "I love the vulnerability you've brought to the role. Let's go more with that."

What it was like to play Thanos and his thoughts on it:

Thanos was a one-day process: it was a digital process that I was personally involved in.

Once I was at Comic-Con I realized what it meant to everybody. The critics' impact is minimal here, it's all about the fans. And when I was at Comic-Con, I realized the great rivalry between Robert & myself, and so did Marvel, so I think they have big plans for Thanos in the future.

What it was like to shoot SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR:

Great. With that type of movie, you think it would be a phone-in job. But the truth of the matter is, it has a depth (if you want it to) or it's just a great cosmetic ride (if you just want to be entertained). All my memories are off camera, even when I was on-camera, it felt like I was off camera. A lot of painting with Robert Rodriguez and George Yepes (who is a painter, our teacher when Robert & I worked together – Robert has a studio out back, and we did about 8 paintings during that time).

Josh Brolin strikes me as an incredibly humble and cool dude. Ever since NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, he’s been nailing great film roles left and right. I loved Clive Owne’s turn as Dwight in the original SIN CITY, so I’m looking forward to the layer Josh Brolin is looking to add in A DAME TO KILL FOR. Eva Green proved to be an incredibly effective and fun villain in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, so I’m excited to see if she gets what’s coming to her via some Brolin vengeance in this flick.

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR hits theaters tomorrow!