Creating A President: Josh Brolin Interviewed

03 December 08

The son also rises. Second generation Hollywood actor Josh Brolin talks to Anwar Brett about playing George W. Bush.

There is an irresistible parallel between Josh Brolin and his latest screen incarnation, the eponymous W. in Oliver Stone’s challenging new film. As sons of successful fathers, both Brolin and George W. Bush will have experienced the curious feeling of living in the shadow of a high-achieving parent.

But in the last couple of years, Brolin has established himself with increasing confidence, working for directors like Ridley Scott in American Gangster, the Coens in No Country For Old Men and Gus Van Sant in the upcoming Milk.

His performance as Bush, and the buzz surrounding his portrayal of Dan White in Milk, a key character in the life and death of California’s first openly gay public official Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn), suggests that he is now an actor carving out his own career on his own terms.

Once I started doing a lot of theatre and working with Anthony Zerbe, everything changed...

But early on, the fact that he had a famous actor father proved more hindrance than help. “People overreacted because of that, so there was definitely a shadow, and a sense of trying to find my own niche for maybe the first five years of my career.”

Salvation came in the form of veteran actor Anthony Zerbe, with whom he worked at the GeVa Theatre in Rochester, New York. “Once I started doing a lot of theatre and working with Anthony, everything kind of changed because then it became ours, as opposed to me flailing around. That’s the Bush parallel for sure.”

In Stone’s film, Bush evolves from the reckless youth known to one and all by the not always affectionate nickname ‘Junior’, stumbling through moments of wild excess and repeated failed business ventures to the increasing exasperation of his disapproving father (James Cromwell).

Only after giving up alcohol and finding God, then later working on his father’s 1988 election campaign, does he evolve into the ‘W’ of popular imagination, a man whose political achievements – and impact upon the wider world – have eclipsed those of Bush senior.

The changes in Brolin’s career have been less spectacular and less global but he recognises that a reassessment in his approach to his work has been rewarded by higher profile roles for major filmmakers.

“I may have had problems with some of the directors I’ve worked with before because it wasn’t about the work,” he reflects. “I didn’t realise that until now, that it was about ego and power and all that. Now I’m working with these amazing people, I realise that there’s not only more of a simplicity going on but it’s about the work itself, about how to make the best movie that you can make.”

Although Stone’s politics might differ greatly from those of the incumbent president, his view of George W. Bush is more nuanced than some might expect, portraying a complex man of conviction driven by a desire to prove himself to a powerful father.

Brolin might accept some of the same motivation, and is certainly shrewd enough to know that it helps sell his movie. He emerges with the greatest credit from the piece, evoking some sympathy for a man who might resemble a Hemingway hero at the beginning of his Presidency, but has the haunted look of a man in a Scott Fitzgerald novel by the end of his second term. Whether there will be a third act to his life is for history to judge.

But it’s worth remembering that when Bush was the age that Brolin is now – 40 – he had yet to undergo the personal changes that turned his life around and set him on the course he travels on today.

Brolin, having dabbled in stocks and shares to supplement his income during less successful times in his acting career, understands the importance of holding your nerve in a fluctuating market, where you can be up one day and down the next.

“It’s only been a year and a half since all those movies came out that people have even given a shit about my name or what I can offer a movie,” he says with a grin. “It’s weird, and I have a very healthy fear of believing what I read. This could be a great year, and next year could not be such a great year. To me all that matters is that I challenge myself in a way that satisfies me – and I’m completely satisfied this year.”