In the movie, Josh plays a man named Llewelyn Moss, who finds a suitcase filled with money and a truck packed with drugs. After he takes the cash, Josh sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that he cannot contain, and can only hope to outrun. It ends up he is being chased by the very scary Javier Bardem, who delivers a truly evil performance that will probably land him an Oscar nomination.

And even though I single out Javier for his portrayal of a truly evil killer, I want to say that Josh is also great in the movie – just like the rest of the cast. The film is loaded with spectacular performances, and they all benefit from working with an amazing script. It’s a movie absolutely worth seeing, and one of the best I’ve seen this year.

Anyway, a few days ago I got participate in a roundtable interview with Josh to help promote the movie. During our conversation he demonstrated his wicked sense of humor, and he also told us a great story about breaking his collarbone right after landing the role. It’s a great interview and one worth reading.

And like I always do, you can either read the transcript below or download the audio as an MP3 by clicking here. And if you’re a fan of the Coen Brothers, make sure to check back tomorrow for the interview that I did with them.

“No Country For Old Men” opens in limited release this weekend, and in the coming weeks it'll be expanding to theaters nationwide.

Josh Brolin: Everybody has a different accent in this movie. (he starts to do a Javier Bardem imitation) I just want to say I think Chigurh is…I love the way he talks man.  “I’m not going to get laid for a long time”.

Question: There’s so little dialogue in this movie you have to convey everything with body language, how much work did you put into that?

Josh Brolin: I mean it was a fear, for sure, because dialogue that’s what you kind of rest upon as an actor, you know, drama and all the stuff is all dialogue motivated. You have to figure out different ways to convey ideas and you don’t want to over compensate because the fear is that you’re going to be boring if nothing’s going on so you start doing this and this and taking off your hat and putting it on again or some bullshit that doesn’t need to be there.  So yeah I was a little afraid of that in the beginning but I also knew people that, like the Coen’s, who feel absolutely no need to uphold their end of the conversation or only really say what needs to be said and they don’t sit there as directors and manipulate you and go into page after page to try to get you to a certain place.  They may come in and say one word or 2 words so that was nice to be around in order to feed the other thing.  What should I do right now?  I’ll just watch Ethan go humming to himself and pacing maybe that’s what I should do too.

Q: Well it’s interesting because we understand completely what your character plan is and what Javier’s characters plan is just because we see you guys putting things in motion.

Josh Brolin: Right. Right.  I mean everybody has a lot more dialogue than I do.  I mean, for me there was a part that we actually rehearsed that I said “hey, I think we should inject something here and I think it’s important and I’m afraid if we put something here he’s going to be talking to himself so much that it’s going to seem like he’s crazy and we don’t want him to come across as being crazy.”  He’s just a guy who once in a while answers an inner monologue—an inner dialogue that he has because he spends so much time alone. So anyway, when he finds the money, flips open the money and looks at the dead guy and then there’s a moment where he goes um huh, you know.  That was my added dialogue.  And every time we do it and we had a whole conversation about it and we tried different ways and every time we screen it no matter where Ethan is in the theatre I can hear him go (laughter) so he loves that moment.  But the whole thing with that is I’m used to improvising and this is a whole different monster.  The fear is being boring and the fear is overcompensating.  So I don’t know, hopefully we pulled it off.

Q: I know the Coen’s auditioned a lot of people for this role before they got to you.  Do you remember anything you did in your audition that caught their attention?

Josh Brolin: Well I did my first audition--Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarrantino filmed my first audition on a $1 million Genesis camera during lunch during Grindhouse and so that was a really cool looking audition, but I didn’t get the part.  It was turned down.  They watched it and their response was who lit it?  But I was much bigger and I had a goatee but it had nothing to do with the physicality, they just didn’t see it.  It’s not what they were looking for at that moment.  It wasn’t resonating and I have a brilliant agent who just became a persistent pest and just said “meet him, meet him, meet him, meet him. Not he’s perfect for the part, not you’re making a mistake just meet him.”  What I found out now was their last casting session, they were focused on a couple of actors and they called me the night before and they said basically no harm no foul.  Leave us alone, have him come down and I studied a few scenes and I came down and I met them and there was really no reaction in the meeting.  I walked out thinking it was great meeting the Coen’s. I’m a big fan.  That’s cool and by the time I got home I found out they wanted me to do it. 

Q: I read recently that when you were in an accident on I think it was Highland Avenue or something and you were thinking something about “oh I didn’t get to work with the Coen’s”.

Josh Brolin: When I was in the air.

When you were in the air.

Josh Brolin: That’s true actually.  I mean that and I’m going to die or whatever—all that stuff.  Yeah, that was 2 days after I got it.

After you got the part?

Josh Brolin: Yeah, 2 days after I got it I was going from a wardrobe fitting for the Coen’s movie to a wardrobe fitting for this movie that I did called The Dead Girl and somebody just—it wasn’t my fault, but you’re on a motorcycle so it’s inevitable and I hit it and snapped my collarbone in half.

Do you still ride?

Josh Brolin: Do I still ride?  I do. Yeah, I do.  Not as often and not in traffic.  I try to get out.

And not on Highland.

Josh Brolin: And not on Highland.  No, but it was a whole process and story in that—it’s really boring but I lied and I told them it was much more minor than it was and then I was told I was liable if anything happened to me and then I talked to my doctor and then he lied for me and then really the only reason I was able to do the movie is I remember Ethan said to me after he talked to the doctor he said “what shoulder is it?”  I said “it’s my right shoulder.” He said “Moss gets shot in the right shoulder.  We’ll be fine”, he said and we never had to change anything in the movie.  I couldn’t plate it because of the risk of infection of cutting me and going in an plating it, so it was a floating break so during the river scene it was moving all over the place.

Was that extremely painful?

Josh Brolin: At that point ah huh.  Later on it was okay and the dog didn’t friggin’ help.  The untrained dog.  The non-movie dog.  They thought that was funny.  I remember the trainer saying at one point, I was sitting in the water and the trainer goes to the crew—he’s not talking to me—but the trainer looks at the crew and says “if the dog runs after you on the beach, do not move.” I was like “what the fuck man, he comes swimming after me every take.”  So it wasn’t fun.

Can you talk about working for the Coen’s and was it what you expected?  Was it a little different, you know wanting to work with them for so long?

Josh Brolin: I don’t know.  I enjoyed them for a long time.  I don’t know.  I don’t ever remember thinking God I would love to work with them.  I think it was so far over there that I just never entertained it, you know?  So when it came up I was like oh yeah of course I would love to do that.  But Javier tells the same story but from a Spaniard’s point of view.  It’s like I’m a Spaniard, when am I ever going to work with the Coen’s.  It’s not going to happen.  So I think both of us were equally like “really?  Us?  Now?”  And how is it working with them?  Easy.  It’s not weird.  They’re not little freaks that walk around and do a funny really kooky Coen thing.  We’d all like to believe that, you know Planet Coen.  They’re really sweet.  Really collaborative, they pay attention.  They don’t not listen.  I’ve worked with a lot of directors that kind of half listen to you.  They’re extremely attentive and they tweak.  They get in there and they say what if you only brought your hand up half-way.  What?  But maybe you should just go like that instead of like that. Okay, and then I do it and I go wow, that’s really cool like that.  That’s good.  Visually that looks better or whatever, but there’s no major…I think they put the majority of their anxiety and their onus is on the casting process.  Once they cast the person that they feel is right—they could have cast my part a lot sooner than they did.  They could have just said “no, he’ll be fine”, but they wanted that person that made them go “that’s the guy, or his interpretation of it is similar to ours kind of thing.”  But it was fun.  It was easy and it was fun.  Extremely collaborative--that’s the thing that stuck out and the total lack of ego on the set.  Total lack.  There’s no petting, there’s no great job.  There was only one point where Woody came in and we were doing the scene in the hospital and Woody had just come in and there was a speech that Woody has when I’m in the bed and he’s talking about Chigurh and who he is and what he is and Woody was stumbling through it.  He was kind of forgetting a line here and I think he had changed one thing and it was fucking him up and anyway they finally got it right and they said cut and the Coen’s were like “oh my God.  That was great.”  And Javier and Josh Brolin: I were like “what the fuck man? You’ve got to be kidding me. Throw us a bone like a little good job or anything.”  Woody comes along and he’s like oh my God.  Wow. 

I’m the token journalist here from New Mexico. You’ve spent a decent amount of time there lately.  How’s the state treating you?

Josh Brolin: The state is great.  It’s a fantastic state.  I’ve always been a guy who’s worked in Arizona most of my time and a little bit in Texas, but New Mexico is fantastic.  Santa Fe I’ve worked in.  Las Vegas, New Mexico, Albuquerque in The Valley of Elah I did in Albuquerque.  I’m not crazy about Albuquerque personally but… it’s rough.

It depends on what neighborhood you’re living in.

Josh Brolin: It really does.  But it’s diverse and I love the desert.  I’m a huge fan of the desert.

You’ve had a few productions there, have you noticed anything about the crews and the way—because the state is really working very hard to build up the industry? 

Josh Brolin: It’s big right now.  I mean, you guys have your tax break so therefore a lot of people are showing up.  It’s like what Canada used to be, you know.  I’m happy for you guys just economically.  I’m sure it’s a great thing for you.

Definitely.

Josh Brolin: Yeah, it’s a great place to work.  I mean honestly.  I wouldn’t say that just because it sounds good.  I think it’s a great place to work.  I think Arizona is too.  I think West Texas is too, but I personally have an affinity for those areas.  Waterless, hot, dirt, grit.  But there’s a diversity though, you have the Red Mountains and you have a bunch of different—I like it personally. 

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