Josh Brolin has revealed that he almost walked off the set of Ridley Scott’s new film early in production, and it was only a timely word from the director himself that convinced him to stay.
The actor, 58, said empire magazine who “got really scared” shortly after filming began The dog starsScott’s post-apocalyptic drama hitting theaters August 28.
The source of his anxiety was Scott’s famously instinctive, under-rehearsed approach to the set.
“Ridley was telling a lot of stories and he wasn’t really rehearsing,” Brolin recalled, “and that made me really upset and scared. I went back and called my agent and said, ‘I want out. Something is really wrong, and I have to get out of here.'”
His agent, a close friend, suggested he take a day to rest and reconsider. Brolin caught on to the tactic immediately.
“I was like, ‘No, man, I know what the fuck you’re doing.'”
What really changed things was Scott himself.
The 88-year-old director invited Brolin to his trailer and played a scene he had just filmed with co-star Jacob Elordi.
The images spoke for themselves.
“[Ridley] “Come here,” he took me to his trailer and acted out the scene we had just finished. It was a really good scene and very dynamic between Jacob and I, and he was like, ‘Is this okay?’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and then I started feeding off of it.”
Brolin had worked with Scott before, in 2007. american gangsterbut the director’s energetic multi-camera style still took him by surprise.
It took him a day or two to adjust, he said, before something clicked.
“I got really into it because it was stratospherically creative and stratospherically dangerous.”
He noted that he had been actively seeking exactly that kind of challenge, and then quickly resisted when it arrived.
In the end, he said, “it became one of the most creative and satisfying projects I’ve ever been involved in.”
In The dog starsAdapted by Mark L. Smith from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel, Brolin plays former Marine Bangley opposite Elordi, who plays a civilian pilot navigating a brutal post-apocalyptic world until a mysterious radio transmission sends him searching for something to believe in.
The cast also includes Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong and Allison Janney.
