‘An ambience of suffering’
DUNE’S BROLIN SAYS VILLENEUVE CREATED A CHALLENGING FILM ENVIRONMENT
Dune: Part Two In theatres March 1
The first time Josh Brolin worked with director Denis Villeneuve was almost 10 years ago on Sicario, a gritty thriller about an FBI agent (Emily Blunt) thrown into the drug wars along the U.s.-mexico border.
And the second time was on Dune. I ask the gregarious actor if the Quebec director has changed over that time.
“He’s less depressed about it all,” Brolin reports. “I remember during Sicario I’d have people over on the weekends, Benny (Benicio Del Toro) and Emily, and all that. And he would always be at the other end of the pool with his pants rolled up, and he just looked like the weight of the world was on him. And I would be like, you gotta loosen up man, swim a little bit, enjoy yourself!”
And now? “I think now there’s a little more confidence in what he does,” Brolin says. “He has a real resumé now whereas he didn’t necessarily. I know he did in French Canada, he did in Montreal, but making American films.”
He did indeed. Canadian cineastes will remember his 1998 feature debut August
32nd on Earth, the edgy based-on-a-true-story Polytechnique, and the Oscar-nominated Incendies.
But more recently Villeneuve has managed to make Hollywood science-fiction blockbusters that are at once highbrow and entertaining and also Oscar-winning: Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Dune and now its sequel, which opens March 1.
They are also personal, which seems odd to say about films with budgets north of $100 million. For instance, Villeneuve is a huge fan of Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner, loosely based on the Philip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
“It’s more with this,” Brolin says of Dune. “I know this is something that’s been living in him since he read it when he was a teenager. And I think now technology is such that he’s able to manifest it in the way that he saw it as a child. Which — how wonderful to be able to do!”
Brolin and Villeneuve are gen-xers, born just four months apart in the late 1960s, so it’s possible they were both reading dog-eared copies of the ’60s sci-fi novel at the same time. (After you’re past the ABCS of Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke, the next stop is D for Dune.)
“Once you start getting into that genre, Dune becomes a necessity,” Brolin confirms. “I was blown away by the book. I don’t think I understood it as well as I could have when I was a kid. It was nice to revisit it through Denis’s eyes.”
It was also fun to follow the director around the world to make it — locations included Budapest, Jordan and “two-and-a-half hours outside of Abu Dhabi, filming with 100 kilometres of nothing but sand around us.”
Tongue in cheek, the actor continues: “I think he wanted us to suffer, and suffer we did. I think that’s why he was less depressed, too. I think he was more confident to create an ambience of suffering, even though we had the best time.”
He adds: “But I like that s--t. So I’m game. Some people don’t. They want a big trailer. I don’t care about the trailer.”
And to be clear: “No matter how good of a time we’re having, I always feel like there’s a standard that I’m living up to with him, which I like. And I think he’s one of our best, so it always makes me happy. I’m glad that we got to continue a trajectory of working together. And I hope it continues.”
Speaking of which ... Dune: Part Three? The latest film ends not on a cliff hanger per se, but certainly with the promise that there could be more story to tell.
“I think everybody from an acting standpoint would be on board, just because working with Denis is so gratifying,” Brolin says.
He’s also clearly a fan. “Instead of creating a franchise just to pull a buck out of everybody, these movies feel to me like a great work of art, and they feel full of — ” he searches for the word. “It feels electric. And it’s not often that I see a movie that feels electric any more. If you want to continue that electricity, I’m all for it.”
He chuckles. “But I’m an actor for hire, don’t listen to me.”
I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE THERE’S A STANDARD THAT I’M LIVING UP TO WITH HIM, WHICH I LIKE. AND I THINK HE’S ONE OF OUR BEST.