He plays the ultimate villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Josh Brolin recently revealed that he needed a little help tapping into his inner bad guy to play the alien warlord Thanos, who appeared in a number of MCU movies but most notably Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
While Marvel fans have been scouring the universe for every teasing clue that more Thanos is coming—here's what the actor himself had to say about those relentless rumors—Brolin took moviegoers back to the character's beginnings in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy during a sit-down with GQ, in which Josh broke down some of his most iconic film roles, from The Goonies to Dune.
He, of course, touched on the Mad Titan, but shared that he didn't think he was right to play the supervillain, until the Russo Brothers gave him a note that helped him unlock that performance:
I almost said no, just because I was like, 'Marvel, and I dunno, and that's not really what I do.' And I think that's what was so fun about playing that character, was the psychology of it, the behavior of it. And then the Russos would come up and they'd be like, 'Remember that scene in Scarface?' And you're like, 'What? Yeah!' 'Remember that guy with the chainsaw?' 'Yes.' 'Do that, but with your voice.' What a great direction.
To play the Marvel villain (who Brolin hilariously calls "a super good guy, like a neighbor...just purple and big"), the actor had to navigate the complicated nature of motion capture work, which sees performers having to sport skintight bodysuits covered with "1500 dots on your face" to record their movements.
Those 3D points can then be rendered into a digital character and placed in a new setting, à la Thanos on planet Titan. Brolin previously revealed that it was Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Smaug in the Hobbit movies that brought him around to the greatness of mo-cap work.
Given that much of an actor's motion-capture performance isn't fully realized until they can see the whole finished product onscreen, a role like Thanos requires a lot of trust in the filmmakers. Thankfully Brolin said that he's been lucky enough to work with people who are "absolutely and utterly committed to their vision," like directors Anthony and Joseph Russo.
Working with people who are absolutely and utterly committed to their vision and their imagination and how to convey it in a way that's inspiring will forever be inspiring to me, you know. I just want to be around those people all the time.
It's unclear whether we'll be seeing Josh Brolin as Thanos in any upcoming Marvel movies—last we saw the iconically evil character onscreen, he died not once but twice in Avengers: Endgame, first in a beheading by Thor and then in Iron Man's Infinity Stones sacrifice. But if we do, we know that the actor is more than capable of letting out that Tony Montana rage.
In the meantime, you can catch Brolin in another big-budget sci-fi epic, Denis Villeneuve's space blockbuster Dune: Part Two, in theaters tomorrow, March 1.
