Actor Spotlight: Josh Brolin

 I’ve been reading Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, and the thing that keeps standing out is how I can’t tear myself away from thinking about Josh Brolin’s performance as Bigfoot Bjornsen in the 2014 film adaptation every time Bjornsen appears in the book. It got me thinking all over again how fascinating Brolin has become as an actor.

When I think about my favorite actors, I don’t necessarily include Brolin among them, in part because he never really broke out as a lead. But very few actors in modern cinema have so thoroughly dominated the supporting actor field like Brolin.

In a lot of ways, he’s something of a miracle. A lot of actors have to fight tooth and nail for a career, but Josh Brolin’s family kind of gave him an edge, so he didn’t have to work too hard to find a way in. His first film credit is Goonies (1985). He didn’t quite count as a child actor at that point, but he was still a teenager at the time. 

His career for the next twenty years is pretty unremarkable. He was just a guy who appeared in movies. In 2004 he acted in Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda. I would have to rewatch it to know what Brolin does, but that’s the first movie I personally care about to feature Brolin in some capacity. He’s got long locks in the Jessica Alba/Paul Walker gazing vehicle Into the Blue from 2005.

Brolin’s unquestionable breakout year was 2007, in which he starred in No Country for Old Men, as well as appeared in Grindhouse, American Gangster, and In the Valley of Elah. I caught all four in theaters and enjoyed each of them, and Brolin was a pleasant discovery each time. He had, at last, a magnetic, unavoidable presence. Ironically he actually takes a distinct backseat in No Country, which will always be remembered for Javier Bardem’s Anton Chicurh.

But there was no turning back from that point. In 2008 he starred in Oliver Stone’s W. He was featured in a string of projects from that point onward, but with Men in Black 3 in 2012 solidified his place in supporting actor lore, doing an impressive version of a young Tommy Lee Jones that somehow manages to feel natural and be the kind of performance Bardem had previously pulled on him, stealing the show from under the nominal lead (Will Smith).

Then in 2014 of course there was Inherent Vice. There’s lots of reasons to watch this one, but as I said, reading the book I kept coming back to Brolin’s Bjornsen. If you want to disentangle Brolin from his later career role as Thanos and consider him only as a classic actor in classic film material, this is the one that showcases him in all his natural charisma.

That same year he makes his first appearance as Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy, with larger spotlights in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame (neither of which, to my mind, really nail the character). He has another standout comic book movie  appearance in 2018’s Deadpool 2.

But again, if you prefer more earthbound heroics, you would probably prefer his appearances in 2015’s Sicario and 2018’s Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which feel like the organic follow-ups to his 2007 work.

It’s a career I will continue to follow with great interest.