Flaming Hex!

Josh Brolin looks like he’s been to Hell and back in his new movie.

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Published: Sat 31 Jul 2010, 7:13 PM

Last updated: Mon 6 Apr 2015, 12:41 PM

Here we find out why he chose to play comic book hero Jonah Hex and what audiences can expect from the action-thriller

Josh Brolin looks half- dead. Actually it’s the character he’s playing at the moment, tormented Old West gunfighter Jonah Hex, who looks that way, but it’s Brolin who’s sitting on a dusty, hot, outdoor set in New Orleans, sporting a long, heavy Confederate soldier’s coat and a horrifically disfigured face (thanks to three hours in a make-up chair, the right side of Brolin’s face is dominated by roughly healed, scarred skin, a band of flesh at the side of his mouth that stretches over his lips and a hole that exposes his molars.

It’s May 2009, and Brolin has already spent several weeks rocking this macabre visage, with more to come: the rest of the shoot with first-time live-action director Jimmy Hayward and then, in early 2010, an additional 12 days of principal photography with a different director, Francis Lawrence.

Jonah Hex, based on the DC comic book of the same name, is wrapped now and ready for release in the UAE on August 5.

The actor covers the hole in his face with one hand and uses the other to take a long, deep drag on a cigarette.

“I feel like I just got (the character) yesterday, for the first time,” Brolin says. “I hope I’m wrong, but there’s such a razor’s edge between this kind of drama and absurdity and comic-book feeling. I’m not sure where we are tonally. My wife (Diane Lane) put it best. She goes, ‘It’s a strange set, and it seems like everyone’s at sea in their own canoe, but tethered together.’

“And so I think we’re doing extremely well, in spite of ourselves, because there’s no model for this,” Brolin says. “Even the studio’s going ‘How are we supposed to sell this? What is it? What’s the tone?’ If we succeed, I think we’ll succeed in incredible originality. And then, if we don’t, you just move on to the next one, you know?”

There’s no easy synopsis for Jonah Hex. The story is a part Western, part Civil War drama and part thriller, with supernatural elements to boot.

Hex is a bounty hunter with a troubled, tragic past who is tapped by the government to bring down his long-time enemy Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), a glorified terrorist intent on unleashing literal Hell. Other characters include Leila (Megan Fox), Hex’s prostitute girlfriend, and Doc Cross Williams (Michael Shannon), a slick-talking carnival barker. Michael Fassbender plays Turnbull’s henchman, Burke, with Will Arnett as the Union officer who recruits Hex.

Jonah Hex is, if nothing else, an unlikely choice for Brolin. And that’s half the fun for an actor who happily veers from No Country for Old Men (2007) and Grindhouse: Planet Terror (2007) to W (2008) and Milk (2008), and whose next movie, due later this year, is Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

Still, Brolin admits, in his characteristic dart-and-dodge, stream-of-consciousness style, that he almost rejected Jonah Hex.

“I’ve been offered a lot of comic-book stuff, big movies and all that, and the money’s attractive, because I do like money,” the actor says, grinning. “But this was really original to me. I read it the first time and I didn’t like it at all, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept waking up. I dream a lot, you know, and I kept waking up in the mornings going, ‘Why does this thing keep coming back?’

“There’s something within it I enjoy,” he continues, “this anti-hero thing and this kind of Western with cojones, as opposed to these new, stylised Westerns that I don’t care for very much. It brings that into it, and it also brings this idea of one foot in death, one foot in reality, where you can get away with anything and justify it. I love having that luxury. We can pull off anything and justify it, and no one can really (say) ‘Well, Jonah Hex doesn’t do that.’ Well, you know what? Jonah Hex can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, whether it’s here or in the after world.

“It becomes, to me, very metaphysical, spiritual, existentialist,” Brolin says. “That’s what keeps me interested. I may be full of (garbage), but that’s what I create in order to keep myself interested.”

Q&A with Megan Fox

What was it like making a different kind of action film with Jonah Hex?

I like working on action films and I like working on movies that are comic book-based, or that have this theme because they’re things that I loved when I was a kid.

Having done other action movies in the past, what was more challenging for you: doing the action scenes or squeezing into that corset every day?

It was really difficult for me to shoot the old style gunslinger guns because I have tiny little baby hands and the guns are really large and heavy. The action in this movie was more intricate than in previous movies that I’ve done. I loved the corset. When I showed up for camera tests, everyone thought I was in pain or I was hurting or something was wrong with me because my waist was so small. But I enjoyed it and I wish they would come back into style.

Did you build up a back-story for your character?

Josh and I had a conversation about what their past relationship could have been – why she would be so dedicated and so in love with someone who treated her the way that he did and was not able to love. And we came up with a back-story between the two of us of what things had gone on in the past.

HEX MESSAGES

Quick fire questions with Josh Brolin

You’ve played both fictional characters and characters who have been based on real people. Given the history of Jonah Hex, does it feel like you’re on middle ground?

It’s nice to be able to springboard from a place that, even though it’s not real, it’s real for me once you look at the comic book and say, ‘Okay, I have a sketch.’ A lot of times I’ll go to my son and explain a character to him and he’ll sketch it out. Sometimes I can use it – like with Grind House.

What was it like working opposite John Malkovich as Turnbull?

The great thing about John is that he’s so in character, but he doesn’t stay in character. So, we’ll finish a take and we’ll have this look on our face and we’ll be yelling. And then they cut and he goes, ‘So, when are you doing the Woody Allen film?’


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