Speaking with
Collider while promoting
Gangster Squad, actor Josh Brolin discusses Spike Lee's planned remake/re-adaptation of
Oldboy. He reiterates how he gained the blessing of Chan-wook Park (who directed the original 2003) in starring in this new take, and he also comments on a four-minute compilation that Lee cut, saying that it's fantastic.
"With Oldboy, look, it’s Spike Lee, its myself, the DP Sean Bobbitt, who’s a [frick]ing amazing man and me talking, like I said, to Chan-wook Park and saying, “Do you mind if we do this?” and his only request was just don’t do the same movie and it’s like no were not interested in that. Structurally, as a scaffolding, it’s the same movie, but what we do with is very different. It looks very different. Spike, about two and a half weeks into the movie cut together this four minute compilation just for me to look at. Not that I needed it, not that I felt like I’m lost, I don’t know what I’m doing. He just gave it to me and said, “Don’t look at this until you get home.” And I watched this four minute compilation and it looked fantastic. It was a massive, massive inspiration. We were out of the motel room at that point, so I didn’t have to do that anymore. But we spent more time in the motel room. We did eight minute to eleven minute long takes where he would just let me go and do whatever. I’d be sitting there naked in the room and he would say, “You’ve been in the room thirteen years; go.” And I would do eight minutes on that and whatever would come up. Some of it was really stupid and unusable. Some of it was really fun and interesting."
Brolin is also asked about the fighting scenes and choreography, saying that there are very few similarities and that he can't believe he pulled it off.
"Ours are amazing. We don’t match anything. The only matching is that we do it in one take. That’s the only matching. That’s the only similarity. Well, no, there’s one more similarity, but it’s basically the only similarity within that sequence and I think I can be safe to say that it’s not anything like the original other than it is one take and I’ve never experienced or seen anything like it. And I think what J.J. Perry did as the fight coordinator is something phenomenal. I will say this, I thought there is no way I could possibly pull it off until about a week before we did it after rehearsing it for quite a while."
Finally, he's asked if he has heard any conversations about possibly appearing in Warner Bros.'
Justice League movie, since he has a close relationship with the studio. Yesterday, we heard Brolin's
Gangster Squad co-star Ryan Gosling comment on the possibility of appearing in the DC Comics superhero ensemble (which is reportedly targeting a 2015 release), and he didn't sound extremely interested in it. However, what does Brolin have to say about it?
"No. We’ve got other conversations and if that conversation comes up I’ll have a conversation with anybody about anything. There’s nothing that I don’t like. Somebody said recently that I’m not a big-budget guy. Gangster Squad has money, I don’t care if it has money or not. All I want to do is keep switching it up, that’s all I care about. So whether I do a big movie or a smaller movie, there are bigger movies that I’ve turned down just because I didn’t feel like - I said, “Look, I’ll be the first person to see this movie I just don’t want to be in it. I don’t want to spend the next six, eight months doing something that I get to show up and have the biggest trailer and do green screen do that.” Whereas Men in Black I was totally willing to do that because it’s a great character, and it’s a very difficult character."
Brolin is no stranger to the comic book movie genre. He played the title role in 2010's
Jonah Hex, played Young Agent K in last year's
Men In Black 3, and it was announced this week that he will be playing Dwight in October's
Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. If any, which
Justice League character would you like to see Brolin play?
You can next check out Josh Brolin in action in
Gangster Squad, which hits theaters tomorrow.
Oldboy is set to hit theaters October 11th.