Brolin flexes macho muscles again

Brolin flexes macho muscles again

In Tinseltown, "manly" men flash guns around, wearing lumberjack shirts while strutting through wood cabins - or so archetypal roles such as Llewelyn Moss in No Country For Old Men (2007) and Tom Chaney in True Grit (2010) will have you believe.

"When you grow up looking like I do, you can't help it," explains the actor Josh Brolin, who took on the above roles, with more than a hint of sarcasm to a group of reporters in a London hotel room.

"When you look at my brow, it's pretty primitive," he adds, faking a Neanderthal's grunt.

The 45-year-old beefcake appears in his latest outing in yet another hypermasculine role - a muscled convict on the run who is not afraid of woodwork - in Jason Reitman's broody drama Labor Day, opposite Kate Winslet.

The film, set in rural New Hampshire, tracks the developing and improbable holiday romance between Brolin's character (Frank) and depressed mother Adele (Winslet) as seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Henry (Gattlin Griffith).

But if you are waiting for some Sylvester Stallone-inspired wrecking of furniture, look elsewhere. As Brolin himself tells, this new kind of "real man embraces his sensitive and vulnerable qualities".

"He has the cosmetics of a manly man: Someone who's been in prison, who had a lot of menace in his life, who had to learn to be a certain type for 19 years in order to survive.

"But if you look at the flashbacks, he was just a guy who wanted to be in love and have a family."

Indeed, thanks to superior and sensitive acting from both him and Winslet, the movie rises beyond its Stockholm-syndrome plot to become an absorbing - if over-lingering - take on fear of the unknown and conformist social mores.

For Brolin, it was about "softening up in front of Adele or Kate - not that they are the same person", he says.

In the film, Frank is shown cooking hearty meals and feeding a tied-up Adele some gooey stodge, spoonful by spoonful, when not repairing her car. There is even a pie co-making scene worthy of Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore's pottery turn in the 1990 cult romance, Ghost.

Brolin says: "With everything shot in the house, it was a bit claustrophobic, Jason not allowing myself to move, not allowing me to do this or do that. It made me uncomfortable. But I'm always uncomfortable and I'm okay with it now. When things are comfortable, they aren't always good. You need sparks for a movie.

"I just have to remember I'm into professional humiliation for a living." Everyone laughs, if slightly nervously.

The son of actors James Brolin and wildlife campaigner Jane Agee, Brolin junior grew up in the lap of fame, watched closely as the offspring of 1970s film star and, later, the stepchild of diva Barbra Streisand. His early years, he confesses, were spent drifting from one TV job to another bit part - "blue-collar acting", he calls it.

Sure, he did play the teenage hero Brandon in well-loved kiddie flick The Goonies (1985), and almost nailed the part of Tom Hanson in the TV series 21 Jump Street (1987-1991) that went to his subsequent best pal Johnny Depp.

But it was the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men, in which he played a gritty gunslinger, "that changed things", leading to roles in Milk (2008) and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010).

"Now I make a little more money, which I'm happy about," he says. "But the stuff I do is not cool, they're a little off."

"A little off" does not begin to describe his film Oldboy.

Directed by Spike Lee based on Park Chan Wook's original 2003 Korean psychological thriller, the hyper-violent flick features disturbing themes of incarceration, torture and incest.

Brolin says of his involvement in the movie: "It was very difficult, emotionally. Am I glad I did it? I don't know. I'm glad I did it for me.

"I've had a friend watch the movie - it took him three sittings (to finish watching it), and he asked me, 'Why did you want to do this movie?

"Another friend, he watched it three times and couldn't wait for it to open. Same type of men by the way, both ex-cons."

Brolin is no stranger to the rough life. In 2008, a police call involving domestic battery was made by his ex-wife actress Diane Lane, although no charges were pressed.

While reporters teeter around the subject of whether his (albeit short and apparently unjustified) stint behind bars for unsubstantiated bar-brawling fed into his characterisation of Frank, the actor smiles cynically and says: "You're just trying to pull it out of me.

"Can I use all my experience of being in jail and all that? Yes, I can use all my research and all those guys I've spoken to because of all my psychological and social interest in this, you know, prison mentalty and all that.

"If you look at people who get thrown in for credit card fraud and stay there for 15 years - they come out a murderer whether or not they were one before they went in. That's what prison does to you. I'm interested in this part of the character."

On Wednesday, the single father of two is helming his own leading roles in films from W (2008) to the upcoming Everest, with Jake Gyllenhaal.

He is also the proud owner of a 100-acre ranch in California, which he bought back after being forced to sell it several years ago as he struggled through life.

While the actor remains testy about dealing with all this hype over his alleged manliness, he will return to yet another age-old cliche in honour of his recent restoring of balance, emotionally and career-wise.

Behind every successful man, apparently, lies a woman - "my mum", he says.

"That's my emotional cape. She taught us to speak our mind but also embrace all our sensitivities. She turned us to a lot of great literature."

Pressed on whether he is man enough to do his own household chores, he relents and admits to having done his fair share.

"I worked a lot of years and didn't have a lot of money, so I had to do my own stuff. Now I have a bit more money, so I have a guy come round to do this stuff."


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