Josh Brolin Had Doubts About 'W.'

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04Oct

Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 1:35AM

"Why me?"

That's the question Josh Brolin asked himself when he was given a script for the new movie W. Oliver Stone - who recently admitted he tried to get Christian Bale to play the current American president - sought out Brolin after his well-documented successes last year. "Why would I want to do this movie," he asked. "Why would I want to do this to my career?"

Brolin tells The Times of London that he had some major qualms about going to work with Stone and on a film he felt could become a "left-wing hammering of the Bush Administration."

Then, the Barack Obama supporter says, he read the script by Stanley Weiser. "I knew I was wrong about it...It’s a story about a guy who had no real direction in his life for the longest time," he explains. "He was trying on all these different suits, and then he became President of the United States! Which is amazing!"

There is still a good deal of doubt about what kind of movie Stone has delivered. Oliver does not have the world's greatest reputation for being, shall we say, fair and balanced. But Brolin is reassuring, arguing that Stone is not out to commit a hatchet job.

"Oliver has been extremely compassionate and fair here. He is tirelessly interested in the question: what made Bush Bush? And despite whatever negative opinions I may have had about the Bush Administration before I began the movie, my mission became not to find out why Bush was so bad, but why people had voted for him."

Brolin also reveals that he had an opportunity to meet President Bush at this year's White House Correspondents Dinner in April, but he passed on the opportunity because he didn't believe it would have informed the work ahead of him. "How was 15 minutes with Bush supposed to help me in portraying his whole life?" he says. "Getting to meet him would have been a diversion."

We'll see Brolin as W. when Stone's new film arrives in theaters on October 17th.

Colin Boyd |

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Reader Comments (1)

Psst! It's not "The Times of London", it's "The Times".

Saturday, October 4, 2008 |

Lengthy Johnson

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