The Big Picture

• Brolin reveals his lifelong passion for writing, sharing experiences from his journals in his new book.
• His collaboration with Dune DP Greig Fraser captured candid moments in a book that received a great response.
• Brolin discusses his Hollywood journey from The Goonies mishap to Sicario struggles and creating a comedy adaptation vision.

At first glance, actor, writer, producer, and now director, Josh Brolin is a burly action hero like in Dune: Part Two, or maybe a skilled hunter of few words like in No Country for Old Men, but Brolin has worn many faces throughout his career in Hollywood. Most recently, he released a book, Dune: Exposures, that he worked on with Dune DP Greig Fraser, where Brolin shares his thoughts from set in prose that accompanies the cinematographer's candid photos. To discuss the book, Brolin joined Collider's Steve Weintraub for a discussion about his career highlights and what inspired his venture into the written word in Los Angeles.

"Writing was always the greatest form of expression for me personally. More than acting," Brolin tells the crowded room of the Barnes & Noble The Grove, a familiar haunt for the star. For fans who see him briefly on the big screen in roles like Thanos in The Avengers or Cable in Deadpool 2, it may come as a surprise that Brolin has "probably between 80 and 90 journals" from the time he was eight years old, and even has a memoir, From Under the Truck, releasing this fall. In his Dune companion book, Dune: Exposures, Brolin and the film's Academy Award-winning director of photography, Fraser, captured candid moments on Denis Villeneuve's set in the deserts of Jordan, hanging out with castmates Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Javier Bardem.

During the Q&A, which you can read in full below, Josh Brolin talks through his Hollywood journey from nearly ruining his breakout role in Steven Spielberg and Richard Donner's The Goonies to initially passing on Sicario until Oscar-winning cinematographer Richard Deakins had a harsh heart-to-heart with him. He also reveals which studio wanted him dropped from its star-studded cast, discusses his collaboration with Fraser, addresses his SNL monologue where he recited his Chalamet poem, and tons more.

COLLIDER: Have you ever done a Q&A in a bookstore?

JOSH BROLIN: Never. This is the first. And I hang out a lot here and nobody really cares. It's so funny, I came in through the back and I did this whole kind of labyrinth in order to get here, which was really for no fucking reason at all. I spend most of my time with them.

Let's start with the most important question. When are we gonna get a Goonies sequel? Is it worth doing one? I think the first Goonies is a masterpiece, but making a sequel to that is playing with fire almost.

BROLIN: Don't you think as a film critic, don't you understand probably more than anyone, that there's a certain time when a movie is made that you just let the movie be itself instead of trying to profit off some idea of a future?

Or you could make The Goonies 2: Goonies Never Die.

BROLIN: So, go ahead. No, but you know what? I will say one thing, that question has been asked so many times that I finally, just out of frustration and boredom, I said to a guy — was it you? — I said, “Oh, we're doing it.” And he goes, “No way?” And he was so happy he had the exclusive, and then I started talking about Meryl Streep, and she was going to play the mom, and he was so happy. It wasn't true. None of it was true.

You've done so many great roles. If someone's never seen anything you've done, what is the first thing they should watch and why?

BROLIN: I did a favor for a guy when I was in a position where I was of no perceived value, and it was Allan Mindel. He asked me if I'd come to Milwaukee and put on a thong. Anyway, that one, [Milwaukee, Minnesota (2003)].

What is the most nervous you've been the night before the first day of filming something?

BROLIN: Oh, Sicario 2. For some reason, I woke up and, I probably shouldn't say this, I had a fake beard on — I can't grow a full beard — so anyway, there was that, that I had in my head about how I wanted it to look right. It was a seven-page scene, and for some reason, and I still don't know to this day, I slept 45 minutes the night before — a seven-page scene that was mostly me talking, that they rightly cut down to like a three-page scene. [Laughs] But I don't know why either, that I was the most nervous. And probably before, The Goonies because I had no idea. I ruined the first half day of The Goonies because I got into a laughing fit purely out of nerves, and Spielberg said, “Please don't ruin my movie.”

We Have Roger Deakins to Thank for Josh Brolin's Role in 'Sicario'

Denis is a genius and I'm just curious, at what point did you realize, “Oh my god, this guy is another level?”

BROLIN: This is not meant to be arrogant or whatever, it was just when he offered me Sicario, I turned it down twice. It was a really small role, and he kept saying — directors always say, 100% of the time, “I know it doesn't seem much right now, but we're gonna make it into something else,” and it's just total bullshit, but Denis had this way about him. And Roger Deakins was doing the movie. I'd already worked with Roger a couple of times, I knew Emily [Blunt], I'd worked with Benicio [del Toro], I think three times at that point. I don't know why I was scared. You get scared about doing roles, and you don't know until you're on it. You're like, “Thank god, I said okay.” There are a few movies that I've pulled out of that I kind of wish I hadn’t, like two movies. But it was Roger Deakins who called me and he said, “Quit being an asshole. Your face is on the storyboards. Just get down here and do this,” which is why I said yes because I got scared. But that role turned into a whole thing. Like Jeffrey Donovan, who I have this back and forth with, he had, I think, five lines in the whole movie. That's the way it started, and then it turned into he had a huge part. He ended up doing the second one, and he'll probably do the third one when it's eventually done

'Dune: Exposures' Let Josh Brolin and Greig Fraser Team Up for Their Passions

Jumping into why everyone's here and the book, how did this thing actually happen?

BROLIN: Really, god, it was like the one time that Instagram actually was positive. I was writing these little things. I've written my whole life. I have probably between 80 and 90 journals from starting from when I was like eight or nine. Some of them are just awful and some of them are decent. There were different people I was meeting at the time and different things I was going through — it was in the desert; it was in the mountains; I was doing that movie; I was not working at all, and I started trading stocks. So you get to see this kind of labyrinth of this guy's life, who is mine, and I've always wanted to put stuff together. I've written three books of prose. I've never tried to do anything with it because I was always against this idea of an actor… I just thought it was too pretentious, just like the actor is gonna put out some writing, and, “Oh, he's a writer now too.” I just didn't want to do it. But I loved writing, and writing was always the greatest form of expression for me personally. More than acting. Acting was more of a chore. Writing was a chore, but it was a more satisfying mode of expression.

So Tanya Lapointe, who's with Denis, came up to me, and we were toward the end of Dune 1, and she said, “I've read a lot of your stuff on Instagram.” They had told Greig, and he had taken shots here and there. Even though he had this incredible responsibility of being a DP on that movie, he would just turn around — it was always one shot, it was never like a setup or anything — and go, “Look at me,” and that was it. Those shots are incredible, and all those shots were taken like that. And she said, “Why don't you guys put a book together and maybe we can get somebody to buy it?” And that's literally where it came from. It was purely instigated by her.

What do you think will surprise fans of the book to learn about the making of the book?

BROLIN: About the making of the book? The fact that it was made. [Laughs]

Josh Brolin Explains His SNL Poem About Timothée Chalamet

"That was like a first reaction to this infant."

I don't know how it all gets put together, but what was it like collaborating with Greig? What is it like putting together a book?

BROLIN: Strangely, and I say this subjectively, and I’m pretty good, even when I do movies — like I was talking to a director today and we were talking about a certain part that I don't think I'm right for and he does, so I was trying to talk myself out of the part. I was like, “You should get this other guy. He would be amazing.” But you look at it like architecture, and that's what this thing became. Collaborating with Greig, we’re good friends and we were good friends at that point, we got really close. He started as a photographer and I would like to think that I started as a writer, so it was going back to these two loves that aren't our primary profession. So there was this great kind of regression that went on, but we took it very seriously. We'd lay everything out and we’d do writing. I didn't do all the writing on Dune. Sometimes I'd look at it or I'd see a piece of writing and we'd try to match it, and I'd say, “It's wrong. It just doesn't work.” So I'd go into, which my wife made for me, my little writer's hut, my little 60 square foot writer's hut on our property that I love, and go down there and just start typing away or writing away longhand.

We attempted this on the first movie. I think that was a good attempt. Then this book is a compilation of both movies together. I think we came up with something good. I like it because sometimes it takes itself seriously, and sometimes it's the opposite. Like, why a haiku? What, am I four? But it just dictated what it wanted, and I like it. And sometimes, like this whole thing with Timothée Chalamet, I think it's hilarious. That's why I exploited it on SNL because if it's gonna get you to buy the book, fine. But I wrote that super early, and it doesn't even cross my mind. I get excited about new talent, and Timothée was coming out of independent films, and he got there and he was like a little puppy dog. He was like, “What is this? I don't understand! It’s so big.” I was like, “It’s okay, man.” So me and Jason [Momoa] became like his mentors, like his father figures. So I'm looking at this kid who's so young, and I'm like, “You have your whole life ahead of you. This is gonna be crazy to watch.” And it has been crazy to watch. So that was like a first reaction to this infant. It's like, “Oh my god, it's a little baby.”

I may have asked Greig Fraser to supply some questions for tonight.

BROLIN: Oh, cool.

His first question is a question that relates to an actor's life on a film shoot. “Because I’m the DP, I'm involved in practically every minute of the production process. I've always wondered how actors channel their energy when they are not on set.”

BROLIN: Super pedantic. I don't like thinking of him asking that question. It's funny because you have some actors, which I tried to be early on, that try and stay in character. I think sometimes it still happens, and it has to do with fear, and it has to do with comfort level and all that. I have found through the years that the looser I am, the more emotionally available I am. So, with Greig, it was great because there was a great banter back and forth. He's focused, and yet he has that same kind of banter. I think he likes to keep things loose because it keeps the ideas going. So I don't know, really. It depends on the movie, it depends on the director, it depends on the crew. I mean, there are times when you're doing a scene, and you're on take 25, and you look over, and you see the guy holding the light literally yawn the biggest yawn you've ever seen. You know it's not because of the scene, but you're not quite sure, and you go, “Okay, I gotta get going.” There are pressures. And then you get to a point when you're 56 where you don't care anymore. Not that you don't care about the work, you don't care about the immediate reaction of the crew.

Why Did Josh Brolin Write 'Dune: Exposures'?

Next question from Greig: “Did Josh begin writing as a response to the downtime between the sessions on a set during the shoot?”

BROLIN: No, because I write all the time anyway, and it was a great excuse. I imagine doing something like this in my writer's hut, and there's a romance that I attach to it and a whole mythology when the truth of the matter is, I wrote maybe half of it in Jordan, in the sands of Abu Dhabi — not like in the Lotus Pose, like hot and super irritated — all over the place, wherever I could. So, yeah, the romance is kind of taken out of it, which I love now because it's about the work and it's about being inspired like an idea hits and you want to write it down, and maybe I’ll go to Greig, like, “What do you think of that?” I think the greatest thing about Greig is he's very organically appreciative of my writing, that I know he’s not full of it, and I think his photography is unbelievable. So, true, true fans of each other's work.

Greig Fraser is a brilliant cinematographer. Just unbelievable.

BROLIN: Brilliant. Truly.

His last question: “One of the most compelling pieces of writing in Exposures is when Josh writes in the voice of his daughter. It is written with such an honesty and knowledge. Does Josh feel like he could or would want to write in the voice of a stranger or somebody he doesn't know as intimately as his family?

BROLIN: He already pitched that to me. He did. He said, “Why don't you write a movie?” He was really taken by that and I was really moved that he was taken by that because my wife and I, we have a three-year-old and a five-year-old, so obviously the majority of our lives revolve around that. We see everything through them. Literally, I woke up this morning at four o'clock this morning and a leg went [gestures into side] and I have bruised ribs right now because we're all in bed together every single night. So it's nice to be able to create a story through somebody else. It's very moving to me to imagine what it's like for her to have her daddy get up before the sun comes up, put on a really strange-looking spacesuit, and then walk into endless sand. That's really weird. You know what I mean? And how does she perceive that? Because our kids don't really understand what I do, which I appreciate right now. I don't really look forward to the day where they’re like, “Oh, are you doing Kimmel tonight?” You know what I mean? I don't want that to happen.

I love Roger Deakins and I love Greig Fraser. How are they similar and how are they different?

BROLIN: Well, I think Roger is, admittedly to Greig, a mentor of Greig’s. Roger has a brilliant podcast. I don't know if anybody's heard it, but it's a genius podcast that he and his wife, James, do. We've been on that podcast, we've turned the tables on them in that podcast. I think I've done it two or three times and I think Greig has done it probably five or six times. Roger's been doing it for so long and Greig is still peaking. It's kind of like Denis — you see Sicario and you go, “Wow, what's he gonna do next? I don't know.” And then he does this and you go, “I didn't see that coming.” And then he does something and then he Dune, and you go, “I didn't see that coming.” So, Roger, I think is the same way, but he's been around for so long.

The Roger that I know in Sicario is the same Roger that I knew in No Country [for Old Men] and the same Roger that I knew in the four other movies that I've done with him. There's something very old-school private about him, whereas Greig feels more cutting-edge to me, and yet Roger is probably the most cutting-edge guy. He was the guy that went into digital, whereas you think Roger would be one of those guys that’s like, “Only film ever.” He did a test, I remember, on digital with low light, with candlelight, and with overhead sun, and he said, “We just made the leap. There is no difference between the two.”

That's the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that digital cinematography allows you to shoot with basically no light, especially with some of the newer cameras.

BROLIN: Exactly. If you go into photographing, which I've always done, too, and been obsessed with when I was younger, pushing 3200-speed film, pushing it twice, now you get into 50,000 ASA. It's just crazy. It's a whole world that I was like, “I'll just write a paragraph of prose instead.” [Laughs]

How did you decide what writing you had was gonna end up in the book? Did you end up writing a lot of stuff that didn't end up in the book?

BROLIN: You experiment, you experiment, you experiment, and then it comes. It's almost like finding a role. You're looking for the voice, looking for the voice, and then you get it. You start chewing gum in Sicario. I didn't have a hook in Sicario, so I started chewing gum. I don't know where it came from and then something clicked. It was the same thing — we were experimenting, experimenting, reading over writings that I had done, and then I went, “Oh, I know what this is…” and then we went with it. But I would stop myself, and I think we kind of collaboratively said, “I think we need to go into another realm.” So that's why you have a lot of different directions in the book. You have your poetry, you have your prose, you have just kind of behind-the-scenes ridiculousness that nobody should ever know about and now they do.

What, if anything, did you borrow from the Dune set? I know you wouldn't have stolen anything, but hypothetically, what did you borrow with every intention of bringing it back?

BROLIN: [Laughs] So what did I steal?

I would have taken everything, literally.

BROLIN: I know you would have. What was there to steal? I was just given the baliset when I did Colbert, which was a really nice gift. I'm really bad about that, man. I should have taken the freaking glove. I didn't even think about that. That was stupid.

Everything on that set.

BROLIN: Everything on that set, but I didn't know. You're there working, and you're in front of a bunch of people and computers, and I don't think like that. I'm like, “Am I doing good?”

There's a ring you could have borrowed.

BROLIN: There is a ring I could have borrowed. There's a lot of stuff!

Have you taken anything from sets? Is there one item you've had from your movies?

BROLIN: Doubloons. From Goonies from the shed.

And you still have those?

BROLIN: Maybe.

Sorry Canada, Your Slang Just Felt Wrong for 'Dune'

When you think about both Dune shoots, what's the day that you'll always remember, one of those things that just sticks with you?

BROLIN: Oh my god, man. I guess there's two things that come to mind. One is in Dune 2. There's a shot where there's the harvester in the background and Gurney's walking really softly and slowly, and then he looks over and he sees the mothership come in and crash after that whole thing, and Gurney says, like, “Fuck,” or something like that, right? And Denis kept saying, “Say, ‘Tabarnak.’” I was like, “Why?” He said, “Say, ‘Tabarnak.’” And I was like, “But nobody's gonna know what I'm talking about. Isn't that gonna take them out of the movie?” And he said, “No, it's great. In Canada, that's a huge thing.” I go, “Yeah, but we're not in Canada. Nobody's gonna understand what that is.” And I tried it — they have it on film — and it sounds super bad. Then he finally came up to me at the end and he goes, “Just say, ‘fuck.’” And that's what ended up there.

The other thing is always what I appreciate — especially when people are taking their jobs seriously, and we did. We all took it seriously. I think we were all very happy to be there. I think we're all in love with Denis — is you have your room, you're in Abu Dhabi, you're two and a half hours south of Abu Dhabi, you're truly in the middle of nowhere for weeks, and you look over and you see, like, Timothée just hanging out. You see Z over there hanging out — “Sup, Zendaya?” And you see Stellan Skarsgård, who looks like he’s going to die on set. Just the whole thing across the board, it becomes very human, and I love that aspect of what we do, and you can't really explain it to anybody. They don't understand. You think as a successful actor you're basically walking a perpetual red carpet and waving to anybody who will watch, but it's just not true. It's a great kind of working-class environment when it comes down to it.

Denis has famously said he will not release any deleted scenes from Dune or Dune 2. It makes me very sad. What deleted scenes were part of your character? Do you remember any other deleted scenes? What can you share?

BROLIN: I had weeks of deleted scenes and they're all so good. I’ll talk to Denis. No, there wasn't much that was deleted.

For you, but there's a whole bunch of stuff.

BROLIN: Did you read the book? No, I’m kidding. I mean, at least personally, in the first one we did a song, and I sang in front of, like, 30 guys. I actually like the song. I didn't write it, but I like the song. I did it in front of Momoa. He called me the night before, and he said, “Can you learn this for tomorrow morning?” Which he tends to do. Like, “I had a dream…” I’m like, “Oh, fucking dreams.” But I learned it, I did it, and then he felt super bad. He called me and he was like, “I have to cut the scene. Tonally, it’s not right.” And I was like, “If it's bad, just tell me. I don't care.” But he said, “No, it's actually really good, but it’s tonally wrong.” Then he had me write this song with Hans Zimmer for the second one, I think maybe as an apology. I'm not positive. But that was a nice thing to be able to do. And Hans gave me credit for the song — partial credit, not all the credit. Again, man, you're doing this for like four months and you're out in the middle of nowhere. Things get weird there.

From what I've heard there's some really cool stuff but Denis has said to me, “The film is the film" and you're not gonna see the deleted scenes.

BROLIN: Which I agree with. Want a Goonies 2, just don’t make The Goonies 2. You know what I mean?

Let’s move on to some audience questions. [Laughs] Will you be in Dune Messiah, and can we hang out?

BROLIN: First part of the question, yes. The second part, totally. Right on. I think. I mean, I'm pretty sure. That's what I've heard. That's what he dreamt about. [Laughs]

Is it what you've heard also about The Goonies 2 with Meryl Streep?

BROLIN: Yeah. No, I cast myself. I was in charge of that casting.

Who would win in an arm wrestling match between the Dune cast?

BROLIN: Which Dune? Is Momoa there?

Sure.

BROLIN: If Momoa were there, him. If he weren't there, we would all let Denis win.

Pineapple on pizza — yes or now? The world wants to know.

BROLIN: Abso-fucking-lutey. For sure. I've been going to Hawaii for 40-plus years.

Who wins in a fight — Gurney or Cable?

BROLIN: Why? What does the Sand War mean to you, and have you named it in your mind? [Laughs] Cable would win. Wouldn't Cable win? I mean, Cable is like a thing. He can do a thing. Cable. I don’t know.

Were the suits comfortable and were they hard to put on?

BROLIN: They were. Ironically, I just went out with the director today and I saw Jacqueline [West], who did the wardrobe for the movie, and brilliantly so. So, yes, they were hard to put on. What did our kids call them? What did Chapel call them? I think it was the spacesuit. The dirty spacesuit. Yeah, they were hot. That was the thing. They're rubber and you have three layers of it. It was the other thing that we fought in. In Dune 2, when we did the sword fight…

The oner?

BROLIN: The oner. It was a oner, even though there were three cameras and they cut between the three. I'm very proud of that moment because as a then-55-year-old dude, that was not an easy feat. But we had this thing on and it was hard — it's like a turtle thing — so every time you lift the thing goes like that and you're scratching up your face. Yeah, I didn’t like the wardrobe. Fuck Jackie, man.

I now know why you didn't take that home.

BROLIN: The wardrobe was amazing, by the way.

Yeah, it's phenomenal. When was the first time you met Denis?

BROLIN: He came over to Venice. I got a place in Venice, California — I can’t afford Venice in Italy. But he came over, and it was the first time I met him. I had not seen, I don't think, Prisoners, which I thought was great, but I had seen Incendies, which I thought was genius, but that's all I knew about him. I mean, it was like the thing I had today; it was just a new director, even though he had done four or five films at that time. He was like this guy who couldn't speak English. [Imitates French accent] “I want you, ehhhhh, to do it.”

What a lot of people won't remember is that he directed Enemy and Prisoners. I want to say they were both at Toronto the same year, or they were a year apart. But when you watch Enemy, you can’t imagine that this is the guy who's going to direct Dune and Dune 2.

BROLIN: That's what's really so amazing about him. It’s what’s exciting about an actor. You have your people that find their niche, whether it's a talent-based thing or whether it's a success-based thing, people attach themselves to this element that worked. “I’ve got to do that again. That worked.” I have a lot of respect for somebody who says, “You know what? I'm gonna do that. I know it may not work, but I have this feeling.” And I don't know anybody who does that, but Deakins does that, Denis does that. It’s that old-school mentality, which I love.

100%. What is your favorite line in Dune and Dune 2?

BROLIN: “That's a wrap,” and “lunch.”

What inspired you to write poetry for Dune? Was it the source material, the shooting experience, getting into character, or a combination of all of those?

BROLIN: It was a combination of all of those. I was inspired. I was truly inspired. It didn't come out of angst. It came out of an absolute love fest with the experience that I was having on both of them. I love working with those people. There's nobody — I mean, there's always somebody where you go, “Yeah, he's kind of a dick,” but there was nobody. I had amazing experiences with everybody because I felt that there was a massive lack of pretense on that set and I like being around that.

Yeah, that's not always the norm.

BROLIN: No, no, no.

What was the hardest scene for you to film in Dune or Dune 2?

BROLIN: There was a scene that we did in a cave. I think it's one of the first times that you see Gurney. Or maybe I’m just remembering Dune 2. We did a scene in a cave and I got super nervous before it for absolutely no reason.

It's crazy that you would still get nervous after everything you've done in your career.

BROLIN: [Christopher] Walken has said that too. Walken has talked about getting nervous before. Your brain is telling you, “You've been doing it 40 years, you're all good.” And yeah, I got really nervous to the point where I started to panic, and I don't do that. I don't know where that came from. I think it's wanting to do a good job.

Was it early in the shoot?

BROLIN: Very. Not necessarily, actually. We were in Jordan, with Timothée in the cave. I’ve been doing it for a while. I don't know, man. Schizophrenia.

No, but I've heard a lot of people talk about the first few days. What's interesting is I’ve heard a great story from Donald Sutherland. He told me that he's reached the point now where it's in his contract that he wants to film something in the first few days that's always in the middle of the film because by then people will buy into whatever he's selling.

BROLIN: Yeah, he finds the confidence to be able to do that. In Sicario 2, on the first day of shooting the movie and the first time the character shoots a scene, give him seven pages of dialogue. That’s probably what you don't do. But yeah, it’s fairly random, and it always comes as a surprise. I think it's part of what makes it attractive is because that's possible, so you're reignited about, like, “I can't be lazy about any of this stuff.” So I know that when I do a movie, like I'm getting ready to do a movie in Atlanta, and I start reading acting books and stuff like that — for real — I start going, “I've forgotten everything and this is gonna be the one where they find out.”

He's getting ready to film Weapons, which is the follow-up film from Zach Cregger, who did Barbarian.

BROLIN: Yeah, I'm excited about it too. That was one of those things where it's like, “I don't know, I don't know.” And then when I said yes, it kind of grew. It blossomed after I said yes. I'm really happy.

There are some good people in it.

BROLIN: Really good people.

Is 'Sicario 3' Still Happening?

So is there any chance of Sicario 3 happening?

BROLIN: We keep talking about it. I said something at one point because I have a big mouth obviously, and I said, “Yeah, I don't think Sicario 3 is gonna happen,” and all the producers were, like, ambushed, and I saw it in the news and all that kind of stuff. Then we talked so I know that they've tried to make it happen, they've brought a couple of people on. I think it's really everybody — me and Benicio and Emily — just saying, “We like this. This is the way.”

I know Chris McQuarrie has worked on it for a little bit.

BROLIN: And I think [Taylor] Sheridan, also.

So it's just a question of, I guess, the script. I don't know. Anyway, let's open it up. Do you wanna have the audience ask questions?

BROLIN: We talked a lot about movies, and the book is very meaningful to us, to both Greig and I, putting it together with Insight Editions and Legendary and all that. It really meant a lot to us. I mean, look, man, when you look online, when you are even quietly an aspiring writer, or an as aspiring photographer, or an aspiring actor, whatever it is, and when you look, and you see “bestseller,” there's nothing like that. I'll forever take that to my grave. I don't know if somebody wrote it on there, but it doesn't matter to me. I saw it, and it was a really, really special moment for Greig and I that we called each other, and we said, “Did you see that?” I said, “Yeah, can you believe that?” Bookstores have meant a lot to me and writing means a lot to me.

AUDIENCE: This is my first time seeing you in person, and I never realized how funny you are. Would you consider doing a straight comedy? No action, just a comedy?

BROLIN: [Laughs] Who’s directing it?

The Farrelly Brothers.

BROLIN: I mean, we've played with different things. I've done different types of comedies. I mean, yes. Yes, only because there's nothing that I'm not interested in playing with. Storytelling is storytelling. But you do SNL and you know you’re not a sketch comedian, but you di it anyway just to see what happens. But yeah, thanks for saying that. I appreciate it.

Miramax Didn't Want Josh Brolin for David O. Russell's 'Flirting With Disaster'

What character, if any, was the hardest for you to immerse yourself into?

BROLIN: I did a movie called Flirting with Disaster, David O. Russell's first movie. Miramax at the time, which was huge, they were it and they did everything they could to get me to not do that movie because I was the guy that should have hit earlier and didn't. David O. Russell fought for me for that movie, and I was so happy to be there and I was very nervous. I mean, Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal and Patricia [Arquette] and Téa Leoni, and all these amazing people… and then Josh Orland, whatever his name is. I was riding Harleys, and they were like, “Who is this guy?” I had so much fun. I was nervous, but that was a role I loved. We created it as we went on. I have tattoos now, but I had a lot of tattoos at that point. I had a lot of tattoos that I had lasered off when I was younger, and I had some of them then, and so I was a tattoo-infested, bisexual, ATF agent with an armpit fetish is what it turned out to be, and I was very pleased with it.

What was your favorite part about playing Gurney Halleck?

BROLIN: I did Outer Range and I did the first Dune back-to-back and it was the first time in my life that that was my whole professional year, that year, with those two things, and I was called old man in one and grandpa in the other. So that was a major milestone for me. The other thing I liked, it wasn't in the book necessarily, but I liked what Denis and I came up with between the end of Dune where you didn't know if Gurney really had lived or not, which I liked the elusiveness of that, and then us losing weight and growing out my hair and him being more growly and gritty and pissed off, basically turned into a smuggler now. He is this other person. He's still the same guy, he's just more severe, and because of that more vulnerable.

There was a great moment that was purely Denis where Gurney sees Paul for the first time after he knocks him down and does all that stuff. We had done it a couple of times, “Paul?” whatever I did. There was vulnerability in it, but then Denis came up and he whispered, “You've missed him so much,” and that's the take that they used, which I love.

[Can you talk about the images in the book?]

BROLIN: They're really beautiful images, and they're not tweaked. They're tweaked like they would be in the old-school decks where there's a little level correction or something like that, but that's about it.

There's a Canon, I think, at the end of the book, you can see him taking a picture of me, and then it's reversed because of the guy on set that was taking pictures, Nico, and there's kind of a great moment there where it’s [an Oympus]. But he used all kinds of stuff. He's like a friend of mine, Brian Bowen Smith, where there's constantly experimenting, like, “Can you take this lens and somehow fit it on this camera?” And, “What if you did this?” Or, “What if you use a Lensbaby?” So, he found cameras in Hungary at flea markets, he used medium format cameras, he used 35-millimeter, everything. And by the way, that wasn't his job. Do you know what I mean? It's like, they didn't tell me to write a book because I'd have been like, “Oh, I'm playing Gurney. You know that, right?” And he had 20 times the job that I had. I mean, he was the DP. He won a freaking Academy Award for the movie, and he took all these pictures.

I heard he works very fast, which is crazy.

BROLIN: He works very fast and he works very efficiently. It's very rare that you'll see him kind of irritable, and he's very focused. He's not particularly formal. I mean, he's from Australia. It's impossible for him to be totally. But he’s just that guy, you know? Once in a while, there's an actor who shows up; once in a while, there's a director who shows up; once in a while, there's a DP who shows up, and he's that guy right now.

Will Josh Brolin and Greig Fraser Team Up Again for 'Dune Messiah'?

Are you planning on doing another book of this kind? Maybe not Dune but something?

BROLIN: Well, the next book I'm taking the pictures and Greig's writing. No. I'm sure if we do Dune 3, which because of you guys, it looks like we will, who knows? We probably will just because we have momentum and we have interest now. That makes it fun. It just makes it fun. I think it's a fun book. Like I said, we took it seriously, but it's inspiring for us. It comes out of our inspiration and our love of what we're doing. And then I have a book coming out on November 19 called From Under the Truck.

You mentioned earlier how you've been keeping journals for basically your entire life. When writing this memoir, were you going through these journals for the first time, and how much did those journals help you in writing this book?

BROLIN: It's funny because that was initially the thing. That's what you would think. “Is it a memoir? Are you writing short stories? Are you writing poetry?” Now that this is out, everybody’s like, “Oh, you’re like a poet.” I'm not. But I took journals and I compiled pieces that I found in the journals. I look back at those pieces and I sent them out. For no particular reason other than I didn't want to, I didn't use CAA, I didn't use my agency. I wanted my own agent and I wanted to see if an agent would take me. And InkWell Management, Kimberly Witherspoon, took me, and she's incredible. She was Anthony Bourdain's agent, and I love his writing.

So, I put it together. My point is, I read what I sent her and them — it's so bad, bro. I mean, it's so poorly written because I think I was in this frenzy. I had this moment, like, “I wanna do it.” And I think all the decades of fear of having written and then just saying, “Just do it.” I know that's been happening a lot this year. There's been this book, there's been this book, there's been that book, there's been directing, I wrote a play — we're doing a reading of the play in two weeks. So I think I just hit this place where I'm just like, “You know what? Why not? This is what's been boiling in me for a long time. Let's express yourself in different formats, in different ways.”

Dune: Part Two is available to rent or own on VOD. You can also purchase a copy of Dune: Exposures here.

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