As extraordinary as the performance of Thanos was in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s projects for the big screen, the person who played him, i.e. Josh Brolin, never truly wanted to take on the role.
And it wasn’t because the purple-headed supervillain wiped off half the population of every single planet he visited (Oops, spoiler alert!) but rather because he was embarrassed to play him!
But all thanks to one major Avengers star, Brolin decided to go for it without a second thought after getting inspired by none other than the great Mr. Doctor Stephen Strange (laughs), i.e. Benedict Cumberbatch.
Benedict Cumberbatch Inspired Josh Brolin to Take on Thanos
In the beginning, when Josh Brolin was offered the role of Thanos by Marvel, he hesitated in accepting it because of all the hard (and notably embarrassing) work he would have to do to bring a character like him to life for the motion cameras. As he shared during an interview with SiriusXM:
“I’d never done anything like that, mocap. You know, I thought I was gonna be behind a bunch of lights and a bunch of cameras, and it wasn’t like that; it was practical, of working with people. Yeah, it’s a phenomenal process, man.”
However, then he came across what Benedict Cumberbatch did to bring the Lord of the Rings dragon and main antagonist of The Hobbit to life, i.e. the Smaug. Continuing, he explained the Doctor Strange star’s performance and how it affected him:
“I saw Benedict Cumberbatch do – I think it was for The Hobbit. I looked on YouTube when I was deciding whether I wanted to do it or not. And he was in this [motion capture], and he was in this big warehouse and he’s crawling around like a snake, snapping his tongue out doing this incredible performance,” Brolin said.
That entire performance caught the Sicario star off-guard and inspired him to the point where he decided to take on the role of Thanos.
“I saw that and I was like, all right, that’s the bar. This is not like bulls—t. This is something you…have to sink your teeth into conviction, embarrassment, and all this kind of stuff. So then I decided yeah.”
So basically, off-screen Doctor Strange inspired Josh Brolin to give birth to such a phenomenal Thanos for the big screens, only to help finish him off in Avengers: Endgame? Now that’s some serious conspiracy!
What Josh Brolin had to do to Bring Thanos to Life
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, it took more than just motion camera and CGI to make Thanos come to life. In fact, to put it simply, Josh Brolin had to do something similar to what Benedict Cumberbatch did to make his supervillain come to life.
With the help of a high-resolution facial-scanning system, the actor’s expressions were all captured and recorded, meaning that every single expression of the purple supervillain on the big screen was actually The Goonies star’s expressions.
Not only this but Brolin was also required to wear body-and-facial-capture systems, which helped in recording his entire performance. For his height, Brolin usually stood on an elevated platform above his costars.
Other times, he used to wear a backpack with a pole extending above his head. This helped his co-stars figure out where to look while talking to him.
Then was the task of the motion cameras and the CGI effects coupled with a few further enhancements by hand, which ultimately led to Thanos coming to life — only to destroy half of the population of Earth, probably including those who created him as well! (Laughs)
