Josh Brolin is an incredibly well-known and respected actor, one of the most talented individuals in Hollywood. Though he is most well-known for his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thanos, he has starred in many massively successful projects, with No Country for Old Men, Sicario, Deadpool 2, and Oldboy being some examples, that have established him as an extremely skilled and versatile actor.
No Country for Old Men is perhaps his most successful project outside of the MCU, being an excellent film that went on to win a number of Academy Awards and nominations. Brolin played the character of Llewelyn Moss and gave, perhaps one of the best performances of his career. What many might not know, however, is the fact that Brolin’s audition for this film was ruined because of none other than, the filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and the legendary director, Quentin Tarantino.
Josh Brolin’s Audition For No Country of Old Men
Josh Brolin was working on the 2007 film, Grindhouse when he auditioned for the role in No Country of Old Men. The audition process was quite simple, Brolin was required to submit a videotape of himself saying some lines for the character he was auditioning for, Llewelyn Moss, and according to this, the directors of the movie, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, decided whether or not they think the actor is the right fit for their film. While this may sound quite easy to some, a lot can go wrong when it comes to an actor having to record and submit their own audition tap.
“Well, I did my first audition–Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino filmed my first audition on a $1 million Genesis camera during lunch during Grindhouse and so that was a really cool-looking audition, but I didn’t get the part. It was turned down. They watched it and their response was who lit it?” he said
For starters, the camera of choice can be of very poor quality, or there could be problems with the lighting, the audio, or the background. All of these factors are outside of the expertise of an actor and may have an effect on their performance, resulting in them losing the role that they were auditioning for in the first place.
Quentin Tarantino Ruined Josh Brolin’s Audition
As a way to avoid these things from happening, Josh Brolin asked Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, who were both working on Grindhouse with him, to help him with his audition. The two agreed and his audition for No Country of Old Men was shot on the same camera that was being used to film the actual movie, that being a Panavision Genesis camera. This seemed to have been the wrong call as the actor almost lost the part because of the two filmmakers.
With both Tarantino and Rodriguez having very distinctive styles when it comes to cinematography, their talent took away from Brolin’s performance and made the directors of the crime-drama film more interested in who did the lighting rather than the person in front of the camera. It was not until Brolin actually met with Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, auditioning in front of them, that they realized that he was actually a skilled actor. After this, however, Brolin got the part in the film and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Source: Collider
