{"id":648598,"date":"2026-10-16T21:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T21:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/648598\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T21:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T21:26:13","slug":"josh-brolin-talks-the-personal-side-of-whalefall-sicario-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/648598\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Brolin Talks the Personal Side of \u2018Whalefall\u2019, \u2018Sicario 3\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe rocky relationship between Josh Brolin<\/a>\u2019s Mitt Gardiner and Austin Abrams\u2019 Jay Gardiner is at the heart of Brian Duffield<\/a>\u2019s Whalefall<\/a>, but Brolin is also quite literally the heartbeat of the emotional survival tale.<\/p>\n

\n\tRather than die in a hospital from mesothelioma, Mitt, the seafaring jack-of-all-trades, chose to take his own life by weighing himself down and jumping off his boat near Monastery Beach, Calif.. He did so while estranged from his college-aged son (Abrams\u2019 Jay).<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout Jay\u2019s childhood, Mitt raised him in a fashion that\u2019s a few rungs below R. Lee Ermey\u2019s abusive drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket. He wanted Jay to be better prepared for life\u2019s unpredictability than he was, and while he passed on plenty of valuable know-how, particularly when it came to scuba diving, he imposed his will to such a degree that Jay defiantly chose to attend college in the landlocked cornfields of Iowa.<\/p>\n

\n\tBrolin had read Daniel Kraus\u2019 Whalefall <\/a>before agreeing to play Mitt in Kraus and Duffield\u2019s adaptation. When he finished, he embraced the book and wailed, both as a father and as a son.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou have to allow [your children] to make their own decisions and fall and skin their emotional and psychic knees. So I think [my emotional reaction] was the buildup of that inside me,\u201d Brolin tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Whalefall\u2019s Oct. 16 theatrical release. \u201cIt makes me look at the impacts [Brolin\u2019s father, actor James Brolin] wanted to have. When you\u2019re an adolescent and you see that something means so much to a parent, it\u2019s just an opportunity to rebel. Then you get older and you\u2019re like, Oh man, he really tried hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA year after Mitt\u2019s death, Jay returns home to comfort his mother (Elisabeth Shue\u2019s Zara) and two older sisters (Jane Levy\u2019s Eva and Emily Rudd\u2019s Nan). But he refuses to visit his father\u2019s grave with his mom, in part because Mitt isn\u2019t actually buried there. (Whalefall also marks a Hollow Man reunion for Brolin and Shue.)<\/p>\n

\n\tUnbeknownst to his family, Jay takes it upon himself to track down Mitt\u2019s remains at the bottom of the ocean, hoping to reconcile their profound differences in the process. But his lofty plan quickly goes awry when he gets caught up in a sperm whale\u2019s pursuit of a squid and wakes up in the multichambered stomach of the 80-foot-long, 60-ton leviathan. With just one hour of oxygen left, Jay must figure out a way to escape his impossible predicament, forcing him to draw on the lessons and wisdom he passively absorbed from his father.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe whale ultimately serves as a stand-in for Mitt and the all-consuming weight of his legacy and expectations on Jay. To underscore the metaphor, Duffield recorded Brolin\u2019s heartbeat before filming began and played it throughout Abrams\u2019 two months inside the claustrophobic, practical whale-stomach sets. The track was later enhanced in postproduction to function as the whale\u2019s heartbeat in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Whalefall hits theater, Brolin is prepping for the long-awaited return of his CIA character, Matt Graver, in Sicario<\/a> 3, opposite Benicio del Toro\u2019s Alejandro Gillick and Emily Blunt\u2019s Kate Macer. The threequel had already gone through numerous iterations<\/a> by the time Brolin first updated THR on its status in May 2022. In November 2025, Brolin then told me that it seemed to be \u201cright around the corner.\u201d<\/a> Fortunately, the good news finally arrived in early October, as Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight delivered a game-winning script for Padraic \u201cPat\u201d McKinley to direct. (If you haven\u2019t seen McKinley and Ethan Hawke\u2019s The Weight<\/a>, treat yourself when it arrives on digital Oct. 20.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s fitting that Knight ended up being the one to crack the code, given that he\u2019s simultaneously penning a James Bond movie for the auteur filmmaker who launched the Sicario franchise, Denis Villeneuve.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were always looking at scripts. We always wanted to do it. We didn\u2019t intend to wait this long, but you have Benny [del Toro], Emily [Blunt] and me looking at things and reacting to filmmakers or scripts differently,\u201d Brolin shares. \u201cBut then Steven Knight wrote a script that was incredible, and it was kind of undeniable. All of us reacted similarly. So we\u2019re very excited about doing it. We\u2019ll do it next year. We have a great filmmaker, Padraic McKinley, who we think is going to make a very good movie, and we\u2019re excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the franchise\u2019s best scenes unfolds at the end of Stefano Sollima\u2019s second installment, Day of the Soldado. Brolin\u2019s Graver comes face to face with Isabela Merced\u2019s shell-shocked Isabel after he and del Toro\u2019s Alejandro used her as a pawn in their attempt to take down her cartel kingpin father. The supremely overconfident Graver finally shows some remorse for the damage their dirty work has inflicted on innocent lives. And on the day of filming, Brolin broke down in tears after witnessing Merced\u2019s portrayal of the shattered teenager.<\/p>\n

\n\tNeedless to say, Brolin is eager to build on that in the third chapter. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be able to see a different side of Matt Graver that you haven\u2019t seen in the past,\u201d Brolin adds.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first time I spoke to Brolin was for Outer Range<\/a> season one in May 2022. Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan had found pandemic-era success with his Yellowstone series, prompting other networks to try their hand at the neo-Western. But Brolin and creator Brian Watkins\u2019 take on the subgenre was easily the most interesting and ambitious of the bunch. It had to be for Brolin to return to TV as a series lead for the first time in two decades.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, when Outer Range returned for its second season in May 2024, it didn\u2019t receive the same promotional push as the first, despite earning even better reviews. The writing was already on the wall, and sure enough, the series was canceled a couple of months later.<\/p>\n

\n\tFast-forward to August 2026, I was knee-deep in Lanterns coverage when I learned that Brolin had turned down the role of Hal Jordan, which later went to Kyle Chandler. At the time, I theorized that the crushing disappointment of Outer Range had scared Brolin away from another major TV commitment, as it had for nearly two decades. But he\u2019s not entirely sure that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOuter Range was heartbreaking. But Lanterns, I don\u2019t know, maybe it was too close [to Outer Range],\u201d Brolin says.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat he is sure of is that Amazon Prime Video made a mistake. Tom Pelphrey\u2019s recent Emmy win for Task only reinforces that view, as do the flourishing careers of Lewis Pullman and Imogen Poots.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI really loved Outer Range, and seeing what those actors \u2014 Tom Pelphrey, Lewis Pullman, Imogen Poots \u2014 have done since then makes me very happy,\u201d Brolin shares. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s a great middle finger to those people who canceled that show. It\u2019s like, You had gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a conversation with THR, Brolin also discusses an unconscious choice he made in Mitt and Jay\u2019s most confrontational flashback.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve been hearing a lot about your houseguests lately, one being Glen Powell and another being the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Whalefall, Daniel Kraus. Do the Brolins run a bed and breakfast for creative folks between movies?<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) I\u2019d be very happy to leave that legacy. Now that we\u2019ve moved, we\u2019ve got more and more people stopping by. Glen rented my house in Atlanta, a house that we no longer have, probably because Glen stayed there. (Laughs.) Daniel, who was finishing a novel, stayed with us for two weeks, which was so pleasant. He was the best house guest imaginable. You never really knew he was there. You didn\u2019t feel like you had to host him at all. Then he left, and four days later [in May 2026], he won the Pulitzer for Angel Down, the book he wrote after Whalefall. That made me feel like I had won the Pulitzer for Angel Down.<\/p>\n

\n\tYour house must have good vibes.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt actually does! It\u2019s a cool place. We got lucky.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R): Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner and Josh Brolin as Mitt Gardiner in Brian Duffield\u2019s Whalefall. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tLate last year, you told me about finishing Whalefall during the filming of Dog Stars and sobbing<\/a> once you were finished. Have you figured out why it opened the floodgates?<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a parent, to be serious for a second, you\u2019re struggling, you\u2019re improvising, you\u2019re hoping, you\u2019re projecting \u2014 and then you have to deal with real human beings. So it\u2019s not just what you\u2019re intending of them, and you realize how ridiculous that statement is. You can\u2019t help but impart things that you think are important, and yet kids grow up and live their own lives. You have to allow them to make their own decisions and fall and skin their emotional and psychic knees.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I think it was the buildup of that inside me. I\u2019ve only been a parent, man. I graduated high school, and I think I had a year to myself that didn\u2019t prove to be great. Then I had kids, and I\u2019ve been a parent ever since. My older kids, I see what they\u2019ve done with their lives, and I\u2019m so proud of them. I now have a 38-year-old, a 33-year-old, a seven-year-old and a five-year-old. So I\u2019ll be doing this from the beginning to the end of my maturity.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid it hit you as a son as well?<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally. My dad [James Brolin] hasn\u2019t seen the movie yet, and I really look forward to him seeing it. It makes me look at the impacts he wanted to have. When you\u2019re an adolescent and you see that something means so much to a parent, it\u2019s just an opportunity to rebel. And for what? It\u2019s for no other reason than you\u2019re just being an adolescent. Then you get older and you\u2019re like, Oh man, he really tried hard. So I softened up to all that, and I\u2019m done with that now.<\/p>\n

\n\tMitt reminds me of these famous sports dads \u2014 Earl Woods, Richard Williams, Marv Marinovich \u2014 who put a golf club or tennis racket or football in their kids\u2019 cribs.<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs the fundamental issue here that Mitt couldn\u2019t mold Jay exactly in his image?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think it comes more out of a paranoia that Jay is going to have to go through the hardships that Mitt went through when he was young. The intention is, I don\u2019t want you to go through what I had to go through. I\u2019m going to design your hardships in the way that I think is better and more productive so you\u2019re able to be self-sufficient later on. And the truth of the matter is that it ostracized his kid from him. But ultimately, be it legacy or whatever you want to call it, Jay utilizes all the things that he was taught in order to survive as long as he\u2019s able to survive. It\u2019s a symbol because it\u2019s a parable of the whale.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJosh Brolin as Mitt Gardiner in Brian Duffield\u2019s Whalefall.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Steinbeck quote that\u2019s tattooed on his back \u2014 \u201cOur Father who art in nature\u201d \u2014 is essentially his religion. He has this belief system involving whales and the natural world. So did the cancer and the alcohol take what was already an unusual creed and cause him to lose his mind within it?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think the alcohol has a lot more to do with that than the desperation of knowing you have cancer and limited time. He knows his son is leaving [for Iowa]. He knows their last boat ride is probably going to be the last time he spends with his kid. So he\u2019s trying to fit it all in, and then, as I\u2019ve seen people do, he doesn\u2019t want to deal with the tension that creates. So he starts drinking to loosen up, and the drinking makes it ten times worse. We can all identify with this on some level \u2014 whether it\u2019s as a parent or a child, but the more you try, the less effective it is.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo it was a really uncomfortable scene. All the scenes were uncomfortable to do, but that was an extremely uncomfortable scene that felt very real. There was something that wasn\u2019t necessarily intended, but when I watched the movie, I saw how much Mitt touches Jay. He\u2019s trying to make it tactile. It\u2019s almost like he\u2019s trying to mold the wet clay, which looks so desperate and so sad to me. But I didn\u2019t even notice it until I saw the movie and went, Oh, that\u2019s a cool extra act of desperation.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou got a tattoo after Whalefall. Did you base it on one of the designs used in the movie? Or is it something else?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s nautical<\/a>. It was not just inspired by the film, but also by growing up near the sea. Every line that it has means something, whether it\u2019s the birds that represent the five members of my family, or the lighthouse, and what that is. I got tattoos very early on, and I didn\u2019t like what they did. They were just intimidating. So I got rid of them when I was 30.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut this one really came from a friend of mine named Anders Johansson. He was a Delta Force guy who was retiring at 42 or 43, and I was supposed to speak at his retirement. I had gotten to know him. We got along very, very well. Then Anders ended up rolling his car the day after Christmas [in 2024] and died. He had named his daughter Arete, and it\u2019s a Greek word that has no English equivalent. It\u2019s about doing the best you can do in any situation and being the best of you in that moment. So I have Arete written on the top of my back.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R): Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner and Josh Brolin as Mitt Gardiner in Brian Duffield\u2019s Whalefall.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\t(Spoiler Warning.) The movie doesn\u2019t reveal it, but Kraus and Brian Duffield know what Mitt\u2019s letter to Jay said. Does any part of you wish you could\u2019ve written it?<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be able to talk about it during interviews and say, \u201cI\u2019m a complete actor,\u201d that selfish, egotistical part of me sure does. But ultimately, I never read what they wrote, and I never wanted to read it. That was the next best thing to me. I created what Mitt wrote in my head, and I never wrote it down. I also know that Daniel didn\u2019t write that letter in the book. So he and Brian have their version together, and I have my version, but it doesn\u2019t really matter. What matters is whatever version Austin read that day and how he, as Jay, took it. [Writer\u2019s Note: Duffield told Abrams what he and Kraus thought it said, and he instantly knew how to play the moment.]<\/p>\n

\n\tGood news is extremely hard to come by nowadays, but after years of begging and pleading to see you chew gum and wear flip flops on the big screen again, it\u2019s happening at long last. How did Sicario 3<\/a> finally get over the hump?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe were always looking at scripts. We always wanted to do it. We didn\u2019t intend to wait this long, but you have Benny [del Toro], Emily [Blunt] and me looking at things and reacting to filmmakers or scripts differently. But then Steven Knight wrote a script that was incredible, and it was kind of undeniable. All of us reacted similarly. So we\u2019re very excited about doing it. We\u2019ll do it next year. We have a great filmmaker, Padraic McKinley, who we think is going to make a very good movie, and we\u2019re excited.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBenicio del Toro\u2019s Alejandro, Josh Brolin\u2019s Matt Graver and Emily Blunt\u2019s Kate Macer in Sicario<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tYou and Benicio are great writers in your own rights, and you\u2019ve both contributed more to the Sicario movies than people realize. Have you been feeding Steve plenty of notes?<\/p>\n

\n\tI had my notes. But even though Benny and I are focusing more on pre-production than we have in the past, it becomes instinctual once we get [to set]. We both experiment a lot.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve told this story a million times, but I remember when Meryl Poster, who was third in charge at Miramax back in the day, said, \u201cThe worst auditioners that Miramax had ever experienced were Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin.\u201d It was insulting then, but it makes sense to me now just because we experiment.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo you don\u2019t know [how much you\u2019re going to add or reapproach] until you\u2019re actually doing it on the day and even then you\u2019re experimenting. But having done Sicario and Sicario 2 together, if something wasn\u2019t working, we weren\u2019t shy about saying it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s going to be interesting to see how you play Matt Graver after Sicario: Day of the Soldado<\/a>. When we last saw him on that helicopter, his shell of arrogance had cracked as he was forced to reckon with his role in traumatizing this teenage girl (Isabela Merced\u2019s Isabel) in front of him.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, I\u2019m really, really looking forward to it. You\u2019re going to be able to see a different side of Matt Graver that you haven\u2019t seen in the past.<\/p>\n

\n\tI haven\u2019t had a chance to commiserate with you about the cancellation of Outer Range. I was very disappointed by that, especially since I knew that you were very hesitant to lead a TV show again unless it was under the right circumstances.<\/p>\n

\n\tI didn\u2019t have a horrible experience [as a series lead two decades prior to Outer Range]. It was just too fast. There wasn\u2019t enough care put into it. It was just like, Let\u2019s get it out there. Overall, I was involved with some pretty good shows, at least shows that I liked. But Outer Range was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid that heartbreak ultimately lead you to say no to Lanterns? Did one lead to the other?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, it was just one of those things. Lanterns, I love those actors, and I\u2019ve seen it. I hope that it\u2019s killing it. If I decide not to do something, I never really think, Oh, had I done it, it could have been better. Birdman was that way when I saw what Edward Norton did with it. I was like, That\u2019s excellent. It\u2019s not necessarily what would\u2019ve transpired had I done it, but there\u2019s no comparison. Matt Damon was supposed to do Milk before me, and because it pushed, he had to go do something else that he was required to do. So I went in there and did my version of that.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Lanterns, I don\u2019t know, maybe it was too close [to Outer Range]. I really loved Outer Range, and seeing what those actors \u2014 Tom Pelphrey, Lewis Pullman, Imogen Poots \u2014 have done since then makes me very happy. To me, it\u2019s a great middle finger to those people who canceled that show. It\u2019s like, You had gold. So that\u2019s how I perceive it.<\/p>\n

\n\t***
Whalefall is now playing in movie theaters nationwide.<\/p>\n