Josh Brolin has built a pretty incredible resume over his four-decade-long career. He’s won Screen Actors Guild Awards and been nominated for Oscars. He’s been in major big-budget blockbusters and character-driven dramas. He’s also achieved a significant level of fame for his work, but the actor now feels that too many people are looking for fame without doing the actual work.
In a recent appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Brolin lamented what he sees as a fundamental shift in the way people approach the acting profession today. He feels that when he was young in the industry, people were focused on the craft of acting, whereas people trying to break into acting are only looking for fame. He said…
This profession in this day and age, when you see people come up and say ‘I want to be an actor.’ Nine times out of ten they want to know how to be famous. Whereas back in the day, it was about paying your dues and about the kind of work that you were doing.
While there have always been actors who had their eyes on fame and what came with it, Brolin seems to feel the issue has become considerably worse in recent years. He has a traditional view of acting as a craft and feels that more people used to be focused on improving that craft rather than financial success.
While trying to be financially successful might not be the worst thing in the world, Josh Brolin does feel that, because so many are focused on that, it hurts the movies being made. It seems that because people are chasing fame, they’re less interested in the collaborative process of filmmaking. Brolin continued…
Less and less do you find actors that just want to get in the soup, get in the cauldron together.
While a certain amount of this could certainly be chalked up to Josh Brolin being 40 years older and having a less-than-stellar view of a younger generation, it’s hard to argue that the Dune actor hasn’t always felt this way.
Brolin has talked about the way that some assumed that he was only chasing fame because he was the son of actor James Brolin, something he had to fight against. Brolin admits to doing a lot of studying of acting methods while making The Goonies. Although Steven Spielberg told Brolin he was maybe taking it all a bit too seriously.
When it comes to the actors that Brolin himself looks up to, it’s clear that he’s not looking at the people who are the most famous, but rather those actors who he thinks have done some of the best performances. He mentions the great performances of Denzel Washington specifically, saying…
I look back at the work that Denzel’s done and I’m absolutely flabbergasted. When he has that tear come down in Glory or Cry Freedom, is another great one. So many great movies that I look at him and I’m just in awe. In absolute awe. How do you do that?
Even if the number of actors focused on the craft of acting has diminished, they’re certainly out there. When Brolin’s Dune co-star Timothee Chalamet won the Oscar, he didn’t say he wanted to be the most famous actor, but that he wanted to be one of the greats as an actor. Perhaps he’ll be an inspiration to a new generation.