Weird comedy calls Josh Brolin's name again
NEW YORK — There are two pivotal points in Inherent Vice that cement the mesmerizing weirdness of Josh Brolin's character, a cop named Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen. One involves bananas; the other, ingested marijuana, in the film's final scene.
"Is it an oral fixation?" Brolin wonders. "I came up with the gagging. Why does this guy eat so many bananas?"
The film, which opens nationwide Friday, is based on Thomas Pynchon's meandering novel of the same name, deemed utterly unsuitable to be a movie. Which is precisely why it appealed to Brolin, a man who knows his own worth and doesn't take no for an answer.
"Everyone says Pynchon is unfilmable. Why? I like that kind of thing," says Brolin. "This was comedic, which I was very happy to go back to. I missed pushing myself that way. Why am I always the serious guy? When did that happen?"
Brolin, 46, had long wanted to work with director Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, The Master), and the two had played phone tag for years. Finally, Anderson contacted Brolin to say he might have a project for him. The result is fairly bananas, even for an actor who once portrayed George W. Bush, complete with spot-on Texas drawl.
"I've played a lot of cops. W. is the weirdest thing I've ever done. Bigfoot is the weirdest experience I ever had on film," he says.
Brolin, Oscar-nominated for 2008's Milk, says his work feels "more personal" to him now, as opposed to reactive or something resembling an actor for hire. "Inherent Vice has been very good to me. Critics have been very good to me. I have a career I feel very good about. My shelves are filled with books and not awards and I'm OK with that," he says.
