At the end of the Zoom meeting we conducted, Josh Brolin comments with satisfaction: “It was an intense interview.” Because, in talking about Whalefall: In the Whale, the film hitting theaters on October 15, we focused chiefly on one theme, that of what it means to be a parent. “It’s not easy: it’s a constant improvisation. But it’s something I love,” says the actor, who in the movie appears rugged and heavily tattooed in the role of Mitt, the father of the protagonist Jay, a man who has tried in his own way to convey to his son his passion for the sea and for whales, and anyway his knowledge and his experience. Yet that approach was almost always wrong, based on an idea of the father-son relationship and of masculine roles now long outdated, composed of silences, an inability to communicate feelings, and authoritarian educational models. So much that Jay, even in the face of his father’s illness, decides to sever all ties with the parent, only to dive into the sea and end up in the belly of the whale from which he will have to try to escape precisely by using what Mitt had tried to teach him.
Confused? Let’s review a bit before we move on.
Whalefall: In the Whale, the film’s trailer
“Jay has lived with Mitt through an awful condition, whereas his sisters did not,” Josh Brolin tells us. “By a curious coincidence, I also have three daughters and a son, and with my son I have experienced dynamics similar, albeit less extreme. We’ve had our clashes. He is now 38 years old, and we can speak openly about how certain things unfolded: the moments when we didn’t understand each other and there were misunderstandings, or when I tried to leave a mark without truly considering his character, his sensitivity, and everything else.” Shooting the scenes in which he had to be hard or clash with Jay, played by Austin Abrams, wasn’t at all pleasant for the actor, because it put on him “a feeling I detest, as if something poisonous were entering inside you. You can feel the love between a father and a son but you also sense that every time Mitt tries to convey something to Jay, something that would make him resilient and self-sufficient, he does so in a way that makes him pull away. And then alcohol comes into play, which makes things worse. It wasn’t easy. Austin didn’t help in this regard, because there were days when I would arrive on set and, to stay in character, he wouldn’t speak to me.”
Brolin then reflected on what it means to be a parent, and on the fact that this is a craft you never stop learning: “You mature, you age, you face many experiences, you raise your children and those children grow up, and then you have more children, and it all starts over again. Does it get easier? More difficult? Is each child its own case? You keep trying.” For Brolin, the whale in the film is “a metaphor for the extremes we have to reach to learn something and to achieve a state of simple gratitude for the very fact of existing. I think, with aging, I’ve reached that state: obstacles are no longer problems, but opportunities to learn, and when I see one coming, instead of hiding I’m galvanized by the idea of learning something, because I feel far more at ease in embracing discomfort than I did in the past.” To prepare his children for life, however, Josh Brolin says it’s necessary not to be overly protective: “Today we spoil our children too much, we raise them in cotton wool, and they end up acting almost more as parents to us than we do to them. I think it’s important to let our children face difficulties today so that tomorrow they won’t be unprepared.”
Even he, Brolin, when young, faced difficulties, and it was these that, in some way, made him into an actor, “almost by accident.” “I had been kicked out of the house and ended up sleeping on my father’s couch,” he recounts. “That’s when I thought: ‘Josh, you need to straighten out, because you’re leading a self-destructive life and you’re on the wrong path.’ I then tried acting, even though I was rejected every time: they told me I had no experience, that I wasn’t good, that I should find another job. Instead of getting discouraged, all of this motivated me and pushed me to push myself harder. But it took time. When I was lucky enough to land my part in The Goonies, I was at my 350th audition, and it was only later, when I started doing theater, that I truly understood what a gift it is to be an actor and a writer, because I could constantly explore what fascinates me most—the human condition, that total absurdity you’ll never quite solve but that’s fascinating to explore and try to understand.”
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