At the end of the Zoom meeting we conducted, Josh Brolin comments with satisfaction: “It was an intense interview.” Because talking about Whalefall: In the Whale, the film in theaters from October 15, the focus was mainly on one theme, that of what it means to be a parent. “It isn’t easy: it’s a constant improvisation. But it’s something I love,” says the actor, who in the film appears rough and heavily tattooed in the role of Mitt, the father of the protagonist Jay, a man who has tried in his own way to pass on to his son his passion for the sea and the whales, and, more broadly, his knowledge and experience. But that way was almost always wrong, based on an old idea of father-son relationships and of male dynamics, made of silences, an inability to communicate feelings, and authoritarian educational models. So much so that Jay, even in the face of his father’s illness, will decide to cut all ties with his parent, only to dive into the sea and end up inside the whale’s belly from which he will have to try to escape by using precisely what Mitt had tried to teach him.
Confused? Let’s review a bit before moving on.
Whalefall: In the Whale, the film’s trailer
“Jay has lived with Mitt through a terrible condition, while 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’ve experienced dynamics similar, though less extreme. We’ve had our clashes. He is now 38 years old, and we can speak openly about how certain things went: the moments when we didn’t understand each other and there were misunderstandings, or when I tried to leave a mark without really considering his temperament, his sensitivity, and everything else.” Filming the scenes where he had to be harsh or clash with Jay, played by Austin Abrams, did not please the actor at all, because it put on him “a feeling I detest, as if something poisonous is entering you. You can feel the love between a father and son, but you also feel that every time Mitt tries to pass something on to Jay, something that would make him resilient and self-sufficient, he does it in a way that makes him push away. And then alcohol gets in the way, making things worse. It wasn’t easy. Austin didn’t help in this, 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 his own parenting and the fact that it is a craft that one never stops 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 starts all over again. Does it get easier? More difficult? Is every child a case of its own? You keep trying.” For Brolin, the whale in the film is “a metaphor for the extremes we must reach to learn something and to reach a state of simple gratitude for the mere fact of existing. I believe that, with age, I have reached that state: obstacles are no longer problems but opportunities to learn, and when I see one approaching, instead of hiding, I get energized by the idea of learning something, because I feel much more at ease with embracing discomfort than I did in the past.” To prepare his children for life, however, Josh Brolin asserts, one must not be overly protective: “Today we spoil our children too much, we raise them in cotton wool, and they almost end up acting more as parents to us than we do for them. I think it’s important to let our kids face difficulties today so that they are not unprepared tomorrow.”
Like many, Brolin himself faced difficulties as a young man, and those experiences are what, in some sense, helped mold him into an actor, “almost by chance.” “I had been kicked out of the house and I ended up sleeping on my father’s sofa,” he recalls. “That’s when I thought: ‘Josh, you need to straighten up, because you’re living a self-destructive life and you’re on the wrong path.’ So I tried acting, even though I was rejected every time”: they told me I had no experience, that I wasn’t good, that I should look for another job. Instead of being discouraged, all of that motivated me and pushed me to work harder. But it took time. When I was lucky enough to land my role in The Goonies, I had already reached my 350th audition, and it was only later, when I began doing theater, that I truly understood what a gift it was to be an actor and a writer, because I could constantly explore what fascinates me most, namely the human condition, that total absurdity you’ll never quite solve but that’s fascinating to explore and try to understand.
Comments