Josh Brolin talks personal side of ‘Whalefall,’ ‘Sicario 3’

The difficult relationship between Josh Brolin’s Mitt Gardiner and Austin Abrams’ Jay Gardiner is at the heart of Brian Duffield’s story. Whale fallbut Brolin is also literally the heartbeat of the emotional survival story.

Rather than die in a hospital from mesothelioma, Mitt, the jack-of-all-trades sailor, chose to commit suicide by weighing himself down and jumping from his boat near Abbey Beach, California. He did this while estranged from his college-aged son (Abrams’ Jay).

Throughout Jay’s childhood, Mitt raised him in a way that was a few rungs below R. Lee’s abusive instructor Ermey. Full metal jacket. He wanted Jay to be better prepared for the unpredictability of life than he was, and although he imparted many valuable skills, especially in scuba diving, he imposed his will to such a degree that Jay defiantly chose to attend college in the landlocked cornfields of Iowa.

Brolin had read that of Daniel Kraus Whale fall before agreeing to play Mitt in Kraus and Duffield’s adaptation. When he finished, he kissed the book and criedboth as a father and as a son.

“You 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 accumulation of that in me,” Brolin says. The Hollywood Reporter in support of Whale fallReleased in theaters on October 16. “It makes me think about the impacts that (Brolin’s father, actor James Brolin) wanted to have. When you’re a teenager and you see that something means so much to a parent, it’s just an opportunity to rebel. Then you get older and you’re like: Oh man, he really tried hard.»

A year after Mitt’s death, Jay returns home to comfort his mother (Elisabeth Shue’s Zara) and two older sisters (Jane Levy’s Eva and Emily Rudd’s Nan). But he refuses to visit his father’s grave with his mother, in part because Mitt is not actually buried there. (Whale fall also marks a Hollow Man reunion for Brolin and Shue.)

Unbeknownst to his family, Jay takes it upon himself to find Mitt’s remains at the bottom of the ocean, hoping to reconcile their deep differences. But his noble plan quickly goes awry when he finds himself caught in the pursuit of a squid by a sperm whale and wakes up in the multi-chambered stomach of the 80-foot-long, 60-ton leviathan. With only an hour of oxygen remaining, Jay must find a way to escape this impossible situation, forcing him to rely on the lessons and wisdom he passively absorbed from his father.

The whale ultimately serves as a stand-in for Mitt and the all-consuming weight of his legacy and expectations on Jay. To emphasize the metaphor, Duffield recorded Brolin’s heartbeat before filming began and played it during Abrams’ two months in the claustrophobic, practical settings of the whale’s stomach. The track was later enhanced in post-production to serve as the whale’s heartbeat in the film.

As Whale fall At the movies, Brolin prepares for the long-awaited return of his CIA character, Matt Graver, in Sicario 3, opposite Benicio del Toro’s Alejandro Gillick and Emily Blunt’s Kate Macer. The trio had already gone through numerous iterations by the time of Brolin’s first update. THR on its status in May 2022. In November 2025, Brolin then told me it seemed to be “around the corner.” Fortunately, the good news finally arrived at the beginning of October, since Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight delivered a winning script for Padraic “Pat” McKinley to direct. (If you haven’t seen McKinley and Ethan Hawke’s The weighttreat yourself when it arrives digitally on October 20.)

It’s fitting that Knight is the one to crack the code, given that he’s simultaneously writing a James Bond film for the art-house filmmaker who launched the Sicarius franchisee, Denis Villeneuve.

“We were always looking at the scripts. We always wanted to do it. We didn’t intend to wait that long, but Benny (del Toro), Emily (Blunt) and I look at things and react differently to the filmmakers or the scripts,” shares Brolin. “But then Steven Knight wrote a script that was incredible, and it was undeniable. We all reacted the same way. So we’re very excited to do it. We’ll do it next year. We have a great filmmaker, Padraic McKinley, who we think will make a really good movie, and we’re excited.”

One of the best scenes in the franchise takes place at the end of Stefano Sollima’s second installment, Day of the Soldier. Brolin’s Graver comes face-to-face with Isabela Merced’s shocked Isabel after he and Del Toro’s Alejandro use her as a pawn in their attempt to take down her cartel kingpin father. Graver, supremely confident, finally shows 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’s portrait of the teenager being shattered.

Needless to say, Brolin is eager to build on this in the third chapter. “You’re going to be able to see a different side of Matt Graver that you haven’t seen in the past,” adds Brolin.

The first time I spoke to Brolin was to Outdoor beach first season in May 2022. Sicarius writer Taylor Sheridan had found success in the pandemic era with his Yellow stone series, prompting other networks to try their hand at neo-Western. But Brolin and creator Brian Watkins’ take on the subgenre was easily the most interesting and ambitious of the bunch. Brolin needed to return to television as the series’ lead for the first time in two decades.

Unfortunately, when Outdoor beach returning for its second season in May 2024, it did not receive the same promotional push as the first, despite receiving even better reviews. The writing was already on the wall and, sure enough, the series was canceled a few months later.

Fast forward to August 2026, I was on my knees Lanterns cover when I learned that Brolin had turned down the role of Hal Jordan, which then went to Kyle Chandler. At the time, I speculated that the crushing disappointment of Outdoor beach had dissuaded Brolin from another major television commitment, as had been the case for nearly two decades. But it is not entirely certain that this is the case.

“Outdoor beach was heartbreaking. But LanternsI don’t know, maybe it was too close (to Outdoor beach),” Brolin said.

What he is sure of is that Amazon Prime Video made a mistake. Tom Pelphrey’s recent Emmy win for Stain only reinforces this view, as do the flourishing careers of Lewis Pullman and Imogen Poots.

“I really liked Outside Rangeand seeing what these actors – Tom Pelphrey, Lewis Pullman, Imogen Poots – have done since then makes me very happy,” shares Brolin. “For me, it’s a great middle finger to those people who canceled this show. It’s like, You had gold.”

Below, in conversation with THRBrolin also discusses an unconscious choice he made in Mitt and Jay’s most confrontational flashback.

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I’ve heard a lot about your guests lately, one being Glen Powell and another being the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Whale fallDaniel Kraus. Do the Brolins run a bed and breakfast for creatives in between films?

(Laughter.) I would be very happy to leave this legacy. Now that we have moved, we are receiving more and more people. Glen rented my house in Atlanta, a house we no longer have, probably because Glen stayed there. (Laughter.) Daniel, who was finishing a novel, stayed with us for two weeks, which was very pleasant. He was the best guest imaginable. We never really knew he was there. You didn’t feel obligated to host him at all. Then he left, and four days later (in May 2026), he won the Pulitzer for Angel Downthe book he wrote after Whale fall. It made me feel like I’d won the Pulitzer for Angel Down.

Your home should have good vibes.

This is indeed the case! It’s a cool place. We were lucky.

At the end of last year you talked to me about finishing Whale fall during the filming of Dog Stars And sobbing once you are finished. Did you understand why this opened the floodgates?

As a parent, to be serious for a moment, you struggle, you improvise, you hope, you plan – and then you have to deal with real human beings. So that’s not just what you expect from them, and you realize how ridiculous that statement is. You can’t help but pass on things that you think are important, and yet children grow up and live their own lives. You must allow them to make their own decisions and fall and scrape their emotional and psychic knees.

So I think it was the accumulation of that in me. I was just a parent, man. I graduated high school and I think I had a year all to myself that wasn’t great. Then I had children and have been a parent ever since. My older children, I see what they have done with their lives and I am 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 will do this from the beginning to the end of my maturity.

Did this also strike you as a son?

Totally. My dad (James Brolin) hasn’t seen the movie yet and I can’t wait for him to see it. It makes me think about the impacts he wanted to have. When you’re a teenager and you see that something means so much to a parent, it’s just an opportunity to rebel. And for what? There’s no other reason why you’re just a teenager. Then you get older and you say to yourself, Oh man, he really tried hard. So I softened to all that, and I’m…