After casting reports confirmed actor, Josh Brolin would appear in director, George Clooney‘s ’50s-inspired dark comedy, Suburbicon, the filmmaker now reveals he cut Brolin out completely — and on an “awful note.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Clooney admits that his former co-star, Brolin’s scenes were the “funniest in the movie,” but they just didn’t work out.
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“We shot a couple of scenes with Josh [playing] a baseball coach that are really, really funny,” he said. “But after we did our first screening, the one thing that became really clear to me was that [the scenes] let the air out of the balloon, in terms of the tension in the film. I had to write him this awful note where I just said, ‘You’re not going to believe it, but these scenes really don’t work anymore.’”
Clooney says that Brolin “felt bad,” and thought maybe something went wrong, but the 56-year-old actor and director reassured him it was not personal.
“I said, ‘I’m sending you the scenes, so you can see, they’re actually the two funniest scenes in the movie,’” he said.
The new father said he recalls sitting there with the editor in disbelief at the disconnect between the scenes, but revealing he’s been in the same situation before.
“I did a bunch of scenes in Thin Red Line and then got a call from Terry [Malick], saying, ‘We’re cutting out everything except the very last scene,’” he said. “I was like, ‘Please cut me completely out of the movie! Don’t leave me in one scene!’ But, [on Suburbicon], it is one of those where we were just, like, ‘There was no option.’”
Clooney shares that Brolin was “so great in the film,” but admits he never likes talking about those things publicly because it can be unfair to an actor. He adds the only thing he will disclose is that Brolin was “just absolutely great in the movie.”
Directed Clooney with an original script penned by Joel and Ethan Coen, Suburbicon stars Matt Damon as Gardner Lodge, a man whose quiet, suburban life is turned upside down when he gets involved with the mob.
Living in a peaceful, idyllic suburban community with affordable homes and manicured lawns, Gardner finds it as the perfect place to raise a family. However, the tranquil surface masks a disturbing reality, as Gardner must navigate the town’s dark underbelly of betrayal, deceit, and violence.
Treading territory between Coen Brothers classics like, Burn After Reading and A Serious Man, this is a tale of flawed people making bad choices.
Photo credit: Twitter / @alexdebecker
