No beating about the bush

It must be an affectation, this cowboy identity that Josh Brolin assumes. He wears scuffed boots and Levi's and has his shirtsleeves rolled up.

He is sprawled low in his chair, with legs apart in an alpha male pose. Perhaps he has grown attached to the cowboy image because of the film that put him on the map: No Country for Old Men, the winner of this year's Oscar for Best Picture.

Brolin plays a laconic, walrus-moustache-wearing cowboy who stumbles across $2.4 million in cash on the Texas borderlands.

Finding the money makes him reassess his life, not least because he has to go on the run from a psychopathic killer. The role was remarkable not only for Brolin's performance but also for how little he spoke. Emoting without words, they call it in Hollywood.

“It was quite nerve-wrecking, in a way,'' he says now, “being on screen all that time without much dialogue.''

Though he plays another cowboy, of sorts, in his latest film, W, the contrast could hardly be greater. “W was a reaction to No Country. There is a 125-page script and I'm in 122 of it.'

I ask him if I am pronouncing the title of this film correctly. “It's Dubya — the emphasis on the “ya'' — not ‘double you','' he says. The W, of course, is George W. Bush, and this is Oliver Stone's eagerly awaited biopic, the one that was timed to cause maximum impact — and damage to the Republican Party — just before the election.

It is everything you might expect from the Left-wing Stone. After all, Stone's Oscar-nominated biopic, Nixon (1995), portrayed an earlier Right-wing president as paranoid and angst-filled. Nixon's family hated it. “Yeah, but what casting,'' Brolin says. “Who would have imagined Anthony Hopkins could be Nixon?''

I was coming to that. Brolin and Bush aren't lookalikes — the distance between the eyes is wrong, apart from anything else. “It's not meant to be an impersonation,'' he says.

“You couldn't sustain that for the length of a film. I understand what you're saying, though. You look at me and think how could he play this guy? Well, they made my hair grey and we had to do a lot with prosthetics. Bush is not a bad-looking guy but he does have a pinched face. I would be incredibly interested to know what he makes of it.''

Giving stars their stripes

It reminds me that at one point during the filming of W it looked as if Brolin had slipped into method acting. He was arrested after a brawl at the Stray Cat Bar in Shreveport, Louisiana, and released on bail. Are we to assume from this that he is hot-tempered?

“I was looking out for someone and got arrested. There wasn't any violence. Not from us, I should say ...''

I'm not convinced; about his temper, I mean. It seems to flare when I press him about his politics. Brolin attended the convention in Denver, at which Barack Obama formally accepted the nomination.

It would be fair to call him a high-profile Democrat; indeed, like his stepmother Barbra Streisand and just about every Hollywood mogul or star you care to mention.

“I don't really know about my stepmother's politics so much,'' he says.

Um, I think he will find she is a Democrat, her being best friends with the Clintons and all that. “Sure, the ‘sensus in California is Democrat. But there are also a lot of Republicans in Hollywood — Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can't say they don't have an impact.''

Yes, but it is a positive impact, I say, with the possible exception of Mel Gibson. Eastwood and Schwarzenegger are, or have been, elected politicians. When non-elected actors in Hollywood tell the rest of the country how to vote, that has a negative impact.

“Why would it?''

Because people say Hollywood stars should stick to acting; they shouldn't use their public platforms to ram their politics down other people's throats.

“Can you imagine if the only people who spoke about politics were politicians? It's a ridiculous notion. It is myopic to say actors shouldn't speak. What's the alternative to speaking up? Why would people be put off? I've read Sean's blog where people are saying ‘Shut up! Stick to acting.' But why? He has just another opinion.''

An opinion with a platform, I say.

“Yeah, but it's interesting me why this would wind people up. It's such a lazy point of view. Is Sean in New Orleans after the flood just because he wants to look good? What about the $56,000 advertisement Penn took out in the Washington Post attacking the Iraq War? To me that shows foresight. He did that before the war.

"How can that be damned in any way? That should be praised. Bush has made Americans unpopular abroad. And Bush is disliked at home, too. When you have a president who has gone from a 90 per cent approval rating to a 25 per cent approval rating there are obviously people out there who feel this administration hasn't done the best job.

"Hopefully this film will reignite public opinion. I think this film will remind people of the perils of going for the personality rather than the policies.''

Won't that be to Obama's disadvantage? “We understand Barack Obama is about hope. Does that necessarily mean he is the best person for the job? I don't know.

"I think you need to humanise people and then look at their politics. Bush was elected because he seemed like someone you would want to go for a drink with, a real Texan. I do think this film will remind people of that.''

W is the story of a man who lives in his father's long shadow. The themes are Oedipal and in this there are further intriguing parallels between Bush and Brolin, the son of the Hollywood star, James Brolin.

We discuss what it was like growing up the son of a high-profile actor and whether that influenced the way he raised his children.

“Only now has my profile risen. But I don't have a mob following me. My dad, by contrast, was very recognisable. He was famous in TV when I was growing up.

"People feel they know TV actors because they're in your living room. As children we were removed from that fame because our nearest neighbour was a mile down the road. I didn't experience my dad's fame until I left home.''

Before No Country for Old Men, Brolin has said, his biggest role was in the 1985 children's movie The Goonies.

Winning gamble

“I didn't know where I was going. I had a healthy fear of looking back on my life and thinking, have I done enough? Am I proud of what I've done? I didn't work for two years and ultimately ended up selling my ranch at the top of the market, which gave me financial freedom not to accept every role that was offered.''

He turned down The Dukes of Hazzard by imagining himself on his deathbed and having that role flash before his eyes.
But selling his ranch and not working in films allowed Brolin to indulge his passion for trading on the stock market.

“Yes, but I only play when I'm at home.'' Play? “Well it's not a game, I do take it seriously, but I don't know how else to refer to it. We do very well: 73 per cent profit. But it's very difficult to know how to play it because it's so screwy at the moment.''

Perhaps he has an instinctive feel for the rise and fall of shares because the rise and fall in his own stock as an actor has been so dramatic.