One iconic Benedict Cumberbatch role inspired Josh Brolin to play Thanos
By Mia Johnson
Josh Brolin revealed seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in one iconic role convinced him to take the role of Thanos. No, that role wasn’t Sherlock Holmes.
Benedict Cumberbatch is very talented; many people know that. But in fact, he might be so talented that he has the ability to inadvertently inspire others without even knowing.
That was the case with Josh Brolin, who famously plays the villain Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. If it wasn’t for Cumberbatch, Brolin might not have taken the role. But it wasn’t because the two met beforehand. It was a lot more obscure than that.
Brolin revealed on Entertainment Weekly Radio that he was a bit hesitant to play Thanos because it would be a CGI character, something a lot different than what he was used to doing. But it wasn’t until he watched a behind-the-scenes video with Cumberbatch as Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit movies that he was convinced.
“He was in this [motion capture] suit on, and he was in this big warehouse. And he’s crawling around like a snake, snapping his tongue out doing this incredible performance,” Brolin said in the interview. “I saw that and was like, ‘Alright, that’s the bar. This is not, like, bulls—t. This is something you have to sink your teeth into: conviction, embarrassment, all this kind of stuff.'”
If you’re wondering about the video in question, here’s a clip from The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (cut from the longer, 17-minute version).
Apparently, it took a lot of convincing for Brolin to take the role of Thanos. In an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live earlier this year, Mark Ruffalo said he spoke with Brolin before he took the role because he wasn’t sold on playing Thanos just yet. Ruffalo said he might feel out of place doing the unconventional motion-capture acting, but he assured him it’d be worth it in the end.
Related Story: Josh Brolin read Trump's tweets as Thanos
It looks like we all owe Cumberbatch (and Ruffalo) a big thanks for inspiring Josh Brolin to play Thanos. Next time, we might see Brolin inspired to play a super-intelligent detective or a magical sorcerer. You never know!