Marvel’s Josh Brolin Reveals What Drew Him to Playing Thanos

Josh Brolin is an actor known for an array of roles, but these days folks know him best as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thanos. His character may have been defeated in Avengers: Endgame, but Brolin had an exciting return to the franchise this week when he voiced the character in an episode of the new animated series, Marvel’s What If…? The episode, “What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord,” saw Thanos is a whole new (and quite frankly, hilarious) light, which was certainly a fun change after watching him be such a looming threat for so many years. Recently, Brolin had a chat with ACE Universe and opened up about what drew him to the role in the first place.

“When I said yes to, to Thanos, you know, they’d given me a big Bible and really kind of talked me out but it wasn’t for you know a massive, massive part in two final films of a 10-year span. It was meant more as a cameo. So it was never the size of the role that that was like oh I want to do that because it’s going to push me further up into that fame or stardom or whatever. It was like what’s the role? The role, it’s not one of the Avengers, it’s the nemesis to all the Avengers,” Brolin explained.

“I turned down quite a bit of those things and again people were like ‘money!’ When I said yes to Avengers it was a small thing. It was basically a cameo, so there was not a lot of money involved,” Brolin previously said of playing Thanos. “So that wasn’t the reason. But when they game to me they gave me a big bible. I loved that it was all [of them]. If it had been one of the Avengers — and I don’t mean this, I probably shouldn’t say this but I’m just gonna say it — I probably wouldn’t have done it. But the fact that it was all the Avengers against this one guy. I liked that aspect of it.”

In addition to Marvel’s What If…?, Brolin is one of the many big stars who will be soon seen in Dune, which is finally hitting theatres and HBO Max later this year. Brolin will be playing Gurney Halleck alongside Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet-Kynes, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, and Javier Bardem as Stilgar.

New episodes of Marvel’s What If…? drop on Disney+ on Wednesdays. Dune opens in theaters on October 22nd. It debuts on HBO Max the same day.