Avengers: Endgame Star Josh Brolin Reveals the One Reason Why He Decided to Play Thanos

Actors often take roles for many reasons, everything from the right paycheck to the right script to even just wanting to working specific talent. But for Thanos actor Josh Brolin there was just one reason he took on the ultimate villain for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The actor revealed that the reason he decided to take the Thanos role was that the character would fight all of the Avengers in Avengers: Infinite War and Avengers: Endgame and not just an individual hero.

Speaking with cinematographer Roger Deakins on the Team Deakins podcast (via ScreenRant), Brolin said that when he first signed on to play Thanos, he was given a character bible that revealed that the Mad Titan would take on all the heroes and for him, that was the selling point.

“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 said. “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.”

It’s also interesting to note that Brolin’s comments indicate that the role was meant to simply be a cameo with a lot of room to grow. Now, with both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame in the rear view, it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the Mad Titan, something that the character’s creator Jim Starlin even said last year.

“When they first started talking about getting a name actor to play Thanos, Josh Brolin wasn’t on my radar at all,” Starlin said at the time. “But now that I’ve seen him as the character, I have a hard time imagining anybody else playing him.

“He captured the movement and the cadence of the language, everything so marvelously that he had such a weight to the character,” continued Starlin. “I haven’t got a complaint in the world about him, he’s terrific as far as his portrayal of the guy, even more so in the new movie.”

What do you think about Brolin’s comments about why he decided to play Thanos? Let us know in the comments!