Josh Brolin and Julia Garner locked and loaded for 'Weapons': 'It's a rollercoaster ride'

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HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — After frightening audiences with his 2022 horror breakout Barbarian, writer and director Zach Cregger had most of Hollywood jockeying to work with him on whatever twisted idea he dreamt up next.

Cregger’s screenplay for Weapons, his highly-anticipated follow-up film now playing in theatres, became one of the most sought-after projects in Tinseltown. Jordan Peele wanted to lend his name to it so badly that he is rumoured to have cut ties with his management team when they failed to obtain the rights to produce Cregger’s new thriller.

But Josh Brolin was one of the last remaining people working in the movie industry who didn’t know the upstart horror phenomenon.

When the script landed on his desk, it was Brolin’s 30-something daughter that convinced him he needed to give Cregger his full attention.

“I hadn’t seen Barbarian, yet. I didn’t even know about Zach,” Brolin, 57, says in an interview on a recent Monday in Los Angeles.

Before becoming one of the biggest names in horror seemingly out of nowhere, Cregger was one of the founding members of the Whitest Kids U’ Know comedy crew, and had starred on such sitcoms as Friends With Benefits, Guys With Kids and About a Boy. 

“I saw his sketch comedy later. I saw Barbarian after I met with him,” Brolin says. “But I was so taken by the story for Weapons. It was such an interestingly designed script. Then I met with him, and he’s an incredible human being.”

In Weapons, Emmy winner Julia Garner (Ozark, Inventing Anna, The Fantastic Four: First Steps) plays Justine Gandy, a teacher who shows up to school one morning and learns her entire class — except one student — went missing at 2:17 a.m. the night before.

Brolin, who plays the father of one of the lost kids, finds it suspicious that only children from Justine’s class vanished into thin air.

“I don’t understand at all. Why just her classroom? Why only hers?!” Brolin’s concerned parent says early on in the picture.

Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong and Amy Madigan also star.

Cregger, who has described the movie as a “horror epic” inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 drama Magnolia, wrote the feature after someone close to him died as a way to help process his grief.

In a prior interview with Postmedia, Cregger said his time spent in comedy was good training for the world of horror.

“They are so similar. They’re both about surprise and subverting expectation. A joke is zigging when the audience expects you to zag, and horror is the same thing,” he said.

It is a rollercoaster ride of sorts. It's getting in thinking you know what to expect and then every turn hits you in a different way

Josh Brolin says Zach Cregger's 'Weapons' will keep audiences guessing right up to the end

Garner, 31, says Barbarian and now Weapons cements Cregger as one of the most unique voices working in the horror space.

“When he makes something, you know that’s a Zach Cregger film,” she says.

The mystery of the missing children has been well-documented in trailers for the flick. But that’s just one part of the story. Brolin and Garner can’t wait to see how audiences react to the other sinister surprises Cregger has in store when Weapons finally opens in theatres.

“I knew we made a good movie; I knew it was a very watchable movie, but I didn’t know it was the movie it turned out to be,” Brolin says. “I was really taken when I saw it the first time.”

“It’s unpredictable and it is unlike anything I’ve ever read or seen,” Garner adds.

There are a lot of twists in Weapons that audiences aren’t going to see coming. If you had to compare the movie to a theme park ride, what attraction is it most like?

Brolin: I mean … it is a rollercoaster ride of sorts. It’s getting in thinking you know what to expect and then every turn hits you in a different way.

Garner: Even if they do have any sort of expectations, people are going to be shocked because they can’t think of anything like it.

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What was it about the script that made you say, ‘I gotta do this’?

Garner: I was such a fan of Zach’s before I even met him or this came to me. I saw Barbarian and I thought it was so brilliant and original. Just the tone of it. When this script came to me, I read it in one sitting and I kept thinking, ‘I need to be involved in this project.’ Then I met Zach and I was obsessed. I just kept thinking, ‘I need to work with this person and this project.’

Brolin: Finding out that each character is based off of different aspects of grief he was going through, I thought that was really interesting. Then you just hope someone that full and colourful is going to be a great filmmaker and it happens that he is.

What makes Zach Cregger such a unique voice in the world of horror?

Brolin: He’s done something with the horror genre that’s kind of been exhausted cosmetically. It kind of reminds me of the Coen brothers, where he brings in a level of absurdity that I love (watching) and I love playing with as an actor. The ridiculousness of us getting in our own way in what we do. I think every character represents that in some way. Alden’s character is having a thing with the girl … Then you’ve got the guy who’s a junkie. There’s the teacher who’s an alcoholic. Everybody’s doing something to make it way tougher for themselves. I think he understands that and he’s able to exploit it in a genre that has gotten tired.

Garner: I think he has a clear identity. As an artist and a filmmaker that’s very rare. You have a lot of these filmmakers and they copy other greats, and they do a really good job at it and then they become greats. But it’s rare that you have somebody with a clear tone … You think of (Bob) Fosse, he’s like that, Billy Wilder’s like that. There’s not a lot of filmmakers that have that very clear tone and rhythm that way.

Is the horror genre more fun to play in as an actor?

Brolin: Just because you know it’s reactive. Everything’s in the extreme. The quiet is more quiet. The loud is more loud. The suspense is there … you know something is coming to attack you, but you don’t know when it’s coming. I think it puts audiences in a different level of stress, and it’s great because it has this depth to it. Zach knows he can get in there as long as he opens people up. So he’s using the horror genre to his advantage. It’s very smart.

Barbarian was a great theatrical experience and Weapons is going to be so much fun for audiences to watch in a cinema. Can you share a memorable moviegoing memory?

Garner: I used to go see a double-feature. I used to like seeing two movies in theatre on the same day; sometimes even three. I used to go with my mom all the time. But as a child, I remember seeing Whale Rider in the movie theatre and I remember that movie had such an impact. I had never seen anything like it and I was a little girl and the lead protagonist was a little girl. I knew nothing about the movie, but I remember it being magical.

Brolin: There’s so many. Apocalypse Now is probably my biggest. I saw Apocalypse Now when I was 11 at the Mission Theatre. I’ve had a lot though. Fight Club, I remember walking out of the Cinerama Dome being totally confused … it was a full experience. I remember thinking, ‘What just happened to me?’ Seeing The Matrix at the Chinese Theatre. I remember walking out of The Matrix and then turning around and walking right back in and seeing it a second time. I love the theatre, man. That’s the one place where I can let everything go and just be totally available to what’s happening. I’m a massive, massive cinephile.

Weapons is now playing in theatres.

mdaniell@postmedia.com