Josh Brolin has said he 'wanted out' after one day on the set of Ridley Scott's new film The Dog Stars. The Weapons actor stars as Bruce Bangley, an ex-Marine who teams up with Jacob Elordi's Hig, a civilian pilot living with his dog, to survive in an almost eradicated Earth after a devastating flu pandemic.
Based on the book of the same name by Peter Heller, The Dog Stars cast also features Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Allison Janney (The Help), Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential), and Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange).
Brolin had an extremely busy 2025 after starring in numerous hits including Wake Up Dead Man and The Running Man, but when he landed in Italy for the film's rehearsal, things seemingly took a while to start.
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"Ridley was talking a lot of stories and not really rehearsing," he told Empire Magazine. "And it bugged me out, and I got really scared. I went back, called my agent and said, ‘I want out. Something’s really wrong, and I’ve got to get the f**k out of here’."
However, his agent advised him to stick it out, telling him to "rest for a day", to which Brolin, who'd previously worked with Scott on 2007's American Gangster, responded: "I was like, ‘No, man, I know what the f**k you’re doing. It’s not one of those day-things.’ And I was right."
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According to the actor, his reaction was based on Scott's filmmaking process, which is light on rehearsal. But after the director brought him to his trailer to show Brolin a "really good, very dynamic" scene between himself and Elordi, he started to get in to it.
"It took about a day or two for me to really embrace that, and then I got super into it because it was stratospherically creative and stratospherically dangerous," he said.
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"It was like, ‘This is what I’ve been asking for but now I’m getting it, I’m fighting it, because there’s zero comfort in it.’ It became one of the more creative, satisfying projects that I’ve ever been involved with."
Scott is also very happy with his latest project too, telling Esquire that he was "so pleased" with the "strong feeling of hope", adding that he believes there have "been rather too many apocalyptic movies".
"And I think I started off with a pretty tough one doing Blade Runner years ago. There was no end to the grimness of Blade Runner," the director said. "In this, what I'm so pleased that came off was the strong feeling of hope. ‘It'll be okay.’ If you do the right thing, it calls to mind the expression: God helps those who help themselves."
The Dog Stars will be released in cinemas on 28 August.
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