Josh Brolin Takes His Best Shot At True Grit

Online, December 10, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Josh Brolin didn't need much pre-production training for his co-starring role in True Grit, Joel and Ethan Coens' eagerly awaited remake of the classic 1969 Western. As he notes in the January issue of Cowboys & Indians, The Premier Magazine of the West, he formed close ties to the western lifestyle during his childhood years on his family's ranch. And he learned all he needed to know about riding hard and shooting straight during the three seasons he appeared on The Young Riders, the 1989-92 TV series in which he played a young Wild Bill Hickok.

"When guest stars tried to get in character," Brolin tells C&I writer Wendy Wilkinson, "I would be lassoing their feet. And I got really good with a gun because I was constantly playing with it on the set. It was an amazing three years."

In True Grit, Brolin gets another opportunity to demonstrate his gunmanship as the black-hearted Tom Chaney, a bad-as-they-come villain who murders the father of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld). To avenge this outrage, Mattie enlists the help of Marshal Reuben J. Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) to pursue Chaney deep into the Oklahoma Indian Territory of the 1890s.

Chaney is very much the villain of the piece. But Brolin insists this bad guy isn't much worse than the two lawmen on his trail. "No one except Mattie has an ounce of integrity in the movie," he says, "and all three main male characters are manifestations of the same rock we all crawled out from underneath." On the other hand, Brolin concedes: "I do think that Chaney is the most primitive or Neanderthal of the characters in the film."

Brolin continues to ride tall in the saddle even when he's not making movies. He and his actress-wife Diane Lane make their home on a ranch just three miles away from where he was raised in Central California. "The ranch is where I feel comfortable," he tells Wilkinson. "I get very caught up in what I'm doing in Los Angeles, and need an escape so I can always have a level of objectivity." Better still, Brolin adds with a laugh, "There's always a feeling that you could get shot at any moment up there, and I think it's a good way to keep reporters away."

Elsewhere in the January issue of Cowboys & Indians, actor-director Robert Redford discusses his latest film, The Conspirator, a courtroom drama about a woman charged with aiding the assassins of Abraham Lincoln, and C&I film historian David Hofstede pays tribute to the greatest movie cowboys of all time. But wait, there's more: An up-close look at the top five Western spas, a celebration of a century of Tony Lama boots, a guide to spring training in the Southwest with the Cactus League - and valuable cooking tips for putting Santa Fe flavor into your holidays at home.

Published eight times per year, Cowboys & Indians is an international magazine of the highest quality covering the past, present, and future of the American West. Printed copies are available at fine newsstands everywhere, and an electronic edition is available through Zinio.com.