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[The following story contains major spoilers for Outer Range.]

For Josh Brolin to return to television after nearly two decades, it needed to be something bold and unconventional. Well, he certainly found that in Outer Range, Amazon Prime Video’s neo-Western with a sci-fi twist.

Created by Bryan Watkins, the series quickly became a water-cooler show that balanced family drama with enough tantalizing questions to yield a bevy of fan theories. Brolin plays Royal Abbott, a ranch owner who finds a shimmering hole on his ranch’s west pasture, and just as he makes this discovery, his property and his family are threatened in a wide variety of ways. With the recent release of season one’s concluding two episodes, back-to-back revelations recontextualized the entire series, setting up even more questions that Brolin hopes are answered in future seasons.

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The finale also included a shootout sequence that gave Brolin a serious case of deja vu. 

“In the finale, when Royal drives up to Autumn [Imogen Poots] who’s standing in the middle of the street, that’s the same street — literally within 100 hundred feet — where [Anton] Chigurh [Javier Bradem] was shooting at Llewelyn. So that was weird for me. With Royal, there was a little bit of a feeling like it was Llewelyn 20 years later,” Brolin tells The Hollywood Reporter.

In 2014, Brolin met filmmaker Denis Villeneuve on the set of Sicario, and the action thriller would go on to become one of the most celebrated films of 2015, if not the decade. The overwhelming response led to Stefano Sollima’s 2018 sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, and while it had the tall order of following a film that many consider to be a masterpiece, Soldado still garnered a fresh Rotten Tomatoes score and a box office haul that was not far off from the original [$76 million versus $85 million]. As a result, Brolin very much wants to make a third Sicario film, insisting that it remains a priority.

“It’s very much at the forefront of all of our minds. It’s been written and it’s been rewritten. So it’s out there. We think it deserves a third one if we can make it in the way that we want to make it.” Brolin shares.

Brolin reunited with Villeneuve on 2021’s sci-fi epic Dune, and having just read the script for Dune: Part Two, the California native now understands why his Warmaster character, Gurney Halleck, was sent off in an open-ended fashion during House Harkonnen’s brutal attack on House Atreides.

“So having just read the second one about two weeks ago, I now know why that [sendoff] was the way it was. So I think it was a good place [to leave Gurney]. When I watched it, I was like, ‘Where did I go?’ I think that was the first reaction. ‘That’s it?’ But that was all selfish,” Brolin says with a laugh.

In a recent conversation with THR, Brolin discussed Outer Range’s recent revelations and explains how the show changed for the better during filming.

One of the sticking points between Royal and Cecilia (Lili Taylor) is his loss of faith, and I originally thought that it happened somewhat recently, corresponding with his moral decline. But then the reveal happened, and it turned out he lost his faith many years earlier. So what do you attribute his moral decline to, if anything?

There’s a great piece of writing called The Limit that [Outer Range creator] Brian Watkins sent to me. It’s about this kid in the West who accidentally shot his father in the face, and part of Royal’s backstory was based on that. It’s an amazing piece of writing and just a very visceral story. So not that I’ve thought about it that much, but I always imagined that that’s the moment where it happened. So when something like that happens, what do you do? And when Royal jumped into the hole back then [1886], he didn’t know what the hole was. He thought it was just a gap or a crevasse. And when stepped into the hole, he did it to kill himself. Anyway, we talked about it a lot with that whole backstory and what that meant and how it all formulated. So I always felt that that was a major turning point for him and his faith.

He covered up a murder, he cheated at poker, he threatened Autumn (Imogen Poots) and the Frito-loving lawyer. So it seemed like he was trying to prevent his nuclear family from ending up like his original family, and he was willing to do whatever it takes to avoid another fractured family.

Exactly, and the keyword is “avoid.” He’s trying to recreate this familial existence based on what existed before that awful thing happened between him and his father. So he feels he created a strong foundation with his family, but the foundation is so brittle because it’s wrought with all the things you just said. I think his intentions are good, but when does that ever matter? (Laughs.) The foundation is so brittle because it’s filled with secrets, repressions and suppression and all that kind of stuff. So when things start to break or he’s confronted with the unknown, whatever that represents, something bigger than yourself or something you can’t control or a secret or hypocrisy or whatever it is, then it wins over pretty quickly. And in that Western motif, the whole family relies on him still. It’s a paternally driven idea of life still. So when he cracks, everything cracks, and that makes for fun drama.

In episode seven, we learned that Royal is a man out of time. He’s actually from 1886. To what degree was that on your mind as you played the character? Did you leave any breadcrumbs along the way?

Who knows, man? I mean, truly. We make all this shit up after the fact… I’ve said it a million times before, but there were books that really got me as a kid, whether it was Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov or later on, The Nose and The Overcoat by [Nikolai] Gogol. And all this stuff was kind of like magical realism, avant-garde writing that can take reality and fuck with it hard, revealing, even more, when you look at that reality from an exaggerated or an absurdist perspective, and I always responded to that.

So this was super fun, but it’s also uncharted territory. We were always trying to figure out the tone, but the audience really figured out the tone based on what they’ve glommed onto and the way it’s hit a nerve and the response that we’ve seen. When we were doing it, it’s like you’re playing on this dramatic plane, but you’re also touching on parody a little bit. You’re taking yourself very seriously, but then there are moments where you’re reminded through performance and through the writing that it’s not real and that it’s meant to instigate a different kind of view at how we see ourselves existentially. So all that shit’s really interesting to me, and thank god it comes across fairly simply and not too masturbatory. (Laughs.)

The Amy/Autumn reveal was jaw-dropping. How did you and Imogen approach your scenes together?

We didn’t let a lot of actors know what the reveal was. I knew, as did Brian, [executive producer] Zev Borow, and later, [director] Larry Trilling. The structure of the show changed as we did it, and that’s just what happens sometimes. It starts to have its own voice, and you’re like, “You know what? This thing that we wrote doesn’t work so much anymore. It doesn’t resonate as much as it used to.” So I think that the way I went about it was that you can’t. If you go back, it’s not like you’ll see a glint in Royal’s eyes like he may know. I think all that’s projected. So it was all played in the real.

You’re literally the first person I’ve talked to about the reveal at the end, outside of the people who worked on it. So if it works for you, fucking A and thank god. (Laughs.) But it also leaves a lot for the second season. If we continue this thing, what’s the relationship then with Imogen’s character, Autumn? Where did Amy go? Where did Tom’s [Pelphrey] character, Perry, go? Will he come back? So it’s a great setup. Season one is a great, fun, wild setup. 

Do you guys have the big picture in mind, in the event that you get more seasons?

Like I said, it’s kind of taken on a life of its own, so things changed. When it first got set up at Amazon, Brian didn’t know a lot. He had an idea, but I think it was really based on those first two scripts for the first two episodes. And from then on, it got broken open by a plethora of people. So I think he had some really, really wonderful ideas that were opened up by a few people.

The shootout in the finale is when it dawned on me, but you shot this in Las Vegas, New Mexico where you filmed some of No Country for Old Men, right?

Yeah, weirdly. In the finale, when Royal drives up to Autumn who’s standing in the middle of the street, that’s the same street — literally within 100 hundred feet — where [Anton] Chigurh [Javier Bradem] was shooting at Llewelyn. So that was weird for me. (Laughs.) With Royal, there was a little bit of a feeling like it was Llewelyn 20 years later. I couldn’t knock it.

When Royal tried to confess something to Rhett (Lewis Pullman) at the rodeo, he couldn’t get the words out, and it felt like one of your most vulnerable moments on screen. Would you agree with that?

I’m glad you feel that way, but I don’t really have an opinion. When I look at my stuff, I go, “Did I do what I needed to do?” That scene was a very specifically written scene, but we didn’t stick to it. It just wasn’t working. So we started to improvise a little bit and it turned into what you saw. And thank god Larry was intuitive. I love that man so much. He really had an impact on our show when he came in, and he really helped set the tone. He would yell things out at me and ask me questions, as we were in the middle of the scene. (Laughs.) It’s all that stuff you don’t hear because it’s cut out. So as I would try to improvise, he’d go, “You can’t get the words out. You can’t get the words out. You’re going to lose your son.” It was incredible.

Having done TV before, that kind of stuff existed, but it didn’t exist. Whereas this was set up in a way that explores the absurdities of how we behave sometimes, and not just this straightforward, perfect-bow scenario so that everybody understands and nobody has to feel uncertain or uncomfortable. A lot of our actors were theater actors, so you’d throw something at them and then they’d just go with it. Lili Taylor, when we were in the barn, that scene wasn’t working. And then I was just like, “Fuck all of these people. Just let it go. Whatever happens.” And it was an embarrassing moment. It’s really an embarrassing profession. (Laughs.) But she just let herself fly, and when I watched that scene in the final cut, I was like, “Fuck yes. That’s it! That’s what we’re going for. That’s the kind of raw that we’re going for.”

To quote Denis Villeneuve, I deeply love Sicario, as well as Soldado, and I’m still holding out hope for a third film, preferably one where Emily Blunt’s Kate Macer gets some sort of justice. At this point, should I give up the dream for more Sicario?

No! I just don’t know when we’ll do it. We may be 80. (Laughs.) But it’s very much at the forefront of all of our minds. It’s been written and it’s been rewritten. So it’s out there. We think it deserves a third one if we can make it in the way that we want to make it. So don’t give up! (Laughs.)

One of my favorite scenes in both films is the helicopter scene in Soldado, as Graver came face to face with this traumatized teenager that Isabela Merced played. Seeing the havoc that he wreaked up close, Graver’s arrogant shell finally cracked, and your performance illustrated that beautifully. Anyway, I actually heard from Isabela that you were emotional during that scene. Do you recall the circumstances?

I do, but it was accidental. I don’t know if you can say, “Oh, I was so in character, and that’s just what happened at that moment.” But I think I had the same feeling about her, the person. I’m seeing this teenager on a helicopter surrounded by dirty men. (Laughs.) She was sitting there, looking absolutely worked, and it made me very emotional. You always know that the camera is there and all of that, but if you get comfortable enough, things start to hit you that are not necessarily story-driven. So that was very personal to me in that moment, but I didn’t know if it would work or not. After we finished, I was embarrassed, but they kept it and it seemed to fit into the story pretty well.

That, right there, was the movie.

I love that. Thanks for saying that.

So I know you’re beginning to prep for Dune: Part Two, but I was just curious about the last time we saw Gurney as he was running off into battle. Was that moment always going to be his sendoff until Part Two? Or was that more of an editorial choice?

I can’t answer that. I don’t know. I mean, I think the book suggests that, but the book suggests a lot of things. The book suggests his singing, and even though that was something that we actually did, we didn’t use it. And that’s a major, major thing with Gurney. So having just read the second one about two weeks ago, I now know why that [sendoff] was the way it was. (Laughs.) But it’s hard for me to answer that because when Denis is making these choices and having these dreams, talk about immersion, man. The guy gets lost in what he’s doing, completely. I’ve learned, especially as a producer, that post is just as important, if not more important, than what you’ve actually filmed. So I think it was a good place [to leave Gurney]. When I watched it, I was like, “Where did I go?” (Laughs.) I think that was the first reaction. “That’s it?” But that was all selfish. (Laughs.)

While they’re wildly different genres and scales, did Denis’ Dune set feel pretty similar to his Sicario set?

Dune was just bigger and more relaxed. It could be very intense, but it was loose, too. With Blade Runner 2049, it was slated to do very well, but then the movie came out and it didn’t do so well. So I think there was a little vulnerability there, and sometimes that can help. It was like the Coens doing No Country for Old Men having just done two very big movies, one with Clooney [Intolerable Cruelty] and one with Tom Hanks [The Ladykillers]. So you go back to what initially inspired you. It’s this kind of base viscera, and I think there was some of that going on with Denis and Dune.

[DP] Greig Fraser and I came up with a book idea that was based on Tanya [Lapointe], Denis’ producer, and Denis. Denis was like, “Why don’t you write it? You should write it. You should do a book!” (Laughs.) So it was all just loose and easy. He and I have a good time. There’s a real brotherhood there. I’m very lucky because I love that man very much, and it just turns out that he’s also an amazing filmmaker. 

So there’s an actor named Eden Brolin whose work I’ve enjoyed on a show called Yellowstone. Out of curiosity, has the family drawn battle lines between Team Outer Range and Team Yellowstone?

(Laughs.) I would like to! Just to make it more fun. I mean, look, she did grow up on a ranch, and I grew up on a ranch. But [Eden] just got married last Sunday, and it was an incredible wedding. It was so personal and it was so intimate. And she just sent me a picture, right after they had gotten married, of her and I roping, which might be my favorite picture ever. So that’s the rivalry letdown for the day. (Laughs.) But she’s so good on that show. I was really blown away by her, and if there’s any rivalry, it’s a fun, self-created rivalry.

Is Outer Range rather personal to you?

Outer Range, more than anything, is very, very personal to me, and I’m very indebted to Amazon because I wasn’t sure. As you can probably guess now, I would’ve spoken out had they not backed us up, had they not marketed it well, had they not spent the money and supported us in the way that they have. Their shows have been pretty linear for the most part, so that was scary to me. I have no interest in doing linear. Zero. So the question was, “Can you get behind this?”

We also had a lot of issues during filming. A ton. The setting was really tough, the hours were very tough and some of the egos and insecurities were very tough. It took much longer than we thought it was going to take, but the reward at the end of the road is the fact that it’s hit a nerve with people. Every crew member that went through 12 hours in the middle of the night, freezing their asses off, gets that pump when they see that people are really enjoying the film or the show. There’s just that little thing that shifts and you go, “It was all worth it.” So that’s supremely satisfying. And I don’t say that with any arrogance. I’m very surprised, but I’m deeply grateful.

Interview edited for length and clarity. 

Outer Range is now available on Amazon Prime Video.