‘There is no greater genius than him in marketing’

Key points

• Josh Brolin says he once considered Donald Trump a friend and that he was a “different guy” before he became president.

• the Dune actor befriended Trump around the time of the shooting Wall Street: Money Never Sleepsof which the Apprentice star was cut.

• “There is no greater genius than him in marketing,” Brolin said.

Josh Brolin is reflecting on his relationship with Donald Trump before the business mogul moved into the White House.

the No Country for Old Men star befriended the US president around the time they filmed Oliver Stone’s 2010 Wall Street sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, from which Trump was finally cut off.

“I’m not afraid of Trump, because even though he says he’s going to stay forever, it’s not going to happen,” Brolin said of the president who made reference to a third term in his new interview with The Independent. “And if that happens, then I will deal with that moment. But being a friend of Trump before he was president, I know a different man.”

the Ice, Caesar star added that he was fascinated by Trump’s development of a luxury hotel “in the middle of a cesspool” in the late 1970s.

“That’s interesting to me,” he said. “Now it is unmitigated power – it is not regulated.”

Brolin also thinks he understands why the former Apprentice star appealed to voters across the country. “There is no greater genius than him in marketing,” he said. “He takes the weakness of the general population and fills it.”

He continued, “That’s why I think a lot of people feel like they have a mascot in him. I think it’s a lot less about Trump than about the general population and their need for validation.”

Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond Entertainment Weeklycomment request.

Although he once considered Trump a friend, Brolin turned down his 2020 presidential bid in October 2020 in an impassioned Instagram post.

“I refuse to believe that Donald Trump is our ultimate version of American masculinity,” the Dune wrote a star at the time. “America that was great was never based on the creation of hatred and conspiracy to win. There were a few, but none lasted. Donald Trump has lied more than 50,000 documented times, but we are still willing to let it go because he speaks to an American demographic that no longer feels male.”

Last year, Brolin shared a strange memory of an interaction he had with the future president in his New York apartment. “I said, ‘What’s up?’ He said, ‘Our bedroom,'” he recalled In Depth With Graham Bensinger. “And I said, ‘Can I see up?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And then no one moved. And I said, ‘Cool. So should we go up?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And then he still didn’t move. And I’m thinking, ‘What’s going on?'”

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Brolin is in the middle of a particularly busy chapter of his career. He can be seen in Edgar Wright’s The Man Runs and by Rian Johnson Wake Up Dead Manboth of which are now playing in theaters. Also featured in Zach Cregger’s Armswhich is streaming on HBO Max, this year, and lent his voice to Ken Burns’ The American Revolution docuseries on PBS.

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