Josh Brolin says he’ll quit acting if Denis Villeneuve isn’t nominated for an Oscar for ‘Dune 2’
Josh Brolin is going to bat for “Dune: Part Two.” In an interview with Variety, the actor, who plays Paul Atreides’ combat mentor Gurney Halleck in the sci-fi epic, issued a threat about what he will do if the film’s director Denis Villeneuve once again isn’t nominated for Best Director at the Oscars.
“If he doesn’t get nominated this year, I’ll quit acting,” Brolin said. “It was a better movie than the first one. When I watched it, it felt like my brain was broken open. It’s masterful, and Denis is one of our master filmmakers. If the Academy Awards have any meaning whatsoever, they’ll recognize him.”
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Brolin is certainly speaking in jest for dramatic effect, and will not quit acting if Villeneuve isn’t nominated. But he’s serious about how much he loves the movie and how much he wants the Academy to recognize it. He loved the first “Dune” so much that he spoke out about Villeneuve not getting a Best Director nom for it back then.
In 2022, the first “Dune” earned 10 nominations, but directing wasn’t one of them. In response, Brolin posted a video congratulating the nominees and expressing bafflement about Villeneuve’s snub. “Hey, I just want to say congratulations to Legendary, Warner Bros., everybody who got nominated for ‘Dune’: editing, cinematography, score, music, writing, pretty much everything,” Brolin said. “And the unbelievable, almost numbing, flummoxing, I feel, for Denis Villeneuve not being nominated for Best Director. It’s just one of those things where you go, ‘Huh? What?!’”
“I don’t know how you get 10 nominations and then the guy who has done the impossible with that book doesn’t get nominated,” he continued. “It makes you realize that it’s all amazing and then it’s all f—ing totally dumb. So congratulations for the amazing accomplishments that these incredibly talented people have been acknowledged for, because it’s all really, really dumb.”
Brolin and Villeneuve’s working relationship goes back to 2015, when Brolin starred in Villeneuve’s cartel thriller “Sicario.” Villeneuve has been nominated for Best Director once, for 2016’s sci-fi drama “Arrival.” He is not a lock to be nominated for “Dune: Part Two,” but his odds are good. And “Dune: Part Two” is likely to earn noms for Best Picture and many of the technical categories the first movie won, including editing, cinematography, and visual effects.
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