Special Coverage Pop Culture Classics (The EW 1000)Summer MusicSummer TVBox Office Game
Page 4 of 6
josh-brolin2_l
JOSH BROLIN ''I've been watching video of Bush walking. People hold their emotion in their bodies. They can't fake it. Especially him.''
PHOTOGRAPH BY PLATON

It's no secret in Hollywood that Oliver Stone movies have a knack for stirring up trouble — even his 2004 pansexual epic Alexander was threatened with a lawsuit by Greek lawyers claiming it damaged their national heritage — and not a single major studio wanted anything to do with W. ''When push comes to shove, all these media companies are chickens---,'' Stone says. ''They're all part of conglomerates.'' There may be other reasons: Movies about politics and the Iraq war have proved box office poison, and with Bush's approval rating hovering at 28 percent, there's not much reason for the studios to think the president will draw moviegoers to the multiplex. And despite Stone's three Oscars, he doesn't exactly rake in record grosses. His 2006 Nicolas Cage drama, World Trade Center, earned a respectable $70 million, but his films seldom top that domestically. In any case, W is being financed independently, with Chinese, German, and Australian funds and Lionsgate is rumored to have struck a deal to distribute it.

W didn't just make studios nervous; the script gave lots of movie stars cold feet, too. Stone denies rumors that Robert Duvall turned down Cheney. And he won't comment on reports that he's talking to Paul Giamatti about the part. But casting has clearly been challenging. ''You'd be amazed how many male stars of a certain age in Hollywood are Republicans,'' says Bill Block, CEO of QED, one of the film's producers. ''I'm not going to name names, but a lot of them just didn't want to have anything to do with it.'' According to Stone, even some of the town's young Democrats couldn't be persuaded. ''They hate Bush so much, they can't understand why I'd want to make a movie about him,'' he says. ''They hate him so much, they can't even imagine themselves playing him or playing anybody around him.''

Luckily, Josh Brolin got over his qualms — after all, his father, James, managed to play Ronald Reagan in a TV miniseries, and he's married to Barbra Streisand. ''When Oliver approached me about George Bush my initial reaction was 'Why would I want to do that?''' says the 40-year-old actor, lately on a career roll after performances in American Gangster and No Country for Old Men. ''But Oliver pointed out certain similarities I had with the character. We both have well-known fathers. We both grew up in the country. We both have strong mothers.'' Stone's pitch worked like a charm, and for the past couple of months Brolin has been driving his wife, Diane Lane, crazy, struggling to master the president's inimitable vocal style. ''I'm talking to myself all day long,'' Brolin says. ''Sometimes I'll call hotels in Texas and talk to the people at the front desk just to listen to their accents. And I've been watching a lot of video of Bush walking. It changes over the years, how he walks in his 30s, how he walks in foreign lands, before 9/11 and afterwards. People hold their emotions in their bodies. They can't fake it. Especially him.'' Elizabeth Banks, best known for turns in The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Spider-Man 3, takes a more straightforward approach to portraying First Lady Laura Bush. ''I don't want to do an impression,'' she says. ''I just want to honor her voice, her stillness, and her hairstyle.''

NEXT PAGE: ''I'm tired of defending the accuracy of my movies,'' says Stone. ''I'm past that now. JFK was a case to be proven, Nixon was a penetrating biography of a complex and dark man. But I'm not bound by those strictures anymore.''


Page 4 of 6