Josh Brolin says David Fincher loved his F-bomb in “Weapons”: 'Greatest line in R-rated history'
- - Josh Brolin says David Fincher loved his F-bomb in “Weapons”: 'Greatest line in R-rated history'
Jordan HoffmanAugust 23, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Josh Brolin in 'Weapons'
No Country for Old Men and Dune star Josh Brolin was the first guest on a new podcast this week called On Film... With Kevin McCarthy. Brolin and his sunny interviewer did a deep dive on the Oscar-nominated actor's career, going all the way back to watching his father James Brolin attack the walls of a bleeding house on the set of the horror classic The Amityville Horror.
The timing couldn't be better as the younger Brolin is currently top of the box office with Weapons, Zach Cregger's gripping new horror (and comedy) film.
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
Julia Garner and Josh Brolin team up to solve the riddle at the heart of 'Weapons'
The picture, which costars Julia Garner, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, and Alden Ehrenreich boasts a 94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- from Cinemascore, but it's also got some pretty notable film veterans in its corner. Among them: David Fincher.
Brolin shared that the director of Seven, Zodiac, The Social Network, and The Killer is good chums with Cregger — who is still relatively new to feature film directing despite being in the entertainment biz for quite some time. (For those who are unaware, you can, and absolutely should, watch 15-year-old sketch comedy clips of Cregger and his old troupe The Whitest Kids U'Know to see some of the greatest examples of the form.) The three-time Oscar nominee Fincher agreed to look at Weapons before it had been locked to offer some advice.
According to Brolin, Fincher had "very, very few things to say. I think it was, 'You could cut out two frames here, two frames there.'" But he did have a comment about the big moment when Brolin's character awakens from a terrifying and perplexing dream and barks out the line "what the f---?!?!"
"'It's the greatest line in R-rated history,'" is apparently Fincher's assessment. "He actually said that," Brolin reported.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty
Film director David Fincher is a big fan of Josh Brolin in 'Weapons'
The actor, who has worked with Denis Villeneuve, the Coen Brothers, Oliver Stone, Paul Verhoeven, George Clooney, Spike Lee, Woody Allen, and several other heavy hitters, had nothing but praise for Cregger and Weapons.
"[Since Zach] comes from comedy, he understands that in order to really scare the s--- out of people on a visceral level, you have to give them pause. You have to redirect them," Brolin said. "There's no better way to do that than humor."
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros.
Josh Brolin and Zach Cregger on the set of 'Weapons'
He continued, "I've rewatched [Cregger's earlier film] Barbarian that I was almost confused by when I saw [it] like, 'Is this funny? Is this bad? Is this scary? Because I'm scared and I'm laughing, but am I supposed to?'"
Most who have seen Weapons agree that this "I'm not sure if I should laugh" element is what sets the movie apart.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
You can check out Brolin's full chat below.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
