Most people associate Josh Brolin’s Thanos with the public grief he caused when he snapped away half of mankind in Avengers: Infinity War. He fought the Avengers in a number of grandstanding epic confrontations, and he will forever be remembered as the villain who caused the worst Marvel demises. Even still, it’s difficult to not adore the presence of the franchise’s most notorious villain.
The bloodthirsty Mad Titan was made into a more interesting character by Brolin, who gave the role dimension. Although Brolin is difficult to distinguish under all of that purple, it is unmistakably him: intense, emotive, and incredibly terrifying.
In a recent interview with ACE Universe, Brolin discussed his passion in playing a villain and how Marvel persuaded him to accept the part. Added Brolin
It wasn’t for a huge, massive part in two final films of a 10-year span; it was meant more as a cameo, so it was never the size of the role that was like “oh I want to do that because it’s going to push me further up into that fame or stardom or whatever.” Instead, it was like “what’s the role?” “The role is not one of the Avengers; it’s the nemesis to all the Avengers,” they told me when I said
After hearing that pitch, Brolin was eager to join the team. If the choice is between being loved and feared, Brolin strongly prefers terror. Though he first appeared in a brief cameo that perplexed inexperienced Marvel fans and excited readers of comic books, Thanos quickly developed into the scary antagonist at the end of the line. Everything eventually came down to fighting Thanos and dealing with his terrible plot. You may say that he was inescapable.
Good Guy Thanos
The most recent What If…? episode to feature Thanos was the second one.
Moreover, he was very different from what we remembered. The giant was still towering, purple, and still very much committed to murderous acts, but strangely… nice. It seemed as if a genuinely good man with a strong good heart had given him some really good advice.
But in all honesty, Thanos’ self-confidence has always been his best quality. The homicidal warlord believes that his plan to exterminate half of the universe’s population is in the best interests of everyone and that he is the good guy. Brolin exploited this quality to amazing effect, giving a character depth who would have been written off as just another one-note monster. Brolin loved how much more there was to the character, especially because Thanos was so strong that the Avengers had to work together to defeat him:
“I turned down quite a few of those offers, and again, people were like, ‘Money!’ When I said yes to Avengers, it was a small thing; it was basically a cameo, so there was not a lot of money involved… But when they came to me, they gave me a big bible. I loved that it was all [of them], because if it had just been one of the Avengers, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But the fact that it was all the
