Josh Brolin has already given Mark Ruffalo credit for convincing him to take the role of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, but it turns out there is another actor that deserves a slice of credit– at least indirectly. When he was looking into playing Thanos and the motion capture that would be involved, Brolin tells Entertainment Weekly that he stumbled upon a video of Sherlock and Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch:
In researching the character, Brolin stumbled upon a behind-the-scenes YouTube video of Benedict Cumberbatch acting out scenes as the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit.
“He was in this [motion capture], and he’s crawling around like a snake, snapping his tongue out doing this incredible performance,” Brolin tells Cagle. “I saw that and was like, all right, that’s the bar. This is not like bulls—t. This is something you…have to sink your teeth into conviction, embarrassment, and all this kind of stuff.
If you haven’t seen the clip in question, it is convincing:
It’s a little different from the final product, but you can’t deny the work that went into Smaug in the second Hobbit movie. We’ve also gotten a look behind the scenes at what Brolin went through while filming Avengers: Infinity War.
You can see more in the preview clip for EW’s spotlight show with Broling on Sirius XM. He also has an interesting profile in the New York Times you can read here.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)