You can forgive Everest star Josh Brolin for being a little in awe of the man he plays in the new film from Baltasar Kormákur (2 Guns). Beck Weathers was part of the tragic expedition to the top of Mt. Everest that was chronicled in the bestselling book Into Thin Air. Several people perished, including seasoned climbers and guides, but somehow Weathers did the impossible.
“He was left for dead twice,” Brolin told The Movie Mensch recently at the Everest press day.
Brolin found it fascinating what drove the man to scale a mountain that had claimed so many. “He was running from this depression. He found that he did something very well. Biologically, he was just set up to climb well and it became a thing for him, whether it was him running from his depression or not.”
Weathers walked into camp after the tragic expedition with severe frost bite to his hands and nose. The time Brolin spent with the man was priceless, and he even asked if he still climbed.
“He said, ‘No, Peach [Weathers’ wife] doesn’t want me to climb anymore,’” Brolin recalled. Figuring that a person that got such relief from depression by such extreme activity couldn’t easily leave that behind, Brolin wondered what he does now to get that same thrill.
“There was a slight pause and he said, ‘I fly jets now.’ The personality sticks, no matter what your situation. His consequence was he lost half of his right arm, he lost his fingers in his left hand and he lost his nose.”
Brolin did figure out why it is that men and women would risk so much to do something that could easily result in their demise.
“It’s an incredibly selfish thing, man, I get it. When you have a family, I’ve always had a family… I graduated high school and then I had kids, so I don’t know what life is like without having a family. I started skydiving when I was 21 and then within the year, I was doing it five to six times a day,” Brolin said.
“I think people climb or do other things for different reasons. With Beck specifically, he talks about a depression he was running from. That was the one thing that he could do that was productive. I can touch the extraordinary and if I feel like I’m one of the exclusives that can touch the extraordinary, that propels me to live further or it gives my life more meaning. I do think it’s a selfish act. But, I think our lives are a selfish act on different levels and then it’s up to you how you want to live it.”
When asked why Brolin made Everest, knowing the extremes he’d be put through by director Kormákur, it was one part wanting to pay tribute to the real life man he portrays, and one part the utmost respect he had for his director.
“What makes it attractive, is when a director from Iceland comes to your door and says, ‘I want to do this in the way that I understand movies can still be done and are not done very often anymore.’ And he took us to the top of the mountain — not Everest — but a shorter mountain with just as much snow. And made it as problematic as possible,” Brolin said.
The shoot was full of extremes, but who would have ever thought that the hardest thing to get through would be on a set in London!
“We went to Nepal for about eight days, nine days, and climbed up to the base camp of Everest, or very close to it. And then once we got to London, instead of snow they started using salt that they were shoveling in front of 100-mile-an-hour fans,” Brolin said.
“We were getting the great exfoliation of our lives. And it was just horrible. At that point, I was like, ‘I don’t ever want to do a movie like this again. I’m going to fire my agent. I’m going to change careers.’ It was horrible.”