Weapons | Meet The Cast: Josh Brolin & Julia Garner | Behind the Scenes | Warner Bros. Entertainment

Weapons is eventful. Weapons is fresh and hell, even a little funny. Oh my god, whoops. Look what I did, oh my goodness. It's uh, strange. It's not like anything you've seen. And it's, it's very human. Probably kids did this if you ask me. I mean. I don't think it was the kids. Weapons, you know, originally it was just the story of Justine. But as I was writing, I just wanted it to feel big and sprawling. So I knew I had to just jump around and rope more people into the mystery. Magnolia is one of my favorite movies. There's a chapter in Magnolia where John C. Reilly loses his gun in the rain. I was like, that has to be somehow part of this. I need a cop, and I need it to be raining. And I need it to just be bigger than Justine. You're part of an ensemble in a movie that's the star. The truth is, is that I want an answer just as bad as all of you. I love those kids. Justine is dealing with a lot of unprocessed grief and emotion of her own. And I think her life has settled into a really unhealthy rhythm, where her only healthy outlet for love is with the kids in her class. If you ever want to talk to someone, you can always talk to me. The kids ground her in a way, and they give her purpose. So as soon as she loses that, she feels directionless, and she has no purpose. Julia is perfect for this part. You know, I didn't go to her initially because I thought she was too young. But I just decided to let go of the age thing. And I'm so glad I did, because now I can't imagine anybody else in this part. She just, like, is Justine. When my cinematographer and I were talking about how to film each chapter, you know, we discussed that Justine is a prey animal, and Archer is a predator. And prey animals have their eyes wide set. Justine is always scanning the surrounding for threat. And Archer, you know, predators have their eyes front-facing. I see something that I don't understand at all. Archer represents the everyman, the current everyman. I want to hear from Justine Gandy. Somebody who lives in resentment. So whether he's right or he's wrong, however he deals with any situation is usually the worst way. So he's following Justine, who rides witch on her car. This ******* 50-year-old adolescent little bitch. And that's okay. Because you need that. Archer represents that morning you wake up, and you go, what the **** is the matter with humanity? There's moments where you see there's a form of humility that starts to creep in. When he thinks he sees his son in the bed, he kind of breaks down and he says, I'll be a better father. I really do want to say it all the time, because I feel it all the time. Those are little moments of hope. And that makes him a good guy. I can get down on my knees and thank God every night that I have Josh Brolin in this movie. Every time he steps on the screen, I'm like, holy ****. Josh Brolin saying the dialogue, he's killing it. I know all of this comes from the fact that you care. But you have to realize you aren't a parent, you're a teacher. It's a part that I haven't really played before with Marcus. He's the principal of the school, and he's there to hold things down. And he's very much by the book. I mean, what does happen when 17 kids disappear? All eyes are on you. All eyes are on the school. OK, now that kind of thing is really not causal. And the relationship with him and Julia, he likes her, he cares about her. But, you know, she's a bit all over the show. Then when Gladys takes control, it's like, boom, he becomes one of her weapons. I love Benny. He's just like this gentle giant. He's just got the biggest heart in the world. He's incredibly talented. And I love the duality he brings to this. You know, this really gentle, kind of disarming man who becomes a savage juggernaut, who headbutts people's heads into mush. It's great. He's just, he's a blessing. Julia. Alex, hi. I've been thinking about you a lot, and I wanted to make sure you're OK. I'm OK. Alex is an innocent who's convinced he's not an innocent. I'm very fascinated with characters like that who believe the worst about themselves, because I think I'm guilty of that a lot. Alex believes that he's at fault for what happened in this town, because Gladys has kind of roped him into her plan. Come sit. Ultimately, he is the fundamental catalyst for her undoing, which I also thought was really nice. Hey, good day at school? Yeah. Alex seems to have a great relationship with his parents, and he probably has friends, but he doesn't seem like outgoing. He seems kind of shy, but I can tell he's very caring, because he, like, wipes people's chin and stuff like that later in the movie. And that's his bully, too. So I'm like, wow, he's very nice. One, back, and then two, back. That's stage one. Here's what I love about Carey as an actor, is that he's super sharp. Call action, he is just in the zone. He looks great. He looks terrified. He looks somber. He's whatever I need. And then you call cut. And he's like a goofball nine-year-old kid bouncing off the walls. It's weird. He just clicks right in. Thank you so much. My name is Gladys. It's so nice to meet you. I did not know about Gladys when I started writing this movie. I think I was probably in the shower or something, and I was like, maybe it kind of snapped. Is that my ribbon? The conventional idea of a witch. I thought a fun take on that would be a brightly colored woman from Miami. Detective, come in! What a beautiful representation of an evil person than this just comfortable chipper auntie. There is some conversation about her history and the thought that she's done this before. You know, maybe she came from Boca Raton and she had been doing this to some of her friends. So Gladys's clothes, Zach refers to her as a bit of like she's a peacock. I kind of stayed true with that, like she has an array of colors and she kind of has these ensembles just matching things together and then something's just not right. Gladys was always a predator and we sort of narrowed down her iris, put more whites in her eyes. That gave her much more of a bird-like look and then we gave her these teeth that sort of dropped the gums down and made small little sort of beady baby teeth. Who made the complaint? One of the things that we also did that we talked about was Gladys has many stages and when we first see her, she's in a sickened weakened state. And you see as we begin to degrade when she's in the bald cap, you see the stringy hair and you see her skin and all her imperfections. And not until she starts doing these spells and sort of sucking the energy of people does she actually start to become the Gladys that we know and love. Tomorrow people will come here and we have to be ready. This caliber of acting coming to a genre like this is not something that's very typical and what it reminds me of is the real horror is the experience that these people are going through. I'm so proud to be in the middle of it and let all of these people fly is just the greatest thing. It's the greatest thing. I love it.