Josh Brolin has a bone to pick with the universe — or at least with whatever he's heard about Dune: Part 3. In a new interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub, the actor opened up about his upcoming survival thriller Whalefall, his bond with author Daniel Kraus, and the surprising reason he's "super angry" about the next chapter of Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi saga.
Brolin, who played Gurney Halleck in the first two Dune films, didn't hold back when the conversation turned to Arrakis. "I believed I was the lead," he joked, explaining that what he's heard about Dune: Part 3 has left him feeling less than thrilled. The comment was playful, but it hints at the shifting focus of the franchise as it moves deeper into Frank Herbert's novels.
Whalefall: A Father-Son Story Inside a Whale
Before Dune drama, Brolin is busy promoting Whalefall, Brian Duffield's adaptation of Daniel Kraus's 2023 novel. The film stars Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner, a young scuba diver who is swallowed alive by a sperm whale. Brolin plays Mitt Gardiner, Jay's father, who appears in the story through memories and flashbacks. The movie's first footage debuted at CinemaCon earlier this year, quickly landing on must-watch lists for 2026.
When asked to choose between being stranded inside a sperm whale for an hour or spending 24 hours on Arrakis, Kraus picked Dune without hesitation. "There's people to talk to," he reasoned. Brolin, ever the adventurer, went the other way. "I'll say whale," he said, citing his love of extreme challenges like climbing Everest. "That's why I choose movies with massive challenges."
The actor also explained how Jay's perspective shaped his performance. "You get a softer version of Mitt than what you get used to in the beginning," Brolin said, noting that the Mitt we see in the whale is the one his son remembers — or perhaps prefers. Kraus added that seeing Mitt embodied by Brolin was cathartic, transforming an "unwieldy, ungraspable force" into a flawed, human-sized man.
A Bond Forged in Ink
The collaboration between Brolin and Kraus went beyond the page. The two met outside a makeup trailer, bonded over their matching "hold fast" knuckle tattoos, and quickly became close. Brolin even called Kraus to ask for personal details about his relationship with his own father, which informed his performance. "What he told me was incredibly informative in how I played the role," Brolin said.
Kraus, meanwhile, revealed that the film has inspired his own writing, and he has another adaptation in the works: Angel Down, based on his World War I novel. But the biggest surprise came from Brolin himself, who announced that Whalefall directly inspired his next project.
The Fisherman: A New Movie Born from Whalefall
"We're going to do a movie in January that was inspired by me doing this," Brolin said. That film is The Fisherman, a story he and his team sold to Miramax. "It's purely based on being inspired by this experience," he explained. No director is attached yet, but the project is moving forward quickly.
For Brolin, the role allowed him to live a life he might have had if he hadn't become an actor. "Selfishly, in a big way, it allowed me to kind of live a life, at least for a few months, that I would have lived had I not become an actor," he said. That personal connection clearly resonated, and now it's spawning an entirely new film.
Fans can catch Brolin in Whalefall when it hits theaters in 2026. For more on the film, check out our first look at the father-son crisis and our review of Austin Abrams' deep dive.
