By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer Tue Oct 14, 7:41 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - Once Josh Brolin institute a firm maker of income correct Hollywood, his performing occupation took off.

Brolin spent nearly digit decades toiling in mostly unmemorable roles until he oversubscribed his kinsfolk farm and became an astir hit and real-estate investor, the income freeing him from attractive some older performing job.

A abash of high-profile parts followed in films by parliamentarian Rodriguez, Apostle Haggis and Ridley Scott, culminating in a star-making invoke in the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” and today the denomination persona as martyr W. Dubya in jazzman Stone’s “W.”

“I was making my money added ways, so I could feature ‘No,’ and the instance I started doing that, within sextet months, erst I created a hole, it started to be filled with dumbfounding opportunities,” Brolin said in an interview. “I mean, rattling dumbfounding opportunities.”

The son of person saint Brolin, who co-starred on TV’s “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” Brolin had begun his occupation with a high-profile persona as Brand Walsh in 1985’s state comedy “The Goonies.”

In the 1990s, he co-starred in the Western TV program “The Young Riders” but institute himself mostly cragfast in character-actor mode, sometimes employed with filmmakers for whom he had lowercase respect.

The terminal some eld hit denaturized that. Brolin landed a persona in Woody Allen’s “Melinda and Melinda,” along with a pretentious conception in the TV miniseries “Into the West.”

Rodriguez patch Brolin in “Planet Terror,” conception of the “Grindhouse” double-feature he prefabricated with Quentin Tarantino.

In start 2007, Brolin had pick activity roles in Haggis’ war-on-terror episode “In the Valley of Elah” and Scott’s evildoing tale “American Gangster.” Then he marked oppositeness Tommy Lee designer and Javier Bardem in “No Country,” activity a wily dweller on the separate with a phenomenon in take money in the Academy Award best-picture winner.

Barely a period after “W.,” which opens Friday, Brolin co-stars with Sean Quaker in “Milk,” activity Dan White, the San Francisco municipality programme who effort and killed merry semipolitical originator doc Milk, along with the city’s mayor.

“Milk” adds added director, Gus Van Sant, to Brolin’s past itemize of top-name collaborators.

“I’m so grateful. You hit no idea. Because they’re easy. They’re not arduous directors,” the 40-year-old Brolin said. “It’s the added guys who are difficult. The egos and the noesis struggles, every that. Then you wager the ended creation and you go, `You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“And with these guys, awful directors from Woody comedienne to the Coens to Oliver, they’re every in it for the aforementioned reason. They fuck storytelling. Now I poverty to go discover and encounter the poorest administrator I can, so I crapper be in calculate and dictate this flooded uprise and fall,” Brolin joked.

Brolin initially overturned downbound the Dubya role, figuring anyone who wants to intend a pane of the chair could meet invoke on CNN.

The person said he potentially had more to retrograde than he strength acquire by starring in a dicey flick such as “W.,” with every its expectations and preconceptions.

“I said at the time, ground do you requirement to wager a flick most this guy, and ground am I feat to endeavor the functionary chair when things are feat pretty substantially for me, and I hit choices?” Brolin said.

In the end, Brolin was worn to the risk, though “No Country for Old Men” had unsealed up more advertizement prospects for him.

“He could hit finished a big-budget movie, gotten paying a aggregation of bucks after that. He was rattling such in obligation and ease is,” Stone said. “He chose this flick for nothing, and it’s a hard role, because that’s his nature, to be challenged by the material. I hit to provide the Negro flooded credit. He has the possibleness correct now, at his age, at 40, because he’s been up and down, to rattling embellish a mainstream dweller star.”

Co-star Richard Dreyfuss, who plays Vice President Dick Cheney in “W.,” figures Brolin already has arrived at that grapheme plateau.

“There’s a instance in `Lust for Life’ when suffragist Quinn is prototypal seen. His backwards is to the audience, and the instance he starts to speak, you say, `Star. Academy Award,’” Dreyfuss said a period after the prototypal bounteous tone display of “W.”

“Last night,” he continued, “you saw Josh embellish a star.”

Given Bush’s verbal missteps over the years, Brolin could hit fallen into the hole of activity him aforementioned a “Saturday Night Live” caricature, said saint Cromwell, who plays the president’s father. But Brolin delivers a action that presents Dubya as a full-blooded character, general said.

“It’s a instrument to the calibre of the person not to attain the cushy pick and not to conceal behindhand that,” general said.

Brolin said he drew on similarities between his possess scenery and Bush’s to support intend at the character.

Both are sons of famous men who followed their dads into the aforementioned profession. Brolin’s upbringing on the kinsfolk farm in Paso Robles, Calif., also gave him insights into Bush’s Texas background, he said.

“I speech most Paso Robles every the instance because it brings me to a locate that makes me comfortable. I meet sound in there somehow,” Brolin said.

“He does the aforementioned abstract in a bigger, a such large way. Dubya proven to alter Midland, Texas, with him to the Middle East and desired to do essentially what President had finished during the Cold War. `I module alter Midland, Texas, to the Middle East and everyone module approval me.’ Without attractive into statement having some attitude for the heterogeneity of this world. It’s aforementioned what he says in the film. `Any category of government’s dustlike with me as daylong as it’s democracy.’”

“W.” hits theaters inferior than threesome weeks before the statesmanly election, but Brolin doubts it module impact how anyone votes.

He does wish the flick strength enliven more grouping to at small study voting.

“We requirement to intend discover there and create what we poverty to create,” Brolin said. “It’s our responsibility. You crapper set there and saucer at the brass forever from your seat, from your couch, finished your TV, or you crapper intend up and actually do something most it.

“The Europeans, as such as they crapper be annoying, they hit an dumbfounding passion. They are involved. We’re rattling participating in sports, statistics, winning, losing, but when it comes to politics, when grouping don’t vote, I don’t understand.”