Josh Brolin Says Thanos Has “The Capacity To Love” in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

When it comes to villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there’s no bigger baddie than Josh Brolin‘s Thanos. Although the character was first teased in 2012’s The Avengers, Thanos has been looming in the shadows, waiting for his big debut. Making cameos in Guardians of the Galaxy, along with Avengers: Age of Ultron, he last we’ve technically seen of Thanos was in the first post-credits scene of Thor: Ragnarok, where Thor and Loki’s ship is intercepted by the “mad titan”. Beyond these small teases, we haven’t really learned much about Brolin’s character in the forthcoming Avengers: Infinity War.

It’s been a pretty big deal leading up to Thanos’ introduction into the MCU proper with Infinity War, but suffice to say that expectations for the character are sky-high leading into the film by directors Joe and Anthony Russo. We’ve seen teases of Brolin’s (motion capture) portrayal of the character in the first couple of trailer and images from the film, but much was still unknown about Thanos’ backstory and what actually drives him in the film. Brolin himself has been pretty hush-hush about the whole process–until now.

Speaking in an interview EW, the actor dishes on the machinations that make thanks tick. According to Brolin, taking on the role of Marvel’s biggest bad yet in Avengers: Infinity War has been a unique exploration into the psychology of the so-called mad titan:

[quote]”That’s an interesting question because I’m the least educated person you’ll ever meet when it comes to this stuff. I knew nothing about Thanos. Nothing. And it was great. I got to start from scratch. I bring that up because you go, who is he? Kind of an amalgamation of people, to me. And who specifically? You want to really go out on a limb? Because it’s not okay to actually parallel with people. But he doesn’t divert from his intention at all. Who could be like that? [Laughs]”[/quote]

When asked about people’s first impression of Thanos potentially “looking like a neadrathal” from the trailer, and how they’re hoping to subvert that expectation, the actor responded:

[quote] That’s great. And that’s your perception of it. You see this lughead and this guy who you pigeonhole right from the first cosmetic reaction to him. And what I see is this in this guy’s eyes. This super, super, super intelligence. There’s this constant contrasting thing about this Neanderthalic lughead who’s way more intelligent than anybody else in the movie, by far.[/quote]

Brolin was then asked how Karen Gillan‘s Nebula and Zoe Saldana‘s Gamora factor into Thanos’ character, espousing that “They’re tools to him”. Although his two adopted daughters may merely be tools to them on the surface, it seems that there may be a deeper connection that may see the light of day in the final film:

[quote]”When you see the relationship with Gamora and you see that evolves, God I wish I could tell you. I can’t! When [directors Joe and Anthony Russo] came up to me after we had done maybe three quarters of the film, they said, “It wasn’t necessarily intended that you feel for this guy as much as you do.” Obviously he has a grand plan, like somebody who’s pulling in kids for their own selfish bloodshed. But he has a capacity to love very much and very deeply.”[/quote]

So it seems that there will hopefully be more to the tough exterior of the Avengers: Infinity War villain after all. But that’s not all–it seems that we may actually see at least a few teases of the mad titan’s backstory, saying that

[quote]He’s different from his family. They’re all Titans and they all look similar, but he was born deformed. You see how he grew up, you see he was like the Quasimodo of this time, or if you’ve ever read Perfume [Patrick Süskind ‘s 1985 novel about a serial killer who craves beautiful scenes but is disgusted by the smell of humanity], it’s a great parallel to Thanos. He stuck out. He was an anomaly. He was a freak. And that lent to this apparent insanity.[/quote]

I have to say that I honestly feel satisfied by most of Brolin’s statements here. Even though Brolin seems confident that Thanos will rank amongst the MCU’s best villains to this point, it will be hard to match the brilliance of Eric Killminger (Michael B. Jordan) in Black Panther at this point in the chronology. Considering that this is all that we’re probably going to hear about Thanos until the release of the film on April 27th, Brolin’s comments in the interview seem to point to good things on the way for Avengers: Infinity War.