Comic-Con: Megan Fox, Josh Brolin get serious for 'Jonah Hex'

Josh Brolin and Megan Fox

Credit: Katie Hasty

Principal actors Megan Fox and Josh Brolin of the forthcoming comic book film "Jonah Hex" took time out at Comic-Con in San Diego today (July 24) to discuss their roles in the movie - even though those are hard to define.

"My character is a hybrid of a lot of different people. This is one of those movies that I've started, before the day was shot, and I still didn't really know what I was gonna do -- the voice, what's going to work. So it developed as we started shooting," Brolin says. "Luckily I didn't have a lot of dialogue."

"We approach 'Jonah Hex' by everyone else's version of who Jonah Hex is," says Jimmy Hayward, who won the shot at directing the film after producer Andrew Lazar held onto the option to the story for 15 years. "At the beginning of the film we bring up the [comic book writer] John Albano quote 'He's a hero to some, a villain to most, but wherever he goes, they speak his name in whispers.'"

"I'm Jonah's love interest, but it's not very conventional," Fox says of her role as Leila. "She's a prostitute that he's been coming to for years. They have a special relationship -- he doesn't want to get to close to her because everyone that he loves dies and she doesn't really understand that concept."

"There's love in the air," Brolin replied cheekily.

For Brolin, who underwent plenty of changes to his personal appearance for Oliver Stone's "W," the transition to a disfigured bountyhunter in the 1800s was even more extreme.

"[Makeup] was a horror story in itself. I was in three hours of make-up per day. With 46 shooting days, I had spent five and a half days in the makeup chair. It was a piece of tape on my cheek, a piece of tape behind my ear and we'd fasten that to the back of my neck, then I had a prosthetic over that, then I had a mouth piece that held my mouth as far back as it would go, and then another prosthetic over that and then we painted it all," Brolin says. "Then the eye thing... Jonah Hex is a comic book, it's drawn. In reality, if Jonah Hex had an eye like that, it would be a little raisin in the back of his brain."

When asked if this was her most serious role, Fox explained that "having to try and to keep my head above water was really really difficult. It was only five days that I filmed and I've never been so exhausted at the end of filming something. I shot 108 days on 'Transformers' and this was a lot more difficult." As for performing a period piece in costume, she said it was "a lot of fun. The corset obviously changes the way you walk and your breathing patterns, things like that. I enjoyed that. I wanted that cinched as tightly as possible."

Mostly silent during the press conference was supporting actor Michael Fassbender, who will also soon be seen performing in "Inglorious Basterds." The cast spoke nothing short of a mash note when it came to describing his performance as Burke, who works alongside of John Malkovich as Turnbull.

"Nobody knows Michael yet. It's hilarious because we know. And we know what you don't know yet. It's not about résumé per se, but its about what he did with the role. You see it in the teaser... everybody reacts to [his] great character moment," Brolin raves.

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

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After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.