“But there are a lot of violent movies made out of simple prurience,” scoffs Jones. “I don’t know why this one can’t be made. It’s about something—it’s about everything. Since then, Cormac and I have become friends.”
Many a literary scholar would envy the friendship, because McCarthy is a notorious recluse who had granted only two interviews in the past 15 years before appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show earlier this year to discuss his recent best-seller, The Road. Spending time with “Cormac” grants one of the rarest cultural credentials around, combining the macho appeal of, say, drinking with Hemingway with the intellectual tang of entering the secretive world of Thomas Pynchon. Jones says that he and McCarthy don’t talk about books but that the author does keep him abreast of his research into arcane matters: “He has figured out what makes a curveball curve.” Brolin also came to know the novelist, after he somehow tracked down his number and called to invite him to the No Country set in New Mexico, an hour’s drive from the Santa Fe Institute, the high-powered scientific research center where McCarthy spends time as the only literary figure in residence. “He wasn’t going to come to the set,” reports Brolin. “The Coens didn’t know him, and they hadn’t talked to him. I called him, and he didn’t call back. And finally, I got a little mad on the phone, and he called me back.”
When they spoke, McCarthy accepted Brolin’s invitation and then enjoyed himself enough to ask to return the next day. “He was just one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met,” says Brolin, who adds that McCarthy professed to being a big fan of the Coens’ movie Miller’s Crossing. “He’s a brilliant, brilliant guy, and very amicable and open.”
