The director reunited with the actor for ‘The Dog Stars,’ and he tells PEOPLE Brolin brings a different energy to his role, even though he’s still playing tough

NEED TO KNOW

• Josh Brolin reunited with Ridley Scott nearly 20 years after starring in 2007’s American Gangster
• Brolin plays a hardened survivalist in Scott’s The Dog Stars, appearing alongside Jacob Elordi in a post-apocalyptic setting
• Ridley Scott tells PEOPLE Brolin has evolved as an actor since their 2007 collaboration and praises his intelligence and creativity on set

Ridley Scott and Josh Brolin have changed a little since they first worked together.

Nearly two decades after Brolin, 58, played corrupt NYPD detective Nick Trupo in Scott’s American Gangster, the actor is reuniting with the director for The Dog Stars. This time, Brolin plays Bangley, a former Marine who has built an isolated life with pilot Hig (Jacob Elordi) in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic.

According to Scott, the actor himself has evolved in the years since they first crossed paths.

“No, he’d actually softened a bit. I mean, in a good way,” Scott tells PEOPLE.

Brolin hasn’t exactly lost his edge, though. In The Dog Stars, the Avengers actor plays a hardened survivalist who knows how to protect himself — and isn’t afraid to make the tough calls when danger comes knocking.

Scott says Brolin and Elordi, 29, quickly found the right rhythm for Bangley and Hig, who are essentially an odd couple thrown together by circumstance. The men rely on each other, but they don’t exactly agree on how to survive.

“Bangley and Hig, to me, were The Odd Couple. There’s two guys thrown together by the situation, and they’re not well-suited at all. They constantly bicker and argue,” Scott says. “So right there, I started to see there was humor in the situation. I always try to find humor and bring it out because people always want humor if you can, even within a drama.”

For Scott, that friction became an important part of the movie. Bangley and Hig may be relying on each other to survive, but they don’t necessarily agree on what survival should look like.

Their differences are especially apparent when Hig wants to find another way forward, while Bangley is more willing to assume the worst. As Scott sees it, that tension gives the film some levity amid its darker post-apocalyptic setting — and gives Brolin a chance to play a character who is intimidating without being one-note.

The actor has built a particularly varied résumé since breaking out as Brand Walsh in 1985’s The Goonies. He went on to take on everything from dramatic roles in films including No Country for Old Men to starring in comic-book blockbusters like Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Endgame, in which he played the villainous Thanos. He also earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role as Dan White in Milk.

Brolin’s other notable credits include Sicario, True Grit, Inherent Vice and the Dune franchise, in which he plays warrior and weapons master Gurney Halleck.

Scott’s first impression of Brolin, however, dates back to American Gangster. In the 2007 crime drama, Brolin played a corrupt detective caught up in the drug trade surrounding Harlem kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington). The film follows Lucas as he builds a heroin empire in 1970s New York while detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) works to bring him down.

At the time, Scott says, he knew Brolin’s work but didn’t know the actor particularly well.

“In American Gangster, I didn’t really know him. I mean, I knew his work,” Scott admits.

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More than 20 years later, Scott sees more than just the tough-guy qualities that Brolin has brought to some of his most memorable roles.

“He’s a tough guy,” Scott says. “But he’s also very smart and actually a very good literary person. He’s a good writer.”

Brolin’s own experience making The Dog Stars initially involved a bit of a learning curve, too. The actor previously revealed that he nearly quit the movie after just one day of shooting because Scott’s filmmaking process caught him off guard.

“Ridley was talking a lot of stories and not really rehearsing,” Brolin previously told Empire. “It bugged me out, and I got really scared. I went back, called my agent and said, ‘I want out. Something’s really wrong, and I’ve got to get the f— out of here.’ ”

But Brolin ultimately stuck around, and the unusual approach began to click.

After Scott showed him footage from a scene he had just shot with Elordi, Brolin said he began to understand what the director was doing. He eventually described the experience as “stratospherically creative and stratospherically dangerous,” adding that The Dog Stars “became one of the more creative, satisfying projects that I’ve ever been involved with.”

The Dog Stars is currently playing in theaters.

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