Over the last three months I somehow got turned around on Josh Brolin and George Clooney‘s roles in the currently-shooting Coen Bros. film Hail Caesar!, which is basically the fourth movie in their Numbskull Quartet with Clooney, following O Brother Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading. Last June I said I didn’t know who was playing who but more recently a vision of Clooney playing a big-studio manager-fixer named Eddie Mannix took hold along with Brolin as a none-too-bright movie star named Baird Whitlock. Wrong. Brolin has the Mannix role, which is the lead, and Clooney is Whitlock, a supporting part amidst a family large ensemble.
Brolin as Eddie Mannix, based on the real-life MGM vp who oversaw the day-to-day and put out fires. Brolin’s Mannix performs the same function for the fictitious Capitol Pictures.
