At a panel on progressive media (and specifically Chris Moore’s film based on Howard Zinn’s A Peoples History of the United States, Josh Brolin commented on his arrest earlier this summer at a bar near the set of W, in which he plays the title role.

“I was arrested, and it was basically because I was standing up for someone, speaking out on something I thought was wrong. And what happens when you speak out? You go to jail.”

Brolin also discussed his new-found empathy for Neo-cons, born from his experience playing Bush. “This movie I just did, I was forced to study the other side. That was the greatest education I could have got, in humanity, what we [liberals] think of as anathema. It became a people thing. The obstacles are greed, fear–pretty basic stuff.”

So does this mean that W won’t be the Bush mock fest that its leaked script and trailer led us to believe? It’s still too soon to say, but at least the actor playing the president says he was able to pinpoint what makes the younger Bush sympathetic. “Reagan, Clinton––they were untouchable, the elite,” said Brolin. “Bush was the touchable guy, the fallible guy. I started to understand what people saw in him. [When people say] ‘Bush is an idiot’ –– well, that’s just irresponsible. He’s the president of the United States!”

As for his involvement in History, Brolin admitted that he first discovered the book through a speech in which it’s referenced in Good Will Hunting, which Moore produced. “I had a very strange obsession with Matt Damon,” Brolin joked.