When the Yarnell Hill Fire happened, a lot of the firefighters I knew went to the funeral.”īrolin had basic firefighting training, but he and the rest of the cast members had to undergo an intense boot camp to approximate what the Hotshots had to endure. “I preferred spending time with firefighters than with actors, so I spent three years in Tucson, and it meant a lot to me.

I was a volunteer firefighter at age 21, and even though I was working as an actor at the time, I never told the producers,” Brolin explains. “I knew about the Yarnell Hill Fire when it happened because I grew up in a firefighting community. The story is a personal one for Brolin, who plays Eric Marsh, the leader of the Granite Mountain Gotshots during the blaze, for despite his long career as an actor, Brolin himself was a volunteer firefighter in his youth. The story of these men has been brought to the screen in Only the Brave, starring Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly and Jeff Bridges.

In 2013, 19 of the 20 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed during the Yarnell Hill Fire that the team of firefighters was sent to contain in the Arizona mountains.

Only the brave cast jeff bridges