"Brennan made everything he did look easy, but occasionally he revealed how much labor went into his roles. In Red River, for example, he walks with a slight stoop after the film flashes forward fifteen years. On the set, a United Press reporter watched the actor ease his apparently weary body into a chair, ordering a meal in a "semi-senile voice," and commenting, "If you knew what a job it is to assume an aged character like this, you would understand why I don't dare step out of it during the day. If I stepped out of character during the lunch hour, I would have a heck of a time getting back into it during the first few scenes after lunch. Why, I've never played myself in a film."