Josh Brolin in slugging match with Bush fans

A possible answer has emerged as to why two leading actors in Oliver Stone's new George Bush biopic W - Josh Brolin (pictured as a young Bush with director Stone) who plays the President, and Jeffrey Wright who portrays his Secretary of State, Colin Powell – got embroiled in a bar-room brawl late on Saturday night. As a result, Brolin, who starred in American Gangster and No Country for Old Men, was taken into custody and only released after posting bail of $334.

It seems they were defending the reputation of their director. Local reports from Shreveport, Louisiana, where scenes for W are being shot on location, suggest that a group of Bush-supporting ‘good ol’ boys’ got wind of the fact that Brolin, Wright and crew members from the film were in the Stray Cat bar on Travis Street, and decided to bait them about Stone, his politics and the reported anti-Bush tone of W. Brolin apparently gave the locals a piece of his mind, and one thing led to another.

One W crew member reports that Wright – who played Felix Leiter in the last Bond movie - tried to play peacemaker, but that changed "after a racial slur was yelled" and he got "into it as well". The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that both actors refused to obey the bar’s request to leave, when it was well past closing time.

Brolin is known in Hollywood for his short fuse. He was arrested in 2004 after police were called to his home after a fracas with his wife, the actress Diana Lane. A charge of ‘spousal battery’ was later dropped, with the couple saying they were "embarrassed the matter went this far".