Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Sat 17 October 2026 18:15, UK
More than almost any other actor in modern film history, Josh Brolin is proof that the path to Hollywood stardom isn’t always a linear one; that success and fame can come and go in an instant.
He must have thought he was made for life when he starred in Steven Spielberg’s fantasy adventure The Goonies back in 1985, but despite being the son of a famous actor in the shape of The Amityville Horror’s James Brolin, he really spent a considerable amount of time in the wilderness, to the point where he started pursuing a completely different career altogether.
But even before he had made that box office hit, Brolin had gone off the rails, falling in with a bad crowd as a teen, stealing cars to fund drug use and seeing many of his group either die or end up in jail. Acting saved him from that life, but it didn’t go as smoothly as for some.
The year after The Goonies released, Brolin made a film called Thrashin’ about a skateboarder, which he was so ashamed of in terms of his performance that he considered quitting immediately. He ploughed on regardless, though, making the occasional appearances in TV shows like Johnny Depp’s 21 Jump Street, but he wouldn’t make another movie for almost a decade.
When he did, it was with a 1996 film called Bed of Roses, but the same year, he made a movie that ended up having the opposite effect to what he was hoping for, ironically called Flirting With Disaster. An early effort from Silver Linings Playbook’s David O Russell, it was an indie comedy about a young Dad searching New York for his real parents starring Ben Stiller and Patricia Arquette, but being surrounded by hip names didn’t help Brolin out with his character as a bisexual Government agent at all.
He told Print about the experience of making the movie, recalling that the studio Miramax did not want him to do the film and suggested Russell find another actor, feeling he was too much of a ‘jock’. Brolin said: “I think, at that point, what was I? 27, my mom had just passed during the rehearsals of that film. And I just think I was a guy in their minds that should have hit and didn’t. So I was like damaged goods. I was rotting fruit.”
In the end, thanks to a great audition, it was Russell who pushed for Brolin to be cast in the role of Tony in the film, with Brolin explaining, “I kind of improvised through some things, and he really liked me, so he forced me down their throats. And then I ended up being like a Miramax guy after that, and he used me for several roles until I turned down a role, and then I was blacklisted for 10 years.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
While something of an exaggeration, because Brolin did continue to land small roles during that time, things certainly weren’t rosy, and he was actually busy with another career trading on the stock market when he managed to get the lead role in the Coen Brothers’ 2007 masterpiece, No Country for Old Men.
That was the film which finally changed things for Brolin for good; he won an Oscar nomination two years later for Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and hasn’t looked back since, starring in countless box office hits, including his acclaimed work as the universe-ending Thanos in Marvel’s Avengers series.
