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Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n
Sat 17 October 2026 18:15, UK <\/p>\n
More than almost any other actor in modern film history, Josh Brolin<\/a> is proof that the path to Hollywood stardom isn\u2019t always a linear one; that success and fame can come and go in an instant. <\/p>\n He must have thought he was made for life when he starred in Steven Spielberg\u2019s fantasy adventure The Goonies back in 1985,<\/a> but despite being the son of a famous actor in the shape of The Amityville Horror\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n 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\u2019t go as smoothly as for some. <\/p>\n The year after The Goonies released, Brolin made a film called Thrashin\u2019 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\u2019s 21 Jump Street, but he wouldn\u2019t make another movie for almost a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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\u2019t help Brolin out with his character as a bisexual Government agent at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, feeling he was too much of a \u2018jock\u2019. Brolin said: \u201cI 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\u2019t. So I was like damaged goods. I was rotting fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n 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, \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n While something of an exaggeration, because Brolin did continue to land small roles during that time, things certainly weren\u2019t rosy, and he was actually busy with another career trading on the stock market when he managed to get the lead role in\u00a0the Coen Brothers\u2019 2007 masterpiece,\u00a0No Country for Old Men<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n That was the film which finally changed things for Brolin for good; he won an Oscar nomination two years later for Gus Van Sant\u2019s Milk, and hasn\u2019t looked back since, starring in countless box office hits, including his acclaimed work as the universe-ending Thanos in Marvel\u2019s Avengers series. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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