Josh Brolin reveals the worst audition of his career: “What the fuck did you do in there?”
Not every child star makes it, but Josh Brolin has done incredibly well to shake off his former teen idol status. The son of James might have made his name as a Goonie, but in recent years, he’s appeared in everything from the Coen brothers’ neo-western No Country for Old Men to Oliver Stone’s W. He lent his also voice to The Mad Titan Thanos across the stupidly profitably Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While Brolin could walk into any movie or TV show and demand any part he wanted these days, it’s not always been that easy. Like any actor, he has had to audition, which means he’s felt the pain and embarrassment of an audition gone wrong. In this case, quite badly wrong.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brolin talked about the time he went up for a role in The Fly II. Yes, there’s a Fly II. No, it’s not as good as the first one. “I was living in New York at the time, and I went in there, and [the character is] in a cocoon, transforming into a fly,” recalled the Men in Black 3 star. “You do the voice, and you’re like, [choking sounds], you know, doing your thing. And I ended up on the floor, frothing at the mouth.”
It didn’t take long for Brolin to realise that he probably wasn’t going to get the gig. “I got back to my apartment,” he continued. “And there was already a message on my machine from my agent that said: ‘What the f— did you do in there? You scared them.’ I said, ‘Well, did I get it?’ That was the worst audition I ever did.” Considering that neither David Cronenberg, Jeff Goldblum, nor Geena Davis had anything to do with this sequel, perhaps Brolin was subconsciously throwing the audition because he knew the movie would tank. He was right.
The second-generation performer, who calls Barbara Streisand his stepmother, also spoke of his desire to avoid being typecast. “Fear,” he said, in relation to concerns over becoming stale as an actor. “There’s always fear. You re-create yourself in every movie, don’t you?” This would explain why, in addition to the roles we’ve already discussed, Brolin has also appeared in the remake of Oldboy, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, and political biopic Milk, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Safe to say he’s come a long way since rolling around on the floor of a New York audition room.
Brolin’s confession came as part of a roundtable discussion with five other actors, some of whom also revealed their most disastrous job interviews. “I fell through a stage once,” Forest Whittaker admitted. “I was doing a truly African dance, and all of a sudden, I hit the ground with my foot and went straight through the stage. I guess they didn’t have much money, so the floor was kind of rotting.” While auditioning for the role of a “heavy” in a Lee Tamahori film, Matthew McConaughey apparently “wrecked the room and then left.” According to the Interstellar star, “I didn’t hear back from ’em.” Wonder why…
2025 is set to be a huge year for Brolin, as he is scheduled to appear in Wake Up Dead Man, the next instalment in Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’ series of murder mysteries, and Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man.
