The star Josh Brolin called everybody’s favourite actor: “He was the most talented of all of us”
Josh Brolin has been in the movie business since day one. As the son of famous actor James Brolin (he can also call Barbara Streisand his stepmother), Josh was thrust into stardom from a very young age. After finding early success with The Goonies, Brolin returned to the spotlight in later life, thanks to movies like No Country for Old Men, Milk, the True Grit remake. Recently, he cemented his superstar status by providing the voice of Thanos in the MCU.
Owing to his long and varied career, plus his esteemed bloodline, Brolin has rubbed shoulders with the great and the good of the acting world. Choosing a favourite fellow thespian from his eclectic list of friends sounds like an impossible task, but that’s exactly what he did in his 2024 memoir, From Under the Truck.
The Dune star singled out the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as one of the all-time greats. “He was at the helm, man,” he wrote (via Variety). “He was it. He was the most talented of all of us and lived his sobriety as a badge of honor. It meant a lot to him.” He was referencing the troubled actor’s battle with substances, which he had a handle on until a relapse in 2012. Hoffman ultimately passed away in 2014 from an overdose.
“I said, ‘If you want to talk about any of this shit ever, let me know,’” Brolin said of an encounter he had with Hoffman following his relapse. “And he was dead a month and a half or two months later. It was horrible. This was a guy who became all of our favorite actor.” This was in stark contrast to another incident Brolin wrote about, which took place during Hoffman’s sober period. “There is sweat all over my bare chest,” Brolin recalled. “I look back at the subway stairwell, but he’s [Hoffman] already gone. I know he’s sober. I’m not anymore. He knows that too. I could tell by the way he looked at me as someone who just didn’t get it.”
Brolin and Hoffman never worked together on a project, but the former had met the latter’s mother whilst they were both in plays together. They had been discussing staging a version of Kenneth Lonergan’s Hold On to Me Darling with Brolin starring and Hoffman directing, but the Capote actor passed away before they could make this plan a reality.
Like Hoffman, Brolin had his own battles with drink and drugs. In the book, he recalled the turning point in his life; when he turned up to visit his dying grandmother having been drinking heavily the night before. “I had a moment where she smiled at me, and I thought, ‘How dare I?’” he remembered. “It made me realize that I had everything at my beck and call, and yet I’m destroying it. And that was it. I like the clarity that comes with sobriety. Maybe it’s an affectation, but I like the rebellion of saying, ‘OK, I lived 45 years of that life. Now, I’m going to live another 45 years without drinking.’”
“I don’t have survivor guilt,” the actor said of his many friends who lost their lives to substance abuse. “But I do feel a sense of responsibility to live my life to the fullest… I chose to drink, and I did some horrible things after making that choice. I was willing to endure those horrible things in order to have an identity. Because without alcohol, I didn’t feel like I was a full person.”
