Josh Brolin has proven himself to be a prolific actor. He played Thanos in the MCU, was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Dan White in Milk, and was recently cast in a villainous role in Edgar Wright’s The Running Man. But before his accomplished career, Brolin gained early fame in The Goonies.
Though now known for his adult roles, we can’t forget when Josh Brolin was a teen actor in The Goonies. He portrayed Sean Astin‘s older brother, Brand, who helps find treasure to save their home. Talking about the role on a recent episode of SiriusXM’s Literally! With Rob Lowe (via THR), Brolin remembered what it was like filming as the son of actor James Brolin.
“I think Goonies was quite an accident,” Brolin said. “I went in there, I’ve been told, they pulled the Brolin thing, ‘Are you [James] Brolin’s kid? You want to be an actor, huh?’ So instead of that nepotistic thing, they looked at me and were like, ‘Oh yeah? So act.'”
He said he spent “90%” of his time preparing by reading about theater techniques from Stanislavski, Grotowski, and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. Despite studying, the Dune actor shared why he thinks director Richard Donner and story creator Steven Spielberg ultimately cast him:
“I just looked right for the part. You look at Sean Astin, you look at the type of movie it is, I looked like a bit of a bad boy, but sort of a jock, and I was in good shape, so they were like, that’s the guy. I went back six times, just so they could make sure, and then I did it.”
How did Josh Brolin try to prove himself as an actor to Steven Spielberg?
Brolin didn’t let all of his research escape him for The Goonies. He recalled talking to Spielberg about some big ideas he had for a particular scene:
“I came to Steven at some point, we were in one of the tunnels, and I said, ‘Hey, Steven, can I talk to you for a second,'” he recalled. “I said, ‘Hey, don’t you think that the tunnels kind of represent my mother’s womb? And what if we film me climbing up the tunnel, but really I’m trying to cut that emotional umbilical cord of my mother, and I could have tears coming down my face?’”
Despite Josh Brolin’s excitement to share his deep insights for The Goonies, Spielberg had his own advice: “And then he looked at me and he said, ‘Why don’t you just act? Just say the words on the page, you’ll be fine.’ And I could have been like, ‘Dick!’ But I didn’t, I was like, ‘Oh, totally. I got it.'”
Josh Brolin’s attempt at creative control may not have worked out for The Goonies, but back in 2020, Indiewire reported how the American actor mastered Thanos by channeling Marlon Brando‘s performance in Apocalypse Now: “I mentioned Brando in ‘Apocalypse Now,’ this guy who is very elusive and insane but what he is saying makes sense and is poetical. I started seeing the parallel which I liked for me.”
