Josh Brolin

Josh Brolin (born February 12, 1968, Santa Monica, California, U.S.) is an American actor who made his film debut in the cult classic The Goonies (1985) and later appeared in such acclaimed movies as No Country for Old Men (2007) and Milk (2008).

Early life

Brolin is the eldest of two sons born to Jane Cameron Agee, a casting director and wildlife activist, and James Brolin, an actor. He grew up on a horse ranch in the Templeton, California, area. In the early 1980s, he moved to Santa Barbara and attended high school there. A rebellious teenager, he stole car radios and began drinking and doing drugs. His parents divorced in 1984, and his mother died in a car accident in 1995. Three years later James Brolin married singer and actress Barbra Streisand.

Acting career: The Goonies and The Young Riders

Josh Brolin initially had no interest in acting. However, that changed when he took an improv class in high school and enjoyed it. He was soon auditioning, and his first professional acting role was the elder brother Brand in The Goonies (1985), which was directed by Richard Donner and produced by Steven Spielberg. The family-oriented film tells the story of two brothers and a group of their misfit friends who try to find a long-lost treasure in the hopes of preventing a greedy land developer from demolishing their neighborhood. The film was a box-office success and became an enduring cult classic.

Brolin’s follow-up movie was Thrashin’ (1986), a romantic drama in which he played a skateboard gang leader who falls in love with the rival gang leader’s sister. Unhappy with his performance, Brolin focused on television for the next few years. In 1986 he landed his first TV role, appearing in Highway to Heaven. He then auditioned for the starring role on 21 Jump Street but lost the part to Johnny Depp. Brolin later landed a prominent role in the 1950s crime drama Private Eye (1987–88), but the show was canceled after one season. He next played Wild Bill Hickok in The Young Riders (1989–92), about a group of riders with the Pony Express.

In the mid-1990s, Brolin returned to the big screen, appearing in a series of high-profile films, though A-list status continued to elude him. He portrayed a bisexual federal agent in David O. Russell’s comedy Flirting with Disaster (1996), a wiseacre lab rat in Guillermo del Toro’s sci-fi thriller Mimic (1997), and the friend of a morgue security guard (played by Ewan McGregor) in the horror-drama Nightwatch (1997). He later starred opposite Kevin Bacon in Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi horror film Hollow Man (2000), about a group of scientists who test an invisibility formula on a colleague. Also in 2000 Brolin made his Broadway debut, appearing in a production of Sam Shepard’s True West.

Frustrated with his film options and needing to bring in more money, Brolin began trading stocks full time in 2002 and continued for about three years. He later claimed that he earned more money from trading than he did from acting. The income gave him the flexibility to pick and choose movie roles. His most notable credit during this period was a small part in Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda (2004).

Stardom: No Country for Old Men and Milk

Brolin finally broke through in 2007 with three prominent films. He first had a supporting role in Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez’s zombie movie that was initially released—with Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof—as part of the double-feature Grindhouse. Brolin later played a corrupt detective in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, a popular crime drama that starred Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Even more notable, however, was the Coen brothers’ bloody western No Country for Old Men, an adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Brolin portrayed Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran who finds a briefcase containing $2 million after a drug deal goes bad. He absconds with the money and is hunted by a sociopathic killer (played by Javier Bardem). No Country for Old Men was a critical and commercial success, and Brolin earned particular acclaim for his performance.

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The films helped make Brolin a star, and he subsequently appeared in a number of noteworthy roles that highlighted his versatility. In 2008 he portrayed Pres. George W. Bush in the biopic W., directed by Oliver Stone. That year he also had a lead role in Gus Van Sant’s biographical drama Milk (2008). Brolin was cast as San Francisco politician Dan White, who assassinated Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) and Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a gay-rights activist and politician. The film earned eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Brolin for best supporting actor.

In 2010 Brolin appeared alongside Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon in the Coen brothers’ True Grit, a critically acclaimed remake of the 1969 classic western. That year Brolin also played the title character in Jonah Hex, a big-budget adaptation of the comic book series, and had a supporting role in Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. He later appeared in the blockbuster Men in Black 3 (2012), cast as a younger version of actor Tommy Lee Jones’s character. Brolin’s uncanny impersonation of Jones drew widespread praise. He then had a memorable turn as detective Christian (“Bigfoot”) Bjornsen in Inherent Vice (2014), Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel about California’s counterculture.

Sicario and The Avengers series

In 2015 Brolin starred with Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro in the drug drama Sicario. It was a box-office hit, and three years later the actor appeared in the sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado. His other credits from 2018 include a starring role alongside Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 2 (2018), a hugely popular action film. During this time Brolin also played the villain Thanos in a series of blockbuster movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was introduced as the character in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and later appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

After a supporting role in Penn’s Flag Day, Brolin was cast as Gurney Halleck in Dune (both 2021), a hugely popular adaption of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel. In 2022 he returned to television, starring in the mystery thriller series Outer Range. He played Royal Abbott, a Wyoming cattle rancher who discovers a supernatural void on his property and has to fight for land rights. Brolin later reprised his role as Gurney Halleck in Dune: Part Two (2024).

Personal life

Brolin was married to actress Alice Adair from 1988 to 1992, during which time the couple had two children. He later wed (2004–13) Diane Lane, an actress who had a daughter from a previous relationship. The couple had a somewhat turbulent marriage, and in 2004 he was arrested and charged with domestic battery, though the charges were later dropped. About the time of his divorce from Lane in 2013, Brolin stopped drinking. Three years later he married his assistant, Kathryn Boyd, and they share two children.