Making news ‘got boring’
After rehab, ‘I’m the happiest I’ve ever been’
The man sipping an
NEW YORK espresso, grinning and telling stories of two whining toddlers who are now fully grown and muchloved children, bears little resemblance to the Josh Brolin who made headlines in 2013 when he checked into rehab after numerous arrests and instances of public intoxication.
Now, he’s dating his former assistant Kathryn Boyd; he’s adorably, radiantly, goofily happy; and he’s more relaxed than he has ever seemed.
“I’m in a totally different space. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, other than having my kids. I wake up in the morning and I’m actually happy. ... Now I want to go climb again, maybe back in Switzerland,” says Brolin, 46, an avid mountaineer.
His former life of making news with legal scuffles “got boring to me.”
“There was one point where it wasn’t boring. I grew up that way,” he says. But “if (you) continue doing that same thing, you’re that guy. That’s your identity. I have my own. I know other people who have that stamp, and I’m bored by them.”
He has Paul Thomas Anderson’s trippy Inherent Vice in theaters, opening Friday nationwide, and he has wrapped Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, about a CIA drug operation, and Everest, about a deadly climb. And next in the can is Hail, Caesar! from the Coen brothers. Suffice it to say, Brolin isn’t hurting for work.
“Josh had been at Paul’s forefront of people he wanted to work with,” says Anderson’s longtime producer JoAnne Sellar. “Josh brought a real humanity to the role (of cop “Bigfoot” Bjornsen). It could be very cartoonish. He brought a soulfulness to it, of a guy who is perceived as something he isn’t. Josh is a really good actor.”
The actor appreciates where he is professionally. He adores the Coens, saying with a laugh that like their other cast members, he has never gotten a compliment, will never get a compliment, and he’s totally fine with that.
“I haven’t been in a position of choice for very long, and I think I know what to do. In hindsight, I would have done this or that differently. Forget all the hype, the awards. Do what you want to do right now. This is it, right now. Doing Everest, doing Inherent
Vice, I like my life.” On set, he’s the opposite of his colleague Joaquin Phoenix, who stays entirely in character at all times, Sellar says. She always looked forward to the days when Brolin would be at work.
“Josh is just regular Josh in between takes. You never known if you have the real Joaquin or the character, but they got on really well,” Sellar says. “Josh is just this really great guy who’s got a lot of humor. He’s so friendly. He puts everyone at ease. He’s so positive.”
And he’s present. When he’s talking to you, he’s engaged. That means no Instagram, no texting, no distracted checking of the device. He keeps his in his pocket.
“I don’t want to be looking at my phone the whole time. Why can’t you have some discipline?” he says. “Talk to someone. Go to the bathroom and check
your phone.”
Josh Brolin appears in Inherent Vice, opening Friday, and has wrapped Sicario and Everest. He’ll appear in the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! next year. “Forget all the hype, the awards. Do what you want to do right now.”