Josh Brolin
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I've learned that through people's reaction, because people's reaction is either really negative because of the form, because of how it's laid out or super fucking personal and emotional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There is an indictment. And Howard Stern brought this up. I think you two the most took it very personally. And he took it very personally because he had a parallel thing with his mom. And he was like, this is not fucking OK. I want to hear you admit that it's not OK. And you go, yes, of course, there's an indictment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I can see it clearly, especially now and how I parent my kids, how I've always parent my kids, albeit messily. But how I feel about that time is it was a trauma or a tragedy or whatever it is because of this narcissistic vortex that I was living in. Are you unable to celebrate the child?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
If your child does a drawing for you on a post-it, are you going to put it on your chest and wear it around so the child can go, oh my God, that guy loves my drawing. Or I don't understand what this is. Well, can you make it more like this and more like this? Or can you dress more like this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So when a picture is taken with me and the child, it makes me look like, you know, that's all narcissistic bullshit. And it goes back to one image and that one image that my dad would say, my dad was very open about this. I don't know if he found it funny or if he just found it informational and just didn't care how it was perceived.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But my dad used to say, I remember when your mom was in the driver's seat You were in the passenger seat and you guys were arguing and my dad was in the back with his hands over his ears. And you go, that's a family tree. And you go, who's the husband? The kid. Yeah. The eight-year-old kid who's going, man, just fucking drive. Like, why do you got to stop the car and argue? Just drive, whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And then the dad's in the back with his hands over his ears and you go, okay, so that was how that whole thing was set up. And by the way, where's my brother? He's not even part of that diagram because he was a guy that didn't have the fight that you have, that I have. He just got lost in it. He didn't have the fight. So he lives his life in a very, very simple way now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I found out more and more now people have come out to the woodwork out of the woodworks. And maybe I shouldn't even say sexual, but she engaged men nonstop. The sexuality was just as much psychic as it was everything. It was a mental game. It was a sexual game. It was a physical game. It was a spiritual game. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So unpredictable. But you don't know why, because it's all you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I remember my mom being drunk and there was a church called Joshua's and Joshua's was turned into a bar. And I remember a bar in Paso Robles, Joshua's. What a rebrand. I know, what a rebrand. And I remember my mom pulling somebody, or it was James Lee Barrett, the writer. And he was a writer way back in the day. And I remember her pulling him across the table to give him a kiss, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So my mom, who was tiny, had that superhuman drunk strength that you know and I know. But it was always a display. She couldn't just get up and go to the other side. She had to pull them across the table. And I told somebody else this the other day and talk about fear. Not that I forgot about this. Just there were so many things to write about. It's like, what do you land on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And the book starts to dictate itself. And then what do you cut? I had at one point 450 pages or something and then knocked it down. But if you flipped my mom off on the freeway, you were done. She would actively run you off the road.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
80 miles an hour or on the CB, she would call a bunch of truckers and you would see that car that had been identified now get boxed in and literally get run off the road by several truckers. But she would freak the fuck out. And when you're an eight year old in a car, it was wild and how ironic that she died hitting a tree with a car chasing a dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's exactly right. But the whole point, I think, ultimately, it's like, do you feel that this was cathartic in some way? And I go, no. But now I can say, yes, it's starting to become cathartic because of people's reactions to it. To me, what's the point of me writing the book? other than just loving writing. That's my first and foremost.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You know, I'm going to go to Skylight after this because I used to be on the floor of Skylight reading Russian novels and reading Tolstoy and Turgenev and Gogol and Flaubert and fucking Guy de Maupassant and all that kind of shit when I was 18, 19, 20 years old. And now I'm going to go there and I'm going to see my book on the shelf.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But ultimately, how do you accept the chaos of what was and not live the rest of your life as a victim of it? That's the biggest thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's what I was going to say. Do you have a choice? No. Somebody leaves and you go, wait a second. If they leave, you can leave. That means you can leave, you can leave, you can leave, you can leave. Once you get outside of the family, then are you reacting to the potential of anybody leaving?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But you just said it, performing. Then you're performing. Then you're going, how do I assure that I'm not down to zero?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You become less reactionary. And the thing with my mom, which didn't work in life, was my mom loved the high octane volley. So you had to be up here. I still deal with that because I like the high octane volley. That's why I like Italy. Because everybody's it's culturally like what you said about Georgia. It's culturally at that place all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
No one's getting their feelings hurt. Whereas here, I may do something and people go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
What's the problem? And then if I'm feeling surly or whatever, I go, why does everybody want to be fucking monotone all the time? Everybody wants to be in yawn mode. And I go, it's okay. Let's wake up. And interestingly enough, and this is not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. I have my 36 year old Trevor, my 31 year old Eden, my six year old Westland and my three year old Chapel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I see it in my older kids. My son is a little more docile. than what we're talking about. My 31 year old is the only person on this earth, probably who scares me. All she has to do is give me a look. And I'm just like, you said she was born with your menacing look. She just has that Brolin brow. I call it that kind of Neanderthal brow ridge.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
My youngest daughter has it more pronounced than anybody. So you have the six year old, but I was listening to him this morning. I was trying to say something. And this is often because we're around our kids all the time. I'm a very present parent. So I go, hey, man, don't talk for 30 seconds. I need to say something to your mom. And they literally go, OK, Papa, go ahead. And I go, OK.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And they go, one, two, three, four. But I listen to their volley back and forth and their volley is phenomenal to me. It's always on this level. And my wife is always trying to bring it down. And I'm always laughing because I go, that's pretty cool. You guys are on a different. So I'm still a proponent of that thing, just not destructively.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
If somebody says I didn't learn anything about him. They're saying something very specific. And they're saying, I didn't get spoon-fed the People Magazine shit that I was expecting. Some hot gossip. Which is okay. Like I said, I don't have a judgment of that. That's not what this book is. And there is no juggling of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Well, first of all, if you're writing, then you're one of 0.0001% people who are actually writing their own memoirs or writing their own book. When I found out how many people don't write their own memoirs, I go, but that's a biography. Yeah. that you got paid for. And the writer didn't. So that's a cheat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Wait, the last time I saw you. That's true. You pulled into the driveway because you did Ted's podcast. That's right. It was after that when I thought I was having marital problems, but I wasn't. Oh, did you? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I understand I had a great back and forth with Sharon Graham Norton and I absolutely fucking adored her. She's kind of mom-esque. Mischievous, but super honest, fearless, but vulnerable, said something during and then was looking for me afterwards to say, I didn't mean to suggest this. So conscientious, 77, 78 years old. I was like, that fucking broad is great. Yeah, no, she's a gangster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But her book, Legendary Icons. So I do want to know what happened in those nine days that she was married to Greg Allman. Like what the fuck happened? Why was it only nine days? Take your time. I want to hear about every day. Every day. Every hour. Absolutely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
With this, I was in Austin, Texas and people paid for a book signing and then a picture and all that. And some guy came up to me and like of all the things he could have said, he said, you're too young to write a memoir. Yeah. And then he left. I was like, who the fuck was that dude? How old was he? He was like 40 or something, 45. But he's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's like if I were to write a tell-all, I would at the end of my life. My life in Hollywood. But going back to what you said, writing a good book. That's well-written, meant everything to me. But it can be daunting. It can be incredibly daunting if you care about the writing style and you care about somebody who's written thousands and thousands and thousands of pages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Me, I probably have 91 full journals now. I've written several books. I've written several books of poetry. I've written a novella and I just put it in a corner. Way too long screenplays. Never wrote a screenplay. Wait, I thought the submarine in the lake next to Fargo. That was a joke. That was always to break the silence and to create a discomfort that made me really happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Are you shared? I always share. because I'm one of these guys kind of like a book where you have to manifest it in order to get it out of you because you know the you that it's happening in is not perceiving it correctly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And Nora takes you and it says, well, is it this or is it that? If you spent all your time watching a Nora going, is it a comedy or is it a satire or did this really happen? Is this based in truth? And you're looking at your phone, just fucking follow it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Just lend yourself to the craziness and the messiness that life always seems to hand out. The thing is, is that we're always trying to get away from it. What if we just sit in it for a while? It can be super funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I can admit out loud. I would sit with them and they don't talk. There's no small talk. I mean, now there is maybe because we're close and all that. But we would sit around and nobody would be saying anything. And what's the one thing that you don't say on set as an actor?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Them, Tarantino. We could list the three worst things. So we would literally sit there saying nothing. And I'd be like, I'm so fucking bored right now. And I'd go, hey, listen, I don't want to be inappropriate here. I have an amazing script. I didn't want to bring it up, but I think now is the right time. And then you'd hear like one clearing result.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And then I would go off literally until we shot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
No, it was Wapentin. Which is actually, I had to look up. I was like, what's next to Fargo? Okay, but it's not Fargo, but it's the town next to Fargo. So dumb. It's like, how can you waste somebody's time? Torturously waste somebody's time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And that has nothing to do with a program thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Wait, but I do want to say this, that going back, there is a point in writing, had I just started writing, I think that it would have been affected by my need to be perceived like somebody else. And I wasn't because there was some point in the trajectory of my writing that I found my voice and I know it's my voice. I gave this book while I was writing it to only two people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
They're both in New York. They're both Jewish. They're both neurotic. Uh-huh. Zev Boro and Ethan Cohen. And they both were super fucking honest with me. And Zev said, if for nothing else, this book is a hundred percent you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's not me trying to be this. And somebody goes, oh, Bukowski or so. Oh, Hunter S. Thompson. There were so many influences and people I tried to copy for years. And you go, no, that's me. That's how I write.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But that wasn't necessarily the case with me. The greatest exercise of this book was clarifying. There's a great story about Raymond Carver and Raymond Carver wrote, I think, Cathedral that he won the Pulitzer for and short stories. And he was a sober guy. He's my all time favorite. Just the best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And the most clear, you know, you think of Hemingway short stories, same thing, very, very clear, but a hundred percent them. And when his editor, he was writing and they were like, look, you know, you have sentences that are roughly 16 word sentences. Let's try to bring it down to 12. It was like, why the fuck are you trying to change my sentence? That's what I want to write.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And he was like, yeah, but if we can just economize it and get it down to 12. And then in that volley, he finally said, get out of here. I don't want you as my editor anymore. And a new editor came in and he said, okay, so look, roughly these sentences are 12 word sentences. Let's see if we can get it down to nine. Oh my God. And they were right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Because when you start slashing and when you start taking all the vividity of it and the colorizing and all that kind of shit, and you go, what am I trying to convey here? And try to do it in the clearest way possible. There's a story toward the beginning of Where it's a little four-year-old kid and all this chaos is going around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Mother's throwing cups through the window at the father and all that. But it's written like a Dr. Seuss story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Oh, my God. And then took off back to China for 20 years, 25 years doing fight coordinating and all this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Saw Crazy Rich Asians and said, well, maybe I should go back and try it again. Oh,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Like literally his family would be on the side, you know. Trying to understand what the fuck was going on in this country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Well, you're not checking it enough because I don't remember hearing any of your crazy ideas. We've already filed. No, who do I go to? There's a couple of people. You have one person that you go to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Okay, so basically they kept us away from it. A practically built ship on the biggest stage in all of Hollywood, which was on Warner Bros., filled with water, 110 foot high, long ship. And they blindfolded us and they finally let us, and we tried to see it and there was no way. And there was security outside and they backed us in. And then they said, look, we're going to put you underwater.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We have speakers underwater, which didn't exist. It was like some high-tech thing. And then we went under and they said, we're going to say three, two, one. We want you guys to come up, turn around and see the ship. And we want that organic reaction. And finally we went under and we go three, two, one. And we all came up and turned around and I saw it and I went, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It was like, holy shit. Whatever I said, it was the most organic reaction. Think about the amount of work it took to get that first reaction.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Because you don't know. You don't know. I mean, one of the things that I look back at, like Keith Ledger was supposed to do No Country and then dropped out at some point. And then they looked and looked and everybody wanted it. And they said, no, we have a very specific guy. And then I auditioned for it and I sent the video in and they said, who lit it? And all that kind of shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And it wasn't until I got, who was it, Matt? Matt was supposed to do Milk. He was. And then he had a scheduling conflict. And then Sean Penn, who I had just spent time with in Canada, said, what about Josh? Wow. So it's always I was supposed to do Birdman. I pulled out of Birdman because I needed to go see my son who was living in Thailand at the time. And then that ended up being Edward Norton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
At Jurassic Park, Chris Pratt. I just talked to Pratt the other day. Walk me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It wasn't, I was going to be him. It was going to be me. He was going to play Chris Pratt. He didn't know, but it was going to be me. And Chris told me when we did Avengers together, we were sitting there talking to each other about whatever kids. And he goes, yeah, when I showed up, It was your face on all the drawings. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Which happened to me for Deadpool 2, which was supposed to be Brad Pitt at some point. Whoa. And I remember going and seeing all the drawings for Deadpool 2 and seeing all Brad's face. And I was like... Sorry. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Tom, it didn't actually end up happening, but you and I spoke about this is that Tom kind of coerced me into his thing. We had a great conversation. We talked about surfing. We had everything in common that there was to have. And apparently, which I never really saw, that we look like each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
who's been really wonderful. And he didn't suggest a lot during the writing. I thought there was going to be this whole, you need to change this and flip this into this. And there wasn't. But one suggestion he did make, because I wrote the story about how I had gotten into a thing with my wife at the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I was going down Columbus Avenue with just pants on, no shoes, no shirt, kind of out of my mind. And I looked over and there was this guy sitting at this cafe and it turned out to be Nick Nolte, who I recognized. He had no reason to recognize me. Like Monica, he hadn't seen Goonies. Yeah, exactly. It was like Nick and Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But I remember a slight smile on his face and it was almost like, get ready, kid. Wow. Like it gets way gnarlier than this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I saw my future and he saw his past or whatever. Whatever it was. So my editor said, is there a follow-up to that? And I go, there's actually several follow-ups to that. And then I chose the Nightwatch story where I'm cutting off my thumb. Part of the reason that I chose that, it was because this guy,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
who hadn't gone anywhere for a long time, had these moments during that 22 years, Nightwatch or Flirting with Disaster, where it could have been a big hit and then it wasn't necessarily. Flirting with Disaster was a really revered and is still a revered movie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
but not a lot of people have seen it. Have you ever seen flirting?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Patty Arquette, Patricia Arquette, Ben Stiller, Taya Leone, Richard Jenkins. Richard Jenkins kind of steals it. He's your lover in the movie. He's my lover. He's my lover in the movie. And that was a moment, you know, it was like, I'm fucking acting with Nick Nolte.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And when you're looking in somebody's eyes and you don't see them. And that's whether it be the book, whether it be acting, even though I didn't grow up in Hollywood, my dad was an actor. There was a celebrity thing in it because he went from total unknown to Marcus Welby, MD, which was basically like the friends of its time. So there was all this attention and how he dealt with that attention.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There was a lot of irritability and a lot of confusion. And, you know, you have to go do this and you have to be this and you have to present your wife. It was not great. Didn't come natural to him. So there was nothing about it in that way that was attractive to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So why he's not my lawyer doesn't make any sense other than Cliff Gilbert Laurie, who brought me in, which is how business works. And you learn that later. They bring you in as a top dog and they go, you're amazing. We want to represent you. And we've been trying to represent you since before you were born.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But behaviorally, and I think if you go back into this book, you go, oh, it was so behaviorally chaotic for me as a kid or my brother as a kid that, of course, I would be obsessed with why people do what they do. And what a great way to explore that in acting. That was the toehold for you. That was it. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's exactly what it is. It's like, would you become a psychologist just to be around people who are constantly talking about this thing that is endlessly interesting to me or experientially be inside of it? And then you're with Nick Nolte and you're like, this is fucking crazy. Nick ended up saving my life later. There was a whole relationship. You ping ponged, yeah?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Almost impossible to believe stories about him. I mean, literally walk into his house and you go, Nick, are you there? And he'd go. And you go, I guess he's here, you know, and then you go in the back room. Is he like an armchair chemist? He's like growing things. No, that's what I mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So you'd go in the back room or whatever past the living room and he'd be sitting there looking into a microscope and studying his blood. He liked six band-aids on his arm. And you go, hey man. And by the way, not on drugs. Not. No. Sober. OK, but he has also partaken in drugs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
scheme is well there was the pyramid scheme of the 70s what was that and it was the beginning it was the first one and what you do is if you have the ability to kind of whether you'd say manipulate but she was so good at cold calling people and saying hey if you give five thousand dollars to this pyramid scheme so if you have eight people on the bottom that works itself to six people four people two people one person and then once you get more people on the bottom you get
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
whatever money has been accumulated in that pyramid. And then you start a new pyramid. She would have 20 pyramids going at once. She could call 100, 200 people a day and get people involved. So she was getting that money one bag after another. Dumping bags of money on the table. She would come in with literally grocery bags full of money and then she'd dump it. I can see it right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It was right on the side of her bed and she'd dump it and she'd say, count. So I counted, I count 50 grand. And then at some point she was put on a hit list. Ultimately, she found out she was the third person on the list. And the first two people had not been killed, but had been severely beaten.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And you go and they flatter the shit out of you. Then you get in there and then you never see that person again.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And those are the people who didn't get their money back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And so I knew it was around there somewhere. And when you're a 13 year old kid, you're not even 13, 12 year old kid who has this penchant for addictions that you don't even know about yet. And then you're taking each piece of furniture saying there's got to be a hollow spot in the floor or whatever. And then finally hearing that chunk or a piece of wood goes and falls out. And you're like, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I paid her back. After I did Goonies, I gave her a check for six grand and she didn't know what it was for. She didn't know it was gone because she had money coming in and out all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
They don't even know. She was a drug dealer. Yes. She was a kingpin. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Oh, my God. Mike Herbert, who's still one of my closest friends, he looked older. So he would go to the drum shop or he had a mustache, a mustache, a herb estate, the herb estate. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It is the most beautiful part, accountability. It's just so counterintuitive. To some, most people, not all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's hard after you do it and you put it out there and somebody says, this is the worst book I've ever read in my life. And you go, huh. But ultimately, it's even better because then you start to realize the thing that you've learned early on in the program is that has everything to do with them and not about me. They're like, I don't want you to reveal shit, man. That means I have to reveal shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? Hey, why are you changing? We have been focusing. Do you know how much time we've put into you? I go, you don't even know my name, bro. You had to. So look it up. I have to say this to finish that thought. Yeah. Is the hand-me-downs that I've always gotten have been better than what could have been had I gone with the top dog. Oh, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Power of example within massive discomfort. I love the idea of anybody, even with acting, you know, you're like, hey, you got a scene coming up where you have to cry. So I think about my dead grandmother. Never made me cry. So crisis mode puts me in a different place. Now, if I think of a mother lifting a car off her kid, like even when I say it, forget it. Same, same, same. That's it. I'm done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
If I think of people who go beyond this design of themselves that they feel that they have to adhere to, the betterment of humanity, I lose it. Powerful. Me too. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's it. My daughter had, you know, whatever fears. She did it last night. We went to the ice cream shop. I said, go ask for another spoon. She dropped her spoon and she was looking back and I could see building up the whole, oh my God, I'm going to have to go in there. What if it doesn't come out right? And I said, don't think, just go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And then finally she went and she did it and she came back with a smile on her face, dude. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I was 19 years old when Debbie got pregnant and we were living at 2020 Beachwood Villa, just the worst apartment down here on Beachwood Canyon. And then by the way, when I got off the freeway at Vine, then we moved from 2020 Villa, once we found out we were gonna have Trevor, went to Hollywood towers. And then we went over to Kenwood in Los Feliz. You know, we just didn't have any money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And that was a really shitty part of town, just like gunshots all the time and all that stuff. But I was looking at 14 years in prison. And I'd fought six cops. So six felonies, basically thought I was Bruce Lee. And they taught me a big, I told you that story. It's just the dumbest story, literally most embarrassing story ever, but great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Because those hand-me-downs turned into the top dogs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So again, you're in the habit, you get sober and then you're like, okay, it's okay. And then you're responsible. And then you go back and go, God, this sobriety feels like a ball and chain. I want to have fun my life. I'm 23 years old. I should be having fun. You convince yourself in all those ways. And then you go back out and it doesn't get worse. It just gets gnarly. It was always gnarly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But I will have been a parent from 20 years old. And my youngest right now will graduate when I'm 70.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So I will have been a parent my entire adult life. So I don't know life without kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
They give a shit. There's something very personal still. Wendy Kirk is my lawyer and she is with JSSK. And what she has done, they even offered her a partnership when she changed. And she said, no, I don't like what it does to me. Wow. Wow. And they forced her to be a partner. So she's a partner. She works with Obama.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So whether it's me going off and whatever this messy trajectory is of a human being, which we're all messy and you just have to accept these moments, not that they're okay. It's like people saying they needed to relapse in order to find out. I don't agree necessarily. I relapsed and did I learn anything else? No, but I chose to do it and I take full accountability for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There's stuff that I haven't written in the book that my family and I talk about everything. So it's all open and it's all out there. But there's things that I've done that really put my family in jeopardy. And I always tried to keep it separate. I tried to live this life and then I tried to live that life. You have that goal, but obviously the thing is more powerful than you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
When it would cross over and bleed over and things would happen, you just go, this is awful. But no matter what I did, whether it was involving addiction, because it wasn't always... There's a story in the book where I go to Portland, Oregon to be discovered. Oh my God, this is from my own private Idaho. My own private Idaho. I stayed in a flop house. I mean, I stayed in a true whorehouse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There were like hookers going in and out. And I'm reading Rambo at the time, trying to be that guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I can't get an audition for this thing. Okay, I have enough money to fly to Portland, Oregon, and I'm going to walk around Boys Town in Portland, Oregon, and Gus Van Sant obviously hangs out in Boys Town. He's probably scouting for the real deals. He's probably scouting for the movie. This is your camping trip. And he's going to see me, and he's going to go... Holy shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I go, I have actually. I'm doing a movie right now. No way. I'm totally available. And by the way, I have to provide for a wife and child right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We've all done that. I ended up. Yeah, but not like this. We end up in the adult booths and you got glory holes. Big dicks come through the wall. I went full into it, freaking out and then also thinking, what am I doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And by the way, that's not the first time I did. I did it with Oliver Stone for The Doors. Then I heard Val Kilmer got it. But I was walking around looking like Jim Morrison in Tucson, Arizona. I thought somehow it would get it. It's so sad that the irony is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And I think what the book suggests is you never know, man, if you keep putting yourself out there, you don't know what your life has in store. You just have to keep doing that. You keep having to lift the car off the child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You have to keep being brave. You have to be willing to go through the meat grinder and get ground and ground and ground and ground and ground because you don't know what's going to be sculpted out of it. So the only time I get nominated so far, Gus Van Sant. Wow. I ended up doing W with Oliver Stone. Yeah. How fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
No, he doesn't. And I loved working with him and I love him. And I don't say that just to say it, but great working relationship. I think he was slightly afraid of me, which was probably a good thing. Yeah, it takes a lot to scare him. It takes a lot to scare him. And he's usually this guy that's creating chaos. Talk about creating a vortex that he controls.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There was a great, can I tell you this quick story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Okay, during W, there was a thing and Richard Dreyfuss, and I don't know what Richard was going through. I don't know if he was sober or not sober. I think he was sober, but we had a seven page scene and we chose to eat sandwiches. We chose along the lines of doing this movie. We thought, I think he uses his hands a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So he's eating potato chips or eating sandwiches or always popping a candy or whatever. We had a scene between me and Dreyfuss And it was just seven pages of going back and forth informationally. And I'm eating a sandwich during the time. And I say my first line, I go, you know, so vice, what's today hold? And he goes, and I go, this is literally the first line. And he goes, what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I go, it's your line, man. And he goes, what do you mean? What do you mean? And dude, it was just that over and over. Every time we did the take, he would stare at me. And then Oliver comes in, he goes, what's the problem? I go, I don't fucking know. I don't know what's happening. He's studying my ass off of the scene. I don't know what's happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And the driver was still sitting there and he goes, what? And I go, what do you mean, what, dude? I don't understand what. We have a dialogue. It's not a monologue. There's a dialogue. I'll hold this shit up so you can read it. He was like, why would you do that? I go, so you can speak. And I didn't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I thought it was like one of those Alan Font things where I was like, I'm definitely being pumped. Yeah. I wouldn't know if he was trying to get control over me. I don't know. Did he not know his lines? And you never know with actors because that goes on all the time. I got mad. And then Oliver was like, no, I can't have you getting mad. I can't. You're getting emotional. You can't get emotional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Go over there. And then they're yelling at each other.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I still, to this day, I don't know what's happening. It's either Dreyfuss is a genius or something was going on. Sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah. The cover was Joey Feldman, who's a sober buddy of mine. OK. Dang. All right. This is great because you didn't know you were going to do this. No. And by the way, I never wrote down the story. And I did take my younger kids to this very place where this happened. We revisit it at the Kerrang. Let's see if I can pronounce this stuff right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
My girlfriend was getting minor surgery. I had my 11-year-old and my 7-year-old with me. We were visiting her in England. She kept pushing that we should travel, so we eventually came up with Scotland. I've always had a thing for Ireland, but Scotland never really came up before then. The Isle of Skye is a paradise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I would learn later that most of our ancestry comes from the highlands of the Isle of Skye. Clan Ross and Clan Reed. Maybe that would explain the feeling we had when we were there. The kids and I had a banter. Where are we going to sleep tonight? I'd yell to wish they'd reply in equal decibels. We don't care. We didn't care. We were carefree and happy. We were Clan Brolin. We were a unit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
One day, about five days into a very nomadic vacation, we came across the Kerrang, a landslip on the northernmost part of Trotternish, Isle of Skye, Scotland. There was no car park at that time, but for a little soggy dirt lot along the edge of the road, everything was new to us there. Everything was a discovery. Clan Brolin just rolling along with whatever came along.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
A trail was barely visible in the distance, and from it overlooked a stunning portrait of the valley below. We decided to trek and make use of our whimsy. No water bottle, no idea how long it was, we took off, Eden, my seven-year-old, holding my hand and Trevor bringing up the rear. The walk was precarious at times. Right from the trail's edge shot down hundreds of feet, it seemed, in moments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I questioned myself and my abilities as a parent. What am I doing up here? Why do I do this with little kids? What about a typical playground? Why don't you do what is already set up for children? The trail would even out with the pitch of landscape and we'd be back freely being our lively selves. Sheep are in high population in Scotland. They are everywhere. And here was no exception.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But even in the rooms, it's not anonymous. I never understood it. Somebody goes, do you want to share? And you go, yeah. So today and they go, hey, what's your name? That's a big no-no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Blue dots on white riddled parts of the mountainside, red dots on others. I surmised the colors sprayed onto their thick wool represented ownership. Farmer blue and farmer red. Fine. I like sheep. So do my kids. We've had sheep. They are funny. Cartoon funny. Bah! I suddenly ran toward a flock of them, my arms flailing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I thought it'd make my kids chuckle watching them run down a hill, then up another. The sheep were scared, but no harm, no foul. My children laughed more at me than at them. Our papa's crazy, and I loved living up to the legend I imagined myself to be in their minds. We love crazy papa. As I stopped running and waving my hands and just started to turn around toward my kids, I heard a snap.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I didn't know what it was. Then as I refocused on the herd beyond, now running up a hillside, there was one whose legs were dragging behind it, the front paws desperately scooting the body forward in fits and starts. Poppy, what happened to that one? I jogged down to where the flock had been and the lamb was still there, struggling frenetically.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
The closer I got, the more it tried to scamper away, but it couldn't. Something wasn't working in its body. I hoped it was in shock because of the sudden change in pitch. I hoped that maybe the sheep's body had temporarily spasmed and frozen. I put one hand on the back of its neck to try to calm it, and the other I slowly pulled down the length of its spine. Vertebra, vertebra, vertebra, vertebra.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And you go, why do I have to say my name? Because back in the day, the first hundred that the book is based on, you never had to say your name. You just had to say, I'm an alcoholic. That makes a little more sense. So it doesn't make any sense. The hypocrisy of, hello.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
The sheep let out a yell. It was a screech of pain. We were two miles away from the car. That part of its back had collapsed. It moved. Something is broken. I've been raised with wild animals my whole life. Bobcats bit my cheek until it bled, and I've cleaned the cages of wolves, mountain lions, and bobcats since I can remember. I know how to deal with crisis. I would have been a good soldier.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I'm calm under copious amounts of stress. I looked over my shoulder to my kids. They were staring at me, waiting for a sign of how to react. Stay there, I told them. Please stay there. I don't know what to do. I was kidding. I was making a joke. This goddamn sheep's back broke. How the fuck did that happen? It was only meant as a joke. What do I do? but I kept a face on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I looked around for anyone else on the trail. Nobody. I looked up to the peaks of the Kerrang, how the fog was just caressing the tips of them, and I suddenly felt the cold front of death enter my body. The sheep scooted slightly farther forward and bleated. I grabbed its body and attempted to swing it onto my shoulders. I couldn't. It was too heavy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I wanted to be that parent who could lift cars to save their child. But no matter how hard I tried to hoist it, it failed. I look back to my kids who looked sad and anxious, but stoic. They had in them that ranch kid grit that didn't allow for an instant reaction. They knew it was going to get worse and to react now would be premature. Turn your heads. They did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I could break its neck, I thought to myself. One startling snap, and it would be out of its misery and pain. What if I weighed it? Would it be better? Where is everyone? I avoided it as long as I could. The sun was getting lower in the sky and all I knew was that I was gonna have to kill this innocent animal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I grabbed its muzzle with my left hand and then brought my right hand over the left side of its head, leveraging my left. I'm gonna pull as hard and as fast as I can and it'll go out like a light. One, two, turn your heads, cover your ears. They did. One, two, three. I pulled as every organ in my body fell into this hell of my own making. The screaming, the sheep kept screaming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Its back legs were splayed out and it just screamed and screamed as it kept reaching forward away from me. It knew, it knew I was here to murder it. There was no sign of physical trauma, none. Can we look? My son yelled over his shoulder. Not yet. I didn't know what to do. My kids were watching me. This was a seminal moment. There was no pride in trying to kill the sheep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There was nothing but shame and inadequacy. I didn't know what I was doing. I should know. I was 31 years old. I grew up on a ranch. I grew up around wild animals. I had to assist in the deaths of animals all the time in our house. Cancer, age, trauma. I wrapped my hand around the nape of its neck. I told it I was sorry. I was sorry. I didn't know what to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, totally. And I'm usually the guy that says, shut the fuck up. It's an anonymous program.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I had killed wounded animals before, a stork on a beach with a broken neck, birds flying into windows who could never fly away again. I put my dog down when he was riddled with cancer. I should know how to do this. We were 50 feet from the edge of the cliff. I could throw it off, but what if it survived? I don't know what's down there. What if there's hay or a soft bog?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I looked up and the other sheep were watching me from afar. My daughter was crying by now. It was a soft cry, a silent cry, just tears. My son put his arm around her, ranch kids consoling each other through each of nature's traumas. But this was because of me. Do they think if I kill this sheep that I would kill them? Not now, but at any point in their lives?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
If I do this, will it always be living somewhere under their skin, itching at them? I dragged the sheep up the hill while it continued to bleat and try and hold its ground with its front hooves. There was a loose rock. It was an old rock with a layer of mica and a slight fur of moss covering it. I picked it up, and there were two sharp edges visible. I ran my hand over them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
They were as sharp as they looked. I imagined the sheep telling me to put it out of its misery, but I knew that wasn't the case. It had no say in the matter. It was all in my head. The truth is, we were all dying on that landslip, but soon one of us would be dead. My aim had to be right on. "'Turn your heads, cover your ears.'
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
My daughter wiped away the tears on her face with the backside of her hand, then put the palms of her hands over her ears. My son followed suit. I lifted the rock above my head. One eye stared up at me from near my feet. The grass along the trail was a deep green. I imagined blood on it. I tried to prepare myself. I am a killer. I kill innocent beings. I'm not funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There is nothing funny about me.' Don't think. Aim. Save this animal from the pain I caused it. Aim. Please, God, please let me get it right. I stand tall, the rock suspended above me. Thunk.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I am cold. The world is cold. I feel my children inside me. I see their pain through me. I feel for the pulse of the animal. Silence, except for the winds. None of us move. I am looking down. My children are looking away. The sheep is dead. We stand for a long, long time. We stand there to this day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
We talked it in the beginning. It's like when you said when one parent leaves and then you're sitting there and you're having to perform. And then there's always this performative sense of self. Like you're the funny guy. You're the crazy guy. You know, especially while drinking. I went out with a guy once. He was from Canada, but we were in L.A.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And we had a certain relationship where I was in my craziest phase. And he brought somebody from Canada and flew her down and said, hey, I'm going to take you out with Josh. And you'll see. Buckle up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for some reason, I wasn't drinking at that moment. I had a day, maybe three days before. And I was like, OK, I'm going to stay off this sauce for a while.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And we went to one of the few times I've been there to the Viper Room. And he said, what do you have to drink? And I go, I'm just going to have water. And he goes, what do you mean? And I go, I'm not going to drink tonight. And he said, dude, I brought my friend down from Canada. It's time for the Josh. And I was like, holy shit, I'm your clown.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I'm the jester. And I think that's what my mom was. And it was only toward the end of her life that she started to come to terms. She had thought of a really great story for a series. And she wasn't involved in Hollywood at all, but it had to do with chimps and people. And ironically, the series is out now called Chimps. I called you the first skull. Literally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And she had thought of that story and somebody said, I love that idea. Let's develop it. And I remember my mom in the kitchen really profusely crying, which she never did. And I said, what's up? And she said, I've never been taken seriously in my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
So you have the bleed over of that, which is me, some masculine form of that, who's doing that same song and dance, who realizes on his own terms, luckily younger and says, you know what? I don't want to be this jester all the time. I don't want to be the one that people are happy to escape, but they're happy that exists because they're living life, some version of chaos through
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
No. And I don't think so. I've gotten the same thing from, I understood people who are obese and you go, hey, we can do this or we can do gastro surgery. We can do this. We do that. And they go, no. And there's this reticence to work out and all this. And then I got it because I paralleled it with the drinking. Oh, without your extra weight, you don't exist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
It's the thing that people are always talking about. At least it's something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Yeah, because that's your experience. My experience is purely on a professional capacity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Maybe you're invisible. And I always felt that about drinking. Whereas I'd go out and it was like, you know what you did last night? I go, no, tell me. And they go. You were nuts. It was so much fun. But then you did this thing and we climbed this building and then you jumped and you thought you had a parachute on, but you didn't. And I lived off that for years. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You're just another person. That's it. And can you find something? It's just terrifying. You get to that place eventually where you can say, I'm okay just with what I have around me, my family, the few friends. I don't have to charm everybody. Not everybody has to like me. It's okay. I'm going to go write a fucking book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Something happened to her. I used to talk to her about it because my mom was in Camarillo State Hospital. She wasn't there for very long, but her sister was in and out of Bellevue for 30 years. Severely alcoholic, really crazy. And I got to know her sister later. But I would ask her and she said, my parents were amazing. She was down in Texas, Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi, Texas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And she said, I'd sneak out my window and my parents would come back. They'd be so worried about me. I would yell at them for waiting up for me. She said, I was the chaos. And she very readily admitted that. Do I believe it? A thousand percent? Right. Maybe not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
You constantly see this person come up and you know it has its moments where it's like this person will show up for this two months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And you know what you did, which is what I did, is you forwarded them to other people. You were like, oh, my God, look at this lead that he did. By the way, I have nothing against Feldman. No, how could you? What I questioned the whole time was, does he know? And I think that's what drew everybody in. When you sit there and you're just going like this. Do you know anything about this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But you're a Goonies fan, right? I remember that from before. No, you're not a Goonies fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That was a look of absolute, almost disgust. It was panic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
No, but I kind of liked the idea of I only have seen it, meaning I didn't react like everybody else. I just saw it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Which he's been doing for a very long time. It's just recently he went on a tour. He was opening for Fred Durst and Fred Durst brilliantly created this whole thing called like the worst tour in the world. Oh, I can't remember. It's not called that, but it's something like that. So it's intentional from Fred Durst point of view.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But I think he took, which was genius, Corey Feldman and said, you open for me and then we're going to come out and do our bullshit. And Fred has a huge white beard now and comes out with basically what he wore back in the day. And it's just fucking funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
But when you see Corey doing his thing, which is what he's always done, there's no difference in what he was doing during the Goonies back in that day and what he's doing now. There's just a seriousness to it. So
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
I love when people are honest. Like I did Rogan and I go, so where's the book? And he goes, I don't know. Where is the book? And I was like, fuck you mean, where is the book? We sent you the book. He was like, yeah, where is it? I'm like, so you didn't read the book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
Well, wait, let me interrupt you for a second. First of all, the fears in writing a book, I didn't have a fear. I've told this story before, but there was only one moment where I kind of said, you need to be just a little bit more inspiring in order to be attractive to a wider audience. And I wrote probably 40,000 words with that in the back of my head, having told nobody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And then my lit agent, she read the first chapter and she said, first chapter is really good. You've smoothed it out. It's great. What the fuck happened with chapter two? And that was the one you were going to protect yourself with? Not even protect myself, but just give it a little more positive oomph. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
First of all, I fell in love with her at that moment because I was like, you see me, which I think that's the biggest thing you see behind the tough and the thing and the guy. And she said, you need to go back and rewrite it. I said, the whole thing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
And she goes, what part go back and be you if you cheat or if there's an affectation or if you're trying to write for somebody else, it's never going to work. The other thing is the fear didn't come until I was two days into the audible. I speak well. I speak in front of an audience well. I can read other people's books well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
There was something about reading through my own book where I was tripping through every sentence. I started to shame spiral. And then within that shame spiral, I started to say, I wish that I could burn any evidence that this thing ever existed, even as an idea. I've done the dumbest thing I should have just wrote when I did the Goonies. Me and Corey Feldman used to go to lunch together and
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
it was so fun. He was so smart and he was playing music then too. And there's some people that have reacted to it. Like this is the fucking worst book I've ever read because wasn't he married for nine years? Where's that spoon fetus, the shit, which I understand. There's a certain amount of that when you call it a memoir that you want. This is really more about children and parents.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Josh Brolin Returns
That's what it is. To me, it's like surviving nurture to get to nature, trying to get rid of the habits that you acquired during nurture and then confronting those and hopefully thriving within that nature, figuring out a way to thrive within that nature. So then children come in and all that kind of stuff.