Marvel star Josh Brolin recalls when Steven Spielberg brutally shot him down for overacting in The Goonies: "He wasn’t being an a**hole, he was right"
Nov. 11, 2024The star calls The Goonies “the greatest experience” of his life
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Josh Brolin has recalled when he was shot down by Steven Spielberg for being too pretentious whilst filming his first-ever movie, The Goonies.
“He looked at me, and he goes, ‘Yeah, just act. Just say what’s on the page,'” Brolin said in an interview withPeople Magazineof Spielberg. “He wasn’t being an asshole, he was right.”
In the 1985 movie, Brolin played Brandon Walsh, nicknamed ‘Brand’, a macho high schooler and older brother to the movie’s main character Mikey, played by Sean Astin. The film follows the two brothers and a gang of Mikey’s friends who discover an old pirate map and set out on an adventure to find hidden treasure. Directed by Richard Donner but based on a story by Spielberg, The Goonies also stars Corey Feldman, Jeff Cohen, Ke Huy Quan, Kerri Green, and Martha Plimpton.
Alongside Speilberg’s direction, Brolin remembers filming The Goonies as “probably the greatest experience of my life,” adding that he had been kicked out of his home at the time and was sleeping on a couch, desperately trying to get into acting. The star recalls: “Going through 350 or whatever auditions and people saying, ‘You should definitely find a different profession. You’re not good at this.’ And loving that challenge.”
On top of kick-starting Brolin’s career, The Goonies has become a cult classic and is well-loved almost 40 years later. Often regarded as one ofthe best ’80s movies, the film stands at a 91% audience score onRotten Tomatoesand even has its own Goonies Day in the US. Since then, Brolin has starred in numerous Marvel movies, Academy-winning flicks such as No Country for Old Men, and Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epicsDuneandDune: Part Two.
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