When we watch movies or television shows, we often put actors into the roles that they are playing. We sometimes forget that they are people and have lives of their own.
For those who are familiar with Josh Brolin, you may think of him as being one of the realist people in Hollywood. It seems as if he also is a real individual in life, and we see this in his new memoir.
We have an opportunity to see behind the scenes and we learn more about Josh from what he writes. All of this comes in the book entitled: “From Under the Truck.” In the book, he talks about how a lot of drinking one evening ended with the boyfriend of his mother passing out under a vehicle.
Joe speaks about his mother when talking about his childhood memories. She was a conservationist, and when Josh and his brother, Jess were young, she used to play a trick on them. Wild animals in the area would run after the boys after the mother told the animals to ‘Sic ’em’.
He wrote: “You knew if you didn’t get on the other side of that shut door within a couple of seconds, you’d be cleaning up fresh bloody marks somewhere on your body for the rest of the day.”
Many of us would likely not look at those memories as being something fond from our past, and Josh does admit that they were terrifying. He said that his mother was a difficult person to be around but she was still someone he wanted to be around.
Josh’s 55 years old when his mother passed away in a car accident. That was in 1995, and he considered 55 to be a good age to die, especially when he was dealing with his addiction. He thought that by the time you’re 55, you had lived a good life.
These days, Josh is 56, so he has outlived his mother by a year. He realizes now that 55 is not a long life, and he has a lot to live for now that he has kicked his addiction and seen the other side.
His father, James Brolin is married to Barbra Streisand. At times, he has also discussed how Streisand was as a stepmother.
He spoke about her and her ‘tough love’. One time he remarked: “Well into our happily-ever-after I walked into their house one day: ‘I’ll have a glass of wine’, I said. She looked at me and cocked her head, so I repeated myself. ‘I’ll have a glass of red wine, please.’
“She took a slow breath then hit me with it: ‘Aren’t you an alcoholic?’ It was a pretty ballsy thing to say … She always had a way of washing her tongue with a bulls*** cleanser before she talked with me.
“(I said) ‘I’m an alcoholic, but I like red wine’. (She said) ‘You shouldn’t drink’.”
In speaking about getting older, he also said: “I like getting older. It’s like a great excuse to finally go, ‘OK, just mellow out, you don’t need to constantly spin.”
In his memoir, he also talks about how his addiction got started. He was nine years old when he tried marijuana for the first time and was 13 when he did LSD. He remembers going to his grandmother’s death bed and smelling of alcohol, which really made him think.
His 99-year-old grandmother was on her deathbed and he had come in from the streets after waking up. He was hungover and he knew at that moment that he had a lot to live for.
He said: “I knew that was going to be the last time I drank.”
In speaking of his sobriety, he says: “I love being sober. I have more fun. There’s nothing that I go through that I am absolutely certain wouldn’t be worse if I was drinking.”
