Josh Brolin's 12-Hour Acid Trip, Missing Son and An Expletive-Filled Awards Speech: It's All in From Under the Truck

Josh Brolin documents his life on and off the screen in his new memoir Under the truck.

Now, the 56-year-old actor is a caring father of four and has been sober for 11 years. But he’s come a long way to get here. His new book, out on November 19, details his “unconventional childhood” and his rise to stardom in hit films such as Goonies and There is no country for old men.

Brolin also reflects seriously on his close relationship with his late, fearless mother Jane Agee Brolin and how her death affected him, as well as his own experiences with addiction and fatherhood.

How ‘Dad’ Josh Brolin Breaks the ‘Generational Train of Self-Destruction’ With His Own Kids (Exclusive)

From the tragic loss of his best friend in his youth to the advice he received from famed director Steven Spielberg, here are the biggest bombshells from the book.

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Brolin’s best friend Danny died by suicide

Josh Brolin at the ‘Dina’ photo call: Part Two’ February 14, 2024.

Jeff Spicer/Getty

Before he became a movie star, Brolin was a kid living in rural California. In a chapter of his book that takes place in 1979, he wrote that when he was 11 years old, he had a best friend named Danny who was three years older than him. Despite their mutual closeness, Brolin often felt that Danny carried a grudge against him until his tragic death.

“I mean, he loved me as much as we all loved each other, considering your nearest neighbor was at least a mile away, but there was always something extra that stung him about me,” he wrote.

That year, Bolin moved away while Danny stayed and would soon die by suicide. Looking back now, the actor noted that his friend was “upset, but not much more than the rest of us.”

One tragic night, on his father’s birthday, Danny “went berserk” after learning that his mother was not his birth mother. According to Brolin, the boy had been drinking at the time and retired to his room to possibly “take a nap.”

“But when he woke up, it was all still there: reality in hell,” the actor continued. “He grabbed a .22 rifle. We all had them. It was our bucolic pride flag. He loaded it. He walked out his bedroom door and turned the corner into the living room.”

Danny asked those in the room, “Do you think I’ll do it?” before pulling the trigger and shooting himself. “He was 14, a time when you just let kids be kids. We took turns pulling each other around the yard in a red wagon. We climbed trees. We walked miles to each other’s farms. We didn’t shoot each other, but we did,” Brolin lamented. .

He felt “weird” to be a part of Goonies

(L-R) Martha Plimpton, Josh Brolin and Ke Huy Quan in ‘The Goonies’.

Warner Brothers/Everett Collection

Brolin felt out of place when he acted Goonies — which marked his acting debut at the age of 16. He recalled how he was picked up by a car and taken to the airport with his guardian to go on a shoot for several months. There he met his co-stars – Sean Astin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Ke Huy Quan and Martha Plimpton – and other people from the production team.

“I can’t help but feel like I did something right for the first time in my life,” Brolin wrote of the moment at the airport, “but also maybe it’s a mistake to be here.” The actor went on to recall how he felt out of order next to his colleagues because many of them had already starred in other projects.

“It’s very strange that I’m here with them, a part of it,” he added. “I’ve never been a part of anything but people no one else wanted to be a part of.”

Steven Spielberg ruled out Josh Brolin on this piece Goonies Feedback: ‘He Was Right’ (Exclusive)

Steven Spielberg gave Brolin some advice

Jeff Cohen, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Ke Huy Quan and Corey Feldman in ‘The Goonies’.

Cinematheque/Shutterstock

In the cult classic film, Brolin played Brandon “Brand” Walsh’s older brother to Astin’s Michael “Mikey” Walsh. The two filmed their first scene together in October 1984, which was also Brolin’s first filming experience. “The scene was touching and emotional, but about the fifth frame we had a fit of laughter that I couldn’t control,” Brolin wrote.

Now, in retrospect, Brolin suspects that his behavior was due to his nerves. But at the time, he recalled watching Spielberg – who co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Columbus – and feeling like he had his approval. “Steven Spielberg was on set watching, and I think he liked it,” he wrote. “He smiled a little once. He told me to relax. I’ll remember that.”

Brolin’s mother almost got involved with the producer Goonies

Josh Brolin; Jane Cameron Agee.

Warner Brothers/Everett Collection; Collection of Ron Galella/Getty

In March 1985, Brolin invited his mother, Jane, to be with him while he finished filming Goonies. The actor recalled being pressured to do so, writing: “She’s my mother and I’d be a bad son not to include her.” He told her to hold back, to which she said, “What should I do, nothing?”

A few days later, Brolin received a call from his mother that she was “going out” with crew members and that one of the film’s producers had proposed to her. The alleged encounter took place in her hotel room, when the producer visited her, “dropped his pants and wanted to get to it.”

His mother denied the producer’s molestation and told him: “If you think I would fuck … someone wearing blue boxers, you must be crazy.”

After that, Brolin claims, the producer called the young actor into his office and told him that his mother was “sick and might need help.” He came to his mother’s defense and told the producer, “Because she wouldn’t fuck you?” After that he was asked to leave his office.

He thought his son Trevor would not survive birth

Josh Brolin and his son Trevor.

Josh Brolin/Instagram

Brolin welcomed his son Trevor with his first wife Alice Adair in 1988. He recalled the traumatic birth in his memoirs, in which he wrote that his son was “dark blue” when he was born.

Brolin described the baby as “tiny, helpless and limp.” The actor recalled how the doctor patted the newborn on the back to help him take his first breaths, before moments passed and the doctor “looked up at the nurse and she ran out the door”.

“Something is seriously wrong,” he wrote. “Everyone has changed. The government is panicking. That is no longer a question.”

Brolin and Adair’s firstborn survived, and they later learned that it was “just some mucus stuck in his throat that he didn’t want to let go yet.”

Brolin once went on a 12-hour acid trip that turned out badly

Josh Brolin at the premiere of ‘Dine: Part Two’ on February 25, 2024.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

In 1981, Brolin and friends took acid for the first time, resulting in a 12-hour trip. “It was as hopeful a day as I could get,” the actor wrote. “Not only did I get over the cave that turned me from a boy to a man, but I made progress. I came to what I thought was the beginning of a happier life.”

When he “came down after 12 o’clock, just as the sun was beginning to set, I knew that life was good and that it should be lived, experienced and tasted with a fully extended, exposed tongue.”

However, not everything was rosy in Brolin’s experiences with drugs. Later he had a terrible experience during which he saw “epileptic faces, desperate children, furious animals coming at me”.

Josh Brolin reveals in new memoir that he tried acid at 13 and was stabbed once before turning his life around (Exclusive)

Brolin’s son Trevor disappeared while filming There is no country for old men

Josh Brolin in ‘No Country For Old Men’ from 2007.

Paramount/Shutterstock

While Brolin was filming There is no country for old men in the summer of 2006, he received a phone call informing him that his son Trevor, who would have been around 18 at the time, was missing. He was told that Trevor had gone out with his friends the night before and never returned, and that two unidentified burn victims had been brought to a local hospital.

Brolin recalled feeling like he had “no control” over his body after hanging up. “I started slipping into visions of what it was like to have a son who was going to pass. This can’t be,” he wrote.

From there, the actor called hospitals in Los Angeles to see if his son had appeared, but had no luck. “Everybody had somebody dead,” he recalled.

Brolin eventually located his son at the last hospital he called, where Trevor was “fine” and recovering from alcohol poisoning.

Brolin gave a profanity-laced speech after praising Milk

Josh Brolin in the movie ‘Milk’ from 2008.

Focus/Kobal/Shutterstock

In 2008, Brolin starred in a biographical drama Milk – based on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk – alongside Sean Penn. The role earned him the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Brolin recalled walking the red carpet “where several photos were taken: my heavy arm around Sean’s shoulders; another of me yelling something at the photographers and a few of me looking behind me at something that probably wasn’t there.”

The actor also gave a profanity-laced speech while accepting his award, despite being warned against it by his agent.

“The wine started talking about other actors, about certain writers. Words like mother—er and piece of s— rolled off my tongue to a growing murmur of shock and disgust,” he wrote. “There I was in my apparent and so temporary pulpit with all eyes on me, pontificating about how I looked at awards and how I ‘don’t care about the people who doubted me or tried to erase me.’ ”

Afterward, Brolin recalled, “A few people clapped quietly. My publicist didn’t and instead was looking at the ground. Sean gave a friendly smile, like your brother would do when you’re being wheeled back into trauma surgery.”

Under the truck Josh Brolin is available now, wherever books are sold.

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Source: HIS Education