Josh Brolin: Character Actor
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Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. It's me, Rob Lowe. I'm so excited to have Josh Brolin. Dude, one of my favorite. I don't think this man has ever given a bad performance. He's amazing. Truly, truly, truly one of my all-time favorite actors and his filmography is, you know, beyond belief. And now he's an author and his memoir from Under the Truck is out now. And I was blown away by it.

A lot of people out there thinking they can write books. And I got to be honest, a lot of them, this guy can write. And we recorded this live in my neighborhood and his old neighborhood at Godmother's, which is a great bookshop up in Montecito. So a lot of fun stuff. And let's just get right at it. Hi, everybody. I see some neighbors. I see some friends. I see some Cito rats. I'm going to talk a lot about that.

Oh, hello. Oh, hello. Oh, hello. Hey, Adam. I'm super nervous. Adam Levine's in the front row. I'm super fucking nervous now. I know it's super intimate. I've done a few of these and they've been like, we were in Austin. We had 1200 people in Austin and then we showed LA and nobody showed up and everybody was self-conscious. The people who did, it was very typical for LA, but this is nice. This is nice. I'm going to say fuck a few times. So you guys could with that.

That guy hasn't, that guy hasn't smiled once. Well, I want to open by saying I love, and this sounds, this description sounds like I'm making less of the genre somehow when I say celebrity memoir. There's something about the word, well, the word celebrity, we probably, I bet we both don't love that word is my guess, right? But it is the genre that,

And I love that genre. There are some amazing, amazing, amazing celebrity memoirs. And so when you wrote yours, I was like, this is my favorite genre. You are one of my favorite actors. And, um, I was flabbergasted by your ability to write.

Thanks, man. The prose in this book is so spectacular, you guys. And I kept thinking, what is that about? Because it's not like you went to Harvard. That's probably why he writes so good. I kind of look like I didn't go to Harvard, didn't I? Like a Neanderthal thing. But you really, and I knew within, it's one of those things also that I love that it didn't take me

Three pages, four pages. Like I knew immediately that this was going to be a special book. And also the way you had the confidence to let it be so impressive. It's really impressionistic. I was trying to think, how would I describe it? It's super, super impressionistic.

Can I interrupt you for one second? Yeah, absolutely. No, no, no. Not that I think you're talking too much. I don't. It's your fucking podcast. You just don't want the compliments. It's your podcast, dude. But did you have a pre, because we don't know each other well, well. Right. We've met a few times. We've talked a few times, spent a little time together. Was there kind of a predetermined idea that you had? Like once you got the book, you go, oh, I think it will be this or. I will say, and I love the title, The Cover Art.

And we talked about how much I love it. That tips you that it's going to be sort of punk rock, rock and roll, super don't give a fuck. Right. Do you know what I mean? I think that's well put. You look at mine. Mine's like, please buy my book. Please buy my book. Hello. Please buy my book. That's what like my cover looks like. Well, they said that to me. And I think it was based not on your cover, but a few covers, which was we want a really handsome picture of you, like maybe in front of a pool.

Yes, yes. See-through shirt on. See, and that's like, I'm the... It's like, are you sure you want to see this? Yes! Dad, mom, let's go! I'm a character actor. But, like, no, you are... If I'm the poster boy for people-pleasing, he's the poster boy for, like... Of everything else. Sticking a thumb up somebody's nose. But, no, but I love...

So yes, I knew I was in for something different just from the cover, which is great because sometimes you do judge a book by the cover. I love the idea of going into something, even like what we're talking about personality-wise or celebrity-wise, of going into something and saying, I expect that and getting something different. 100%. Well, and also you have...

the benefit as we all do when we come from a different discipline of the bar's very low. Do you know what I mean? Like, I've made my whole career out of, like, low expectations and it has nothing to do with my name. You know, it's like, you know, I...

That's not true. People don't expect much and then you kind of over deliver and it's great. So. Well, you did Wayne's World. I mean, you just said, fuck it. And you did Wayne's World. And then you went and you did the series, which you were amazing on. Oh, thank you. Seriously. Like no bullshit. I mean, I would tell you right now if I didn't think so. I know you wouldn't. You're a straight shooter. You know, I know that. I read your book. All right. Good. I'm glad that's what you got from it. And then I think about the similarities you started. I grew up in Malibu when it was rough.

and tumble and people can't believe that Malibu was ever like, like working class tough. And then I read about you growing up in Montecito with the Cito rats. Right. Which nobody also, that's the parallel between you and me is I know Sean and, you know, Emilio and all those guys. And those were parents that lived there because they were outsiders. They were misfits. That was a place you didn't go that far. And it was cheap out there in Montecito. Now,

You know, there's godmothers in Montecito. Oh, look at this. So fancy. Super expensive.

- Membership. But like back in the day, like Montecito had a couple of people that kind of like Malibu who lived there, like outsider artists, but it was- - The odd rock star. - Pretty severe place. - You know, maybe you had Joe Walsh. - We did have Joe Walsh. - We had Bob Dylan. - Bob, really? - Yeah. - That's cool. - Bob's still there on Point Doom. - No, you had Bob Dylan, yes. - Yes, not up here, yes. - Oh, I thought we got him. - No, no, you never got him. He's ours. We're not giving Bob away.

And there's something about the sort of, you know, what do they always say at the Montessori Planning Commission when I try to build something? Semi-rural, semi-rural. There's something about the semi-rural feel of,

That is such a weird dichotomy with what you guys got up to. And what you talk about in the book is the, the CETO use. Is it like, do you think it's just the typical teenage boredom? Um, or was it something more? Cause I love when you talk about your teenage years here because I relate so much. It's a perfect segue and you and I haven't talked about this, but can I read something? Yes, please. I was going to do it the other way around.

But I think it's a good time for me to read this. I'll try not to be. I'll try to get through it in a way. Bear with me. Talk amongst yourselves. I'm going to give you like a real voiceover type intro. Josh Brolin, A Memoir from Under the Truck. 1981. That was really good, Rob. Thank you so much for the introduction. Thank you. 1981. 1981.

I don't remember what day it was, but it must have been during a weekend. I was over at Jason's at the back end of the wrong side of the house, in his makeshift room against the garage. It was the same room where later at 15 I made him tattoo me in Indian ink with a crude needle just above the scapula on my right shoulder. JB. That's all it said. Me. My moniker. My brothers, the Cito Rats.

Rich kids on LSD. RKL hadn't started yet, but it was soon to be. It was pre that. This was all of us skateboarding and surfing. This was getting a ride from Matt Mondragon's hunchback grandmother D in the blue rusted Datsun 510 wagon with all of our boards roped and bungee corded to its roof. Let's fucking go.

Dee was our geriatric mascot. She was our head cheerleader with a walker, and she gave us everything she had readily and happily, especially her time.

This was the late 1970s and the early 1980s. This is when McDonald's was good for you. And when hitchhiking didn't wind you up, kidnapped and kept in some underground shelter for seven years. This was the beginning of a whole new era of angry adolescent LSD explorers spearheaded locally by us. And it was the beginning of the cocaine craze that none of us would be able to afford and all of us would steal, fight and fuck rich old ladies for.

I mean, I mean, huh? Well, how do you like your membership so far? This was the time when the guys I hung out with didn't run from cops, but instead threw full bottles of cheap gin at their windshields. Kenny, this was the era of the herb estate, the actual house where Mike Herbert and his single drunk mother lived.

A spray-painted middle-class home ripped of all its bourgeoisie and replaced with our rage, a rage fueled by all the self-absorbed parents who would rather chew their respective ice than bother themselves with children. We built half-pipes in their backyards and stole their cars when they were sleeping to go to parts of town where they'd sell us cases of beer for ten cents on the dollar. This was before the heroin epidemic and back when Led Zeppelin was considered as punk as anyone willing not to show up at fucking Woodstock.

Woo!

Any of them here tonight? That's Mike Herbert right there. One of them. Yeah. I can't believe he's still here.

Then there was the bottle shop parking lot on Coast Village Road where we all spent our time and got arrested more often than not. These were the years when we'd sneak out of town, hop in a van, end up at Godzilla's in San Fernando Valley, 90 miles away, scared, bloodied, willing, and smiling. The trips were well worth the induction into a movement that was as close to feeling to cleaning a wolf's cage at seven years old as I'd known since. And compared to everything else around us, it was the best thing going on.

It's the, and I do believe the house that you reference. Yes. Is now, did you see how the world has changed? That property is now owned by Prince Harry. So that tells you, I mean, I'm not saying things have changed. That's not true. Just saying. Right. Right.

We also share, how do I put this? Because both of our mothers have passed on. They don't know what the hell we're saying about them right now. They probably, they may do. They might. But we both have iconoclastic? Interesting? Crazy? Mothers? Mothers. For sure, mine. I don't know about yours. I mean, bro. Your mother as a character in the book is unbelievable. And it's amazing to me.

It's not amazing, but it's just, I think it's interesting how much real estate she takes up in the book. Mm-hmm. And endlessly fascinating. And again, I relate so much because my mom yanked me and my brother and dragged us to Point Doom, which was then like not a place you dragged anybody to. She's dragged you guys up into the Central Coast. Paso Robles, yeah. Paso Robles. Mm-hmm. And then...

What, how did you, how did you handle not only writing her story, but writing people in the book that you know they're going to read about? Obviously your mother isn't, but there's Barbara, there's your dad.

Because I also was like, oh, God, my dad's going to read this and he's going to worry he's not in it as much as whatever. Was that that was true, right? Oh, I worried about that stuff when I know I'm saying. But your dad was not in the book as much as you mentioned your mother. For sure, because he wasn't in my life as much as my mother. Psychically or physically? Both. Me too.

Same. Yeah. So my mother, I didn't have an intention 'cause I think yours was a little more linear than mine. Way, yes. I was, yeah. Which I see things in vignettes. I see everything in vignettes and I see everything in contrasting vignettes, which gets me a little paranoid sometimes 'cause when things are going really well,

I feel like the law of averages, it's not that shoe is always gonna drop. I don't feel that way and I don't feel victimized in any way. I just know that's how the world works. A great kind of illustration of that is "No Country." The end of "No Country," people say, "Oh, you know, the end... We want a movie that's not in a perfect Hollywood bow." And then you give them a movie like that where you expect the villain and the protagonist to go head to head at the end. And my character Llewellyn just dies.

And that's kind of how life is. Do you know what I mean? And that's how I see it. And that's how I embrace it. I can't believe this happened. It's like, I believe anything can happen at any time. And that might be because of the kind of chaotic vortex that I grew up in. So I didn't think about that. The book kind of dictated itself.

I didn't even intend, like I'm looking at journal writings and I see, oh yeah, there's one of my mom and then this. But she had the biggest impact. So it started to dictate itself that when I wrote 450 pages and then I started to really kind of severely cut it down into clarity and simplicity, that's what was left. How much journaling did you have to work with? 88 full journals. No way. Yeah, like this high.

Yeah. A lot of time on my hands. A lot of drugs. Up to four in the morning. I was doing other things. It was not journaling. You were a teen idol. So tell me...

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One of my favorite stories is, please tell me, I've already told it to people because it's so great, your interaction with Steven Spielberg on Goonies.

It's one of my favorite things ever. Yeah, well, I was, you know, I'd come from here and nobody knew that. So I went into this kind of innocent, kind of beautiful thing. You know, it's like the Goonies. And I got kicked out of my house by my mom in Santa Barbara. I stopped by the bottle shop. My mom was picking up a bottle of booze.

I saw this dude, I saw my girlfriend, Stacey Gunderson, and I had to say goodbye and I was crying and all that. So I drove my Honda Civic wagon, just the lamest car you could be driving, down there and I stayed on my dad's couch. My dad was with his second wife at that time, not yet his wife. And I really wanted to try something new. I had missed 36 out of 56 days of school in Santa Barbara High.

And so I wasn't really going anyway. And so I went down there and I said like, and I started martial arts. I started doing martial arts like on a crazy level twice a day, sometimes three times a day. And then I said, maybe I should do this acting thing. It's like kind of what everybody resorts to when they don't know what to do. They either become a real estate agent or an actor. 100%. So I chose acting. And then I made up a total bullshit plan.

resume. Like I remember the Libero theater. Yeah, of course. But I, but I said the Libero international theater. And I did. And I'd known a couple of plays and I wrote them down. Anyway, I think they probably knew, but then, and then one agent finally picked me up. I think she knew and she finally picked me up.

And what was the initial question that you asked? Oh, Stephen. Oh, Stephen. So ultimate. So I went through 350 auditions. Wait, is that real? That's no, no, no, no. On my children. 350 auditions. On my children. Like I remember four auditions a day at some time, at some point.

Or I would go in there and I'd hear like you or I'd hear, you know, Sean or whoever else, like Chris Penn, you know what I mean? You'd hear us behind the wall? Like, yeah. And then like, fuck, they're good. And they'd come out and then I would get in there and I would always get super nervous. I've always been a very kind of fear-based person, you know? Those are the days when we had to audition in front of people that now everybody's on Zoom and on tape. But when we came up, literally you would sit in a room and you'd hear somebody just crushing it. Crushing it. On the other side of the door. I'm like, oh, I wasn't going to do it that way. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Tim Hutton would walk out with his Oscar in his hand. Yeah, with an Oscar in his hand. Totally. No, seriously, seriously. And so it was, I think Goonies was like quite an accident. You know, I went in there, I'd been told like, you know, they did, they pulled the Brolin thing. Are you Brolin's kid? Yeah, okay, you want to be an actor, huh? So instead of that kind of nepotistic thing, which I think you probably understand, they looked at me and they were like, oh yeah?

So act. Yeah, show us. And I'd be like, I'm not going to help you because I know that you think you're going to make it because, you know, which is just ridiculous. So I studied and this is the setup as I studied and I got Stanislavski books and I got Grotowski, The Poor Theater, and I got Antonin Artaud and The Theater of Cruelty. I mean, I literally stayed in a bookstore 90% of the time, just reading, reading, reading.

And then I met Dick Donner and Steven Spielberg. And I just looked right for that part. You look at Sean Astin, you look at the type of movie it is. I looked, I didn't look like a, you know, I didn't look like a bat. I looked like a little bit of a bad boy, but sort of a jock and I was in good shape or whatever. So they were like, that's the guy. I went back six times just so they could make sure. And then I did it. And then I was on the set. I'm reading all this stuff with these tiny little wooden trailers and I

And I came to Steven at some point, we were in one of the tunnels and I said, "Hey Steven, can I talk to you for a second?" He was like, "Yeah, sure." - How old at this point? - 16. Like really dumb too, 'cause I'd missed a lot of school.

So I said, hey, what do you think about, like, don't you think that the tunnels kind of represent my mother's womb? And like, what if we film me kind of climbing up the tunnel, but really I'm trying to get, I'm trying to cut that emotional umbilical cord of my mother and I can have tears coming down my face. And I went into this whole thing and I was getting all excited because he was nodding his head. And then I waited. And then he looked at me and he said,

Why don't you just act? Just say the words on the page. You'll be fine. It's my favorite thing ever. No, but that's the truth. And I could have been like, dick. But I didn't. I was like, oh, totally. I got it. Right? For sure. Like, I was thinking the same thing. What am I thinking? You know?

Yeah. Keep it simple. Keep it simple, stupid. That's like, uh, I had a friend who did a movie with Clint, who's appears in your book is a lot of people have great appearances in your book. And I want to get it to Tommy Lee Jones and Nick Nolte in a minute. Um,

But a friend of mine was a young actor like you. And, you know, we grew up idolizing these guys. They're our heroes. That's why we got in the business. And then we find ourselves on a set with them if we're lucky enough. And my friend was co-starring with Clint. And Clint is a man of few words. He hadn't said anything, really. My friend is starring in the movie. First day of shooting, sun's not even up. He's like, my friend's sweating, going, I don't even know what we're doing. And he gathers up his nerve, knocks on Clint's dressing room. Clint goes, yeah. Yeah.

He's like, I just was wondering, it's our first day and everything. And if you wanted to maybe, I don't know, talk about how we're going to do it and stuff like that. What we're going to do. Well, I think we're going to hit our marks and say a few words. Yeah.

But like for real, verbatim. The old school guys, right? It's true. Just do your stuff. Explain to me the Nick. Nick Nolte is like, well, how did you do it? It's great. There's a literary conceit. And if I was smart enough about literature, I'd know what it is. But like the character that comes waiting for Godot, that comes through the book, that doesn't ever, he's kind of sprinkled throughout it.

And yet you don't really ever have that relationship with them, but he's kind of like this knowing figure that's observing you. But I did. I mean, you brought it up earlier. It's like, what people did you choose? Like, I was very conscious of not name dropping. There's a story in there about famous people trying to impress other famous people, and it's kind of like a satire. Right. And then it goes into this guy trying to impress this famous person by using, by dropping famous names. Right. And then it goes, it finally...

gets deconstructed into this place where this guy gets so fucking tired and nothing's working. And he finally gets to this place where he has these really kind of visceral, basic memories of people that may have been in his life that will never be known. Just people.

Like the person he fell in love with in that train station and the relationship literally lasted in Copenhagen four hours. And when he left on that train at 18 years old, she was crying. And that's the truth. So you go down into that memory. And the whole point is like, I don't, so I really stopped myself from doing that. Like, I don't want to do names, names, names. I could have done it, you know?

Things instantly go to number one when you do that. You know, this one. Number three. Number three. Number three. Who's counting? All right, good. Number three. Anyway. No, I hear you. But the truth is, is that, you know, like Nick, Nick was in my life in a major way. Nick saved my life. I don't have that in the book.

So the moment that, and I'll try not to go off on too long of a tangent, but the moment I got in a fight with my wife, I have red cords on, I'm 20 years old, I have a six month old kid. - Were they OPs? - They were probably OPs. I had no shoes.

I had no shirt on. I was in some kind of like frenetic rage or whatever. And I'm walking down the street on Columbus Avenue by 85th Street between 85th and 86th. And I looked to my left or 84th. I looked to my left and I somehow never had seen him before. Locked eyes with Nick Nolte. And I knew at that moment I was looking at him seeing my future and he was looking at me seeing his past. And I was like, it was just a moment. And it wasn't actor to actor. It was actor to some crazy dude on the street.

You know what I mean? So you take that and then that story turns into Philip Seymour Hoffman and me talking to him and him having one foot in the direction that he wanted to go, which was away from me and the other one that was willing to hear me out a little bit. Cut to, you know, how many years later I'm doing a scene with Nick Nolte, this close. And we're breathing, he had this idea of breathing in the same pattern.

He was like, I'm going to kill you, which is in the movie. Right? And he said, I'm going to find your breath. And when you breathe in, I'm going to be breathing out. When you breathe, I'm like, this is fucking Nick Nolte. This is the gnarly shit. You know what I mean? And then later on, I actually got...

involved deeply in drugs and he saved my life. And the whole relationship lasted up until very recently, until I moved. Last time I ran into Nick Nolte, he was in his pajamas. Always. At the market in Malibu. At the market, right.

And he was like, you still live next to Martin Sheen? I go, I do. He goes, where is Marty anyway? And I said, he's actually in Nicaragua. He's working with the Sandinistas. He goes, oh, Nicaragua, Nicaragua, Nicaragua. And he fell into a can of potted beans. I know the story. I know the story. Yeah.

But it's more like when he talked to you, he went, he didn't even get Nicaragua out. Tommy Lee Jones is another, and, and laconic, laconic. He has some really great moments in your book as well. And then you, by the way, your performance as young Tommy Lee Jones, bro.

is one of the great pleasures. It really is amazing. Now, how did he feel about that? I don't know. No way. No, no, no. I did three movies with the guy. So No Country, we did that whole thing. And then we did, what was the other one? In the Valley of Elah.

with Paul Haggis and then we were doing Men in Black 3 and I was freaking out because I had done a little Tommy Lee Jones impression but you can just say a few words and kind of get away with an impression you know or whatever that was great it's just what it is you know what I mean and then and then you got to go down and like do like a full movie of dialogue you know and Will Smith and Will Smith's established that character so I went down to Mexico and I took

I took a computer down their garage band and I just watched Men in Black 1 over and over and over and over and over. And I just wasn't getting it. And I was drinking, so then I would drink and go out and like, you know, it just was a bad deal. And then Tommy, I'd see Tommy and I'd be like, "Hey," and we went to Korea to promote. And I said, "Hey, Tommy." And I was always trying to talk to Tommy because like, there's similarities there, you know? Horses, I grew up with horses. You know, "Hey, you know, how you doing? I'm fine."

Cool. So what'd you think of the movie? And you're like, hmm, man, give me nothing. So I've just figured the whole result is I figured the conclusion is that he hated me.

And then a friend of his came up to me maybe a couple years later and they said, hey, I'm a friend of Tommy's. Tommy loves you. I'm like, what the fuck? I've done three movies with Tommy and he won't give me the time of day and he loves me. But that's Tommy.

I that's Tommy. So I'm at the Sandy Cedar ranch at the, what's the fancier restaurant? The one upstairs, right? Oh yeah. Well, I'll tell you a long ago was across the room was Tommy Lee Jones and Richard Farnsworth. Oh no way. The gray Fox, the gray Fox. And I don't really know Tommy. We had the same agent that like whatever. And, and he's looking at me and he's looking at me and I'm like,

And then finally, I'm like, I just kind of acknowledge him. And he goes, yeah. He did? Did he really? For real? Yes. For real. 100%. Yeah. Tommy is also a Cito rat, by the way. Oh, he's a real. I mean, in his own way. You know what I mean? Then he was like, finally.

At the end of the night, I think he comes over and he's like, hey, Tommy, how are you? He goes, because I'm taking this man to see a horse. Like you needed it. I don't know what that was. I'm like, oh, okay, well, good luck with that. That's Tommy, man. I mean, it's just like you never know what's coming. And that's great on film, but if you have to live with it, forget it. ♪

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My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Well, you've done so many great movies and, you know, great actors do great movies. So you have a lot of...

experience with some very, like, you know, the Denzel stuff is great. That's a great story. I mean, you know, I've, I've, I've heard that he's one of my favorite actors and they operate from a place of, um, of very, very serious intensity almost all the time. Yeah. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. Yes. Um,

Talk to me about your sobriety journey a little bit. That's another thing we share both sober a long time now. Um, I went out yesterday.

It's like not even funny, but it's super funny to me. No, it is. I had a guy say that to me the other day. No, for real? Yes. Bummer. And I was like famous actor. And I thought he was kidding and he wasn't. And I was like... It's usually I went out, but you know what? I'm just drinking beer right now. It's just a few beers. Oh, yeah. Or my favorite. Yeah. You know, I got sober so young. I got like, I mean, I got...

You did that really well, man. It's like you've said that before. You did that so well. Yeah, I got sober at like 24. Like, I...

And mostly it was like the coke. I just want to... It was never really alcohol for me. No, and look, I'm moving to France anyway. I'm moving to France. I'm moving to France. What am I supposed to do there and not drink? I'm in France. It's France. I'm not going to get fucked up. I don't want to have a glass of wine. And within six months, they've bitten a cop in the face. Dude.

It never fails. You're killing it, dude. Never fails. That's funny. Not once have I heard that story end well. That's funny, dude. You sound like us now, man. Right? Yeah, it's true. That was really funny, Rob. Good on you, man. I've heard that story many, I've been that story. I've been that story. You know, I got sober at 19.

I was looking at 14 years in prison at that time. I had a baby on the way. I had fought six cops. And, you know, you end up going to prison for that kind of stuff, you know? And I was watching a lot of Bruce Lee movies at the time. It's the most... I'm not going to tell the whole story. I went over to his house.

I think I was supposed to help him do something. But then I got there and I was like, oh, God, I just remembered drugs. We should go get some drugs. And it was three o'clock in the morning. And he was like, no, dude, get out of here. I want to go. He was with his mom. Anyway, I ended up hitting him. And so he says, I'm out of here. And this is chaos. And then the cops show up. And he said, as he was closing the door, he's watching me turn around and face the cops. And what he heard as the door was closing was, whoa.

I mean, is that the truth? 100%. So I didn't do, and again, I was into martial arts and all that, so I didn't, it wasn't horrible.

But he goes, so he goes, so he went to the hospital to go get stitched up and he saw two of those cops at the hospital. He was like, oh, my bro's fucked up. Like he's going to jail for sure. And they took my clothes because I got to the booking room and I was ankle cuffed and I was handcuffed. I don't know why I'm laughing, but it's funny, man. And I was, and I was begging the cops. I was like, look, you're cutting off the circulation. My feet are starting to swell. Just like, what am I going to do? I'm already in the booking room.

You know, and so I finally convinced him to take off the ankle cuffs and I attacked him again. Cito rats, bro. He's a bad, bad man. It wasn't. How did you get domesticated? I don't know, man. Montecito was different back then. I don't know. It was just different. You know? Anyway. So, yeah, I woke up naked. They took my clothes as evidence. And I woke up naked having no idea what I had done.

And then I saw six counts of assault with a deadly weapon without firearm. And I was like, ooh. So I ended up doing a few months and then I would go, I was in a halfway house after that. And I would drive from the halfway house to the birthing class, you know, one, two, three, one, two, three. And Trevor's 36 years old now and eight years sober and a cool motherfucker. Wow. That's good. That's great. The nervous applause.

Um, how, talk to me. And I moved back recently. Can you believe moving back to this area? There's ghosts on every corner, literally for you, right? No, I could tell you a whole story and I won't get into it. No, but I got so stressed out about moving here because it represented something very specific to me that I ended up contracting a mild case of Bell's palsy.

from the stress? Absolutely. A hundred percent. There's nothing else to blame it on. The last time I got Bell's palsy,

17 years ago when I was thinking about moving back up here. Wow. So the two times I've gotten Bell's palsy are when I was thinking about moving up here. And then I moved up here and I was like, oh, it's all good. I was going to say, have you gotten through the other side of it where the memories aren't the number one thing you think of when you walk down? No, not only that, all these good memories are starting to come up.

I'm like, wow. I remember when I was on Biltmore, we're down in Butterfly, we're at Miramar, all these great things. So all these things are kind of like popping out of the ground. Wow. My childhood wasn't as severe as I kind of like illustrated it to be. I had kind of made it, you know, which we do anyways, writers or storytellers, you make everything just more dramatic and more severe, but, and not that it wasn't, because I think it was, but it

all the other stuff kind of, you know, came to, and it's been really, really nice. It's good to have you back up here for sure. Appreciate it. Um, tell, talk a little bit about what you, you and I were sharing notes about writing and you were saying that you had a moment after you've finished the book. First of all, you had a moment writing the book when your editor said to you, what was with, do you know this story I'm talking about? Okay. Um, so you're,

The editor urged you, you got to a certain point in your life and you changed your writing style on the book. Oh, right. No. Yeah. My lit agent. Yes. Tell that story. Cause I think it's super interesting. My, my, my lit agent. So I was writing the book.

At first, it was in three chapters at that point. You know, the book has morphed a lot of different and it's been a very nonlinear kind of timeline now. But the first chapter, and then I was writing the second chapter and then there's a third chapter that was a letter to my children. And then, so the first chapter was done and writing the second chapter, but I was like, you know what, man, you

You know, the self-help section back in the day, because I've spent a lot of time in bookstores, spent my whole life in bookstores. The self-help section was like as big as the poetry section. You know, it was about that wide. It was about six feet tall and that's it. Now it's 75% of the bookstore. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And you have your thing. And why? Because they don't work or so you've got a lot to choose from or I don't know, whatever. We're all going for the same thing, but it's become a thing, you know, like ice baths.

And so equally enjoyable, maybe for some, I don't know. Um, but the thing was, is that I just had to feel like this is just too intense. It's too depressing.

It's just too much. There's a lot here. And I got to bring some inspiration to it. I got to bring some happy. I got to bring some, you know what I mean? All right, all right, all right. You know? Yay, green lights. Yeah, green lights. Green lights. And I love that book. But he has that sense about him always that I don't know, or at least I didn't perceive in myself that much. And so I started writing with that in mind, having told nobody.

And I wrote another 40,000 words like that. And it was just a small tweak. And then my Kimberly Witherspoon at Inkwell Management, she said, she read it, that draft. And she said, the first chapter, unbelievable. The writing's great. Writing's even better than it's been. It's very visceral, really hits you hard. It's great. You don't need to change much. We'll talk about a few things. What the fuck happened with chapter two? And I literally fell in love with that woman at that moment because I like,

straight shooting. I like honesty. I like humility. I like accountability. I've kind of become addicted to it. And even when it hurts, I kind of have the idea that the lesson is right around the corner. And I was like, what do you mean? And she said, it doesn't sound like you. You sound like you're trying to be somebody else. I had said nothing, man. So she saw me. She saw me

And she saw that weakness in me that was like, you like me, you like me. You're so inspiring, Josh. She's like, go back and write the whole thing over. I was like, fuck the whole thing. 40,000 words. 40,000 words. And it wasn't major tweaks, but they were, it was a tonal tweak. It's a point, it's a total point of view shift. Be yourself. It's okay. You're a writer, right?

And, and you, and again, you are, and that's what, that's, that's what blew my mind in the, in the book. Cause we all, everybody has stories, you know, and, and, and some are actually, some of us are actually storytellers, which is not everybody is, but some of us are, but the being able to write those stories in a way that is so moving. It's like your guy, Cormac McCarthy also makes a great story.

A couple of appearances in the book. Yeah. I mean, you're clearly inspired by that as well. How long? By him. By him as an anti-celebrity. Anti-celebrity. Yes, sir. What do you mean? Tell me what you mean by that.

I, I, there's something in the book that is the truth. You know, I was with Cormac the night he died. He died at 10 o'clock the next morning and his son called me and said, you know, something's really going downhill. Would you come over? My dad's asking about you. And I said, yeah, of course I will. And I just finished work. We were in Santa Fe and I went over there and it was me, Cormac. It was Cormac, his ex-wife, his son, and me. And Cormac was telling these crazy stories. It was like he was putting his finger back on these great memories that he loved. And he was talking about like, uh,

you know, having wine with Andre the Giant in Paris. Like, what? You know, and I had never heard any of these stories. And he would just tell it, and then he'd go to sleep, and then he'd wake up, and he'd tell another story and reach for a sip of Diet Coke. And so...

The thing with Cormac is he, you know, there was one time where I bought a typewriter like his and ironically, I bought a typewriter like his and I kind of showed up with the typewriter and it kind of hit it. And we're talking and we're having like just shitty steak and onions or whatever, burnt steak. And, and I go, oh, will you do me a favor? Just like, oh yeah, I had a thought. Would you do me a favor? Would you sign this? And he looked at me like, no, we have another thing.

Like, why do you need to validate yourself? And I was like, and I just spiraled. I was like, how, like, shame on me. And I knew, I just knew I had overstepped something that was fully organic.

And he went back. Luckily, it went back to this place where it was organic and all that. But he goes, you know, and he kind of pawned it off. Like he said, if I sign that, I'll have to sign other people's and all that. There was just something that he didn't want to talk about writing ever. I was just just tell me one person who you loved. And eventually he said Hemingway had some pretty good short stories, which are pretty fucking good, weren't they?

But even Sam Shepard was a friend of his and like loaned him the Santa Fe Institute, his little cubicle in Santa Fe Institute. So he had another place to write. And he had ALS, I think, at that time. And I said, what do you think of Sam's writing? He said, never read it. I said, you never read Sam Shepard's writing? He said, not a word. I said, did you avoid it? He said, no, I just never read.

got to it. He said, we had another thing. Yeah. We had another thing. Yeah. We were sleeping together. Um, no, he, yeah. So it was interesting to me. And eventually just to kind of conclude it, he just, he said like, I don't know. He finally one day said, I don't know why there's no reason for it. I sit down in front of my computer every day. I work

And it comes to me and I write it down. It was almost like he was saying, I'm a conduit. I don't know where this came from. It's just as much of a mystery to me as anything. And this stuff comes out. I'm like, yeah, but maybe our greatest American writer.

Maybe. Contemporary. Well, this has been great. Thank you so much, Art. Thank you, man. This was everything I thought it would be and more. Huge fan of you as a dad and a dude and a friend and an actor and so happy for you that this book is getting to kind of

credit that it deserves. Enjoy it. There's nothing like it. There's nothing. It's all you, bro. There's no editors. There's no score. There's no, you know, can't buy an opening weekend. Yeah. It's all you. So enjoy it. Thank you for doing this, man. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Thank you guys for coming. Josh, Kat Harper, National Steinbeck Center. Hi. Oh, nice to finally meet you face to face. Nice to finally meet you. I love Men in Black. People ask me,

You love Dune. Yes, I love Dune. But that role fascinated me. That's me as a viewer. What is your favorite role? I'll ask you the same thing. Prep you up. What is your favorite role that you've ever done and why?

What's my favorite role? I love how you make that even more dramatic than it should be. Do you know what I mean? What's your favorite role and why? Jonah Hex, probably my favorite. No, I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. Everybody was like, wow, that movie sucked. I tried to subdue my double-pick. I know, totally. I think the favorite, I mean, Goonies was like an amazing experience. I didn't know what I was doing. It was really fun. It was never that fun again.

I thought that's how every movie was done. And then I went and like reality hit and all that kind of stuff. And I spent 22 years just doing about it. But within those 22 years before No Country, and then it got fun 'cause it was about choice and it was about great filmmakers, it was about lack of ego. Great filmmakers, there was a real lack of ego. It was usually like the medium guys that would be into screaming or feeling like they had to direct you or do something. It was just kind of misdirected.

But I did a movie called Flirting with Disaster, where I played a, what it ended up being was a bisexual ATF agent with a lot of tattoos and an armpit fetish. And I really liked that one. Oddly enough, I followed that. Rent it.

Long time watcher, all the way back to Outsiders. Thank you. St. Elmo's Fire. Thank you. Same age group here. So yeah, totally on the same label. But Unstable, I think might be some of your best work ever. Thank you. But as I asked him, what's your favorite role that you've ever done? Well, thank you for the Unstable because my son wrote it and he's so talented. He's really a talented writer. Um,

It's funny listening to Josh's answer to that question. I could just give the exact same answer and just plug in different movies. Like I thought the outsiders was the way all movies were and I never had more fun. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. And I thought every movie was like that. And then also like Josh's answer, I'm going deeply obscure and deeply dark and deeply twisted. Uh, I, I might, I might posit you behind the candelabra.

because it's so far outside of what anybody would normally ever ask me to do. Yeah. To play that, you know, kind of demented plastic surgeon who knows what his sexuality was or what he was into. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But that, and also, isn't it funny? It's true. Like the Soderberghs and the, you know,

Denny, those guys, they're just, the Coens, like the better they are, the less they say. It's simplicity. It's like what we were talking about, the Spielberg thing. Like just do the thing. Just do the thing. Trust yourself and do the thing. And then you start to learn how to tweak and do all these things. But-

Yeah. Yeah. Don't overcomplicate. Yeah. Yeah. Truly great. That role, man. Oh, thanks. And that's what's fun. You know, like even not to sell and not to take anything, but you know, when you sell something that's kind of a little unconventional, it's a harder sell, you know, do the, do the picture in front of the pool with the see-through shirt. Yeah.

Not only did you not do that, but then you put this over your entire face. I know. I know. I'm really trying. I'm challenging everybody. I tell you, that's never happening with me. We know. We know. How about... But the point is... I'm sorry. Wait. The point is when you finally get into it, you get into the book or you get into the movie, like when somebody thought about you doing that movie, they're like, what?

And then they're taken by it. And they're like, I had no idea. There's nothing better than a surprise. It's the best. It's the best. Sorry. It's cool. Maybe we'll just take one or two more. Go ahead. Oh, two years. Two years with probably just under a year of editing.

So from pen to paper, first pen to paper to last notes of galleys or whatever. Yeah. Two years. And we didn't sell it beforehand. We didn't sell it based on name or celebrity or anything. We wrote the whole book and then we sold the book and a few people turned it down. Really? Oh yeah. I didn't know that. Oh yeah. I wrote the whole book. There was no deal. Oh no. No, I didn't want one.

- Amazing. - I wanted the book to, I wanted to know what they were getting. - I like money, see. - No, I know. I like money too. But I was stealing at a very young age, so I have a lot of ways I can make money. Why do you think I moved to Santa Barbara? No, I'm kidding. Yeah, and I sold it at the end, but a lot of editing, and my editor didn't tell me to edit. It was me. I've never learned so much in my life.

as editing my stuff and being, being really, you know, like just cut the minute I had it in my head and said, no, don't do it. I would do it. Right. And then clarify, clarify, simplify, simplify. Cause I have a tendency to go off on these bong hits. And then I try to keep that to a minimum. I had an acting teacher who I loved once. I don't know if it's the same for you, but usually there's at least one line in a script. Like I'm never saying that.

Oh yeah. And then my character, my actor, my acting coach would say, usually there's something about that line that's triggering something in you. And that is exactly the line you have to say. Probably the most important line, probably the line that will have the most effect. That's right. Or be the most effective later on. And it's the same with writing.

Yeah. It's exactly the same. But what about that other thing where you would talk a lot to directors and you knew that all you were, you were too afraid to actually do the scene

So you would talk to directors literally into the ground just to give yourself more time to keep yourself away from the scene. Oh, yeah. That's an actor trick. Big time. Yeah. Totally controlled by fear. Yes. I once worked with an actress who shall go nameless Liv Tyler, who... Whore, you whore. Literally, literally the scene was...

She walks into a bar. There's one seat open. One. It's packed. And I'm sitting next to it and she comes in and doesn't mind if I sit here and we have a conversation. 45 minutes with the director of why she would sit there. Oh, yeah. Because it's the only seat? And because it says so in the script? Yeah. 45 minutes. Yeah. Sorry. I'll talk shit at you if you're not here. How about last one over there? Thank you.

88, isn't that the same thing? Yeah. Not 88 entries is what she's asking. Oh, not 88 entries. 88 journals. Oh, yeah, 88 full journals. Spiral notebook journals. Most of them. Not all of them, but most of them. Let me ask you, if I looked at them, my imagination if I were to look at those, it would be like that scene in The Shining. I'll work in no play, McJackadaw boy. I'll work in no play, McJackadaw boy for 88. Yeah, it's three clear bins of journals. How many here?

How many years? Probably from eight, like it wasn't every year, but most years I always wrote. - Of your whole life? - Yeah, from eight on nine. You know, the early stuff is like, you know, whatever, but yeah. And then it got, you know, I mean, it was, I don't know. There was always a, it felt like a survival mechanism. It was just a better relationship with myself or a place where I could throw honesty onto.

or I could at least look at what was going on. I never understood what was going on. I mean, I got to think, when I was working at Rocky Galenny's at Lower State, back at Rocky Galenny's back in the day, I used some of that money to see a therapist.

you know, because I just didn't, it was, you know, my mom ran a wildlife way station. We had wolves, we had, you know, it was, we were woken up by bobcats biting our cheek and making them bleed. And it was totally normal for my mom. My brother got 60 stitches in his leg from a wolf, you know, and it was like, you know, it was the whole thing that you'll read in the book. It's very mother heavy in that way. But

It's, what was I saying? I fucking lost my train of thought. Therapy. Oh, the therapy. The guy fell asleep. Like I looked over and I was like, yeah, I just don't know what, and I looked over and I saw. I was like, dude. So I think that there was, oh yeah, there's something about the page that's always represented to me

something better than the reality of what was going on. And then at some point I married the two and I was like, it's okay to be honest. It's okay to be yourself. It's okay to have ownership over how you feel. I'm me. I wasn't trying, I think for the longest time I was wanting to be somebody else. And then one day I just became me. And some of that was sobriety. Some of that was, there's a guy in Santa Barbara I've known for a very long time since I was 20, Anthony Zerbe.

was my best friend and and he had a major impact on my life saw things in me that i could never see in myself so we were doing theater in rochester new york and he would leave eight books on my doorstep i'd wake up at seven in the morning and open my door and there'd be a pile of books there you know so people who cared you know and then you and then you know i would write long letters to sam shepard when i was 20 21

long letters that went off on these tangents. I didn't know Sam Shepard. There was nowhere to send those letters. Those letters just went in the pile, the Sam Shepard pile. One day, and I did, one day I knew Sam Shepard. I never gave him those letters, but I knew Sam Shepard. Yeah, it's wild, man. It's wild what you go through, the kind of

labyrinth, this kind of chaotic labyrinth that you go to in order to find your own voice. And I think that, you know, you write and write like Kerouac or write like Bukowski and all the people that you go through. I took a class in Rochester, New York with Allen Ginsberg, you know, and it's just looking, looking for the voice, the painter looking for their thing, you know, Van Gogh doing the little brushstrokes and everybody was like, I don't even know what you're doing, man. You're fucking it all up. If you just paint this other way, you can sell.

But that was him. That was ownership, you know. And then one day finding your voice and just going, you know what? I know I could drop Bob Dylan's name, but I won't. You know, I'll turn it into a satire instead and I'll call myself out for wanting to. That's the book that I wrote. How fun was that? I like having, you know, the visual, the audio visual. Podcasting goes visual. I like that. We're going to try to do more of it.

Thanks for listening. Josh, thank you for coming on and more next week right here on Literally with me, Rob Lowe.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Growl. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant.

Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally.

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