What did Josh Brolin say about The Goonies and his early auditions?

Josh Brolin said The Goonies was his first role and the first time he had been in front of a camera. He got there after missing 36 of 56 school days and moving onto his actor father's couch in Los Angeles. Brolin says he ruined the first day of shooting by laughing from nerves until Steven Spielberg told him to take a breath. Brolin adds that Miramax's Meryl Poster publicly named him and Benicio del Toro as the worst auditioners the company had seen.

• Brolin says Thrashin', the skateboarding film he made next, felt so bad to him that he went to New York to study acting, though fans later told him it changed their lives.
• Brolin says he got Flirting with Disaster only because David O. Russell insisted on him over Miramax's objection.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von (2026-10-13). Read the whole episode summary →

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