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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 with People Magazine of Spielberg. "He wasn’t being an asshole, he was right."
The brutal correction was made when Brolin, who was only 16 at the time, took his character way too seriously and pitched a crazy idea to the director. "I think [my character] Brandon is freaking out, and the tunnels represent the inside of his mother’s womb, and he’s trying to cut that umbilical cord," Brolin remembers saying to Spielberg, who ultimately disregarded his take on the script.
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 of the best '80s movies, the film stands at a 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and 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 epics Dune and Dune: Part Two.
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