Playboy Interview: Josh Brolin

A candid conversation with the tough-guy actor about his run-ins with the law, his double life as a day trader and his man crush on Ryan Reynolds

"Who do you think you are ? " According to Josh Brolin, that has been the one question must often leveled at him by Hollywood ever since he appeared on the scene in 1985 as the 17-year-old who played Sean Astin's older brother in tlie Steven Spielberg-produced kiddie adventure Hie Goonies. Then, as now, Brolin's roguish charm, swagger and brash confidence could easily be mistaken as bratly arrogance. After all, he is the son of venerable actor James Brolin and the late TV existing director turned animal, activist Jane Cameron Agee; .since 1998 lie lias been the step­son, of singer-actress-director Barbra Streisand.. lie grew up with his younger brother, Jess, on his parents' 100-acre horse ranch in rural Paso Rubles, California, xuhere he rode motorcycles and. horses and. helped -until the livestock. When his parents grew estranged (finally divorcing in 1986), he moved, to Santa Barbara with his mother, started a punk-rock band. and. look up with the legendarily badass, trouble-prone surf gang the Cito Rats. After being sent to live with his father in Ijjs Angeles, lie began acting pro/es-siorudly and, from the start of his career; earned a cowboy-style rep for feisty, two-fisted indepen­dence, spurning film and. TV roles that others jumped at and, more than once, challenging a director to step up his game.

For that, there were consequences. Married in 1988 to actress Alice Adah, with whom he has

sun Trevor, 22, and daughter Eden, 16, Brolin lost to Johnny Depp for the undercover cop lead role on TV's late-1980s smash 21 Jump Street; despite good reviews for series work on Private Eye (1987-1988), Tlie Young Riders (1989-1992) and Mister Sterling (2003), Brolin. couldn't, seem-to catch the big break perennially predicted, for him. On, the big screen, things didn't exactly cook eillier. Ojlen a, standout in. low-impact, less-llian-stellar movies of the 1990s like The Road Killeis, Bed of Roses arid My Brother's War, he'd turn up in higfier-projile movies like The Mod. Squad (1999) or the sci-fi thriller Hollow Mm (2000), bid the movies undent/helmed.

Offscreen, his marriage ended in an appar­ently amicable divorce in 1992, and. his six-month engagement to actress Minnie Driver werd kaput in 2001. In 2002 he began dating Oscar-nominated actress Diane I jam. 'They wed. in 2004 and. their relationship looked golden. But only months later, Brolin was arrested for spousal battery after I jane called, the cops. Although Lane publicly dismissed the incident and the couple reconciled, the press has been on the lookout for domestic problems ever since, often casting suspicion on Brolin's fidelity.

Starling in 2007 Brolin's career fell into plate, (•iven a leg up by directors Robert Rodriguez, Joel and Ethan (hen, Paul Haggis, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and Gus Van Sant, he delivered

career-redefining performances in such impres­sive movies as Crindho-u.se, No Counlry for Old Men, In the Valley ofElaii, American Gangster, W. and Milk, the last of which finally earned him. best supporting actor citations from the New York Film Clitics Circle and the National Board of Review and a best supporting actor Oscar nomination. The 42-year-old may have broken his winning streak this past summer with the critimlly mauled box-office dud Jonah Hex, but with solid upcoming roles in Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and the Coen brothers' 'True Grit, nobody's asking Josh Brolin "Who do you think you are?" anymore.

We sent Contributing Editor Stephen Rebelh, wlio last interviewed. Cameron Diaz for piayboy, to Santa Monica, California to interview Brolin in his production office, a short walk from tlie beach. Rebello reports, "Josh Brolin looks every inch the surfer, race car driver, martial, arts— practicing big-lime movie star that he is. Smart, straight shooting, likable, this guy with tlie face of a brute and the sold of a poet is one of the very few celelnities I've ever encountered who seems far more interested in tlie world outside tlum tlie one he's created in his oum head."

PLAYBOY: You play a writer eager to cheat on his wile with a younger woman in

Woody Allen's new movie, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Do you worry your role could fuel rumors of infidelity to your beautiful actress wife, Diane Lane? In May 2009, for instance, the press reported you were getting cozy witli a woman in a New Orleans bar, and this past May there were photos of you kiss­ing actress Marley Shellon in public. BROLIN: I don't fuck around on my wife. I mean, check her out, man. My relation­ship with my wife is fantastic. Marley is my wife's and my great friend. I'm an extremely affectionate guy. My wife and I love Italy, the affection displayed there, the touching, holding, kissing. I kiss my dad on the cheek. People should be more affectionate, and I refuse to change that just because it's the opposite of what our country embraces.

PLAYBOY: So being a touchy, holdy, kissy, affectionate guy explains the PDA with Marley Shelton, with whom you've made three movies, including Grind-home? BROLIN: Marley and I were out together, turned around and saw there were cam­eras. That's it. Next time I see that camera guy, I'm going to give some guy a good smack on the lips and then hopefully it will be "Josh Brolin is gay" instead of that I'm fucking around on my wife. PLAYBOY: Obviously your heightened public profile means heightened public scrutiny. BROLIN: I get it. I even got a lot of shit because I couldn't wear my wedding ring for seven months after I finished Jonah Ilex. I had jammed all my fingers doing a scene, and my knuckles were so swol­len, I had to keep my ring off'. It doesn't get past me that I'm a pretty fucking lucky guy who's with an incredible woman who doesn't just like me, she's crazy about me. And I'm crazy about her. PLAYBOY: A few months after you and Diane Lane got married, in 2004, you were arrested for spousal battery. Lane later cited a "misunderstanding." BROLIN: I'll be honest with you: I feel rage about that. I feel I've gotten to a point where I can't explain it, defend it or com­pensate for it. I can't say, "No, I'm actually a really good guy and that didn't hap­pen." Everybody knows what happened because it's all out there. I talked big, she said "Fuck you" and called the cops, and somebody had to go to jail. This will be there for the rest of my life. That fucking sucks. It's been so disruptive to our lives. It's also post-OJ., and that horrifies us both. It kills me, man. It kills me. PLAYBOY: Do tlie paparazzi bait you now? BROLIN: They throw shit out to try to get me going, but. I don't get wound up about it. The paparazzi thing is always crap. They do what they do. I don't talk to them. I don't smile. We keep our heads down. I'm not actually going to get mad if they take a picture and get out; it's when they keep following you I don't like. For the most part, people seem extremely respectful of my wife and kids—and even me. My wife and I are perceived as

boring, which is okay. Better that than our work being perceived as boring. PLAYBOY: Have you had to up the ante on your arsenal of paparazzi deflectors? BROLIN: Look at this crazy-ass lx-ard I grew, man. For some reason, I've found this look helps. It's almost an intuitive thing, like when I was younger and it was about pot and there was a look someone had that made you go, "Okay, that's the guy. I know he's holding." It's all about a look. PLAYBOY: Higher levels of fame always bring more attention from women. How are you dealing with that? BROLIN: The attention is definitely dif­ferent, and how my wife deals with it is amazing. But I'm much more jealous than she is. She's working right now on an 11 BO movie with my good buddy Tim Robbins, and she'll say, "I'm going out with lim," and when she gets back, I'm like, "What did you do? Where did you go?" There are a few "looks" I recognize when I get them from women. But if I do actually talk to one of them, it usually turns into "Oh God, I loved your wife so much in Unfaithful or Under the Imam. Sun or whatever." Really sad for me, huh?

PLAYBOY: In the summer of 2008 you and actor Jeffrey Wright were filming Oliver Stone's bio movie W. You and Wright, who was playing Colin Powell to your George W. Bush, were pepper sprayed and jailed after a bar fight in Shreveport, Louisiana. What went down? BROLIN: Going to jail that time was for an excellent reason: Jeffrey Wright didn't do anything. He's a great guy and, white or black, it just shouldn't matter. I don't like bullies. I don't like when people are mistreated. PLAYBOY: I'he details of the incident never fully came to light, but are you suggest­ing that Wright was being mistreated at least partially due to race? BROLIN: There was a bartender and other people, and I said to these guys, "You have to be able to look me in the eye and acknowledge that it's wrong that this guy's going to jail. I want you to have some integrity around your own fucking deci­sion. I'm a big guy. You get scared and want to put me down? I get it. Pepper spray my face and I get confrontational; I don't get violent." I got slammed on the ground at that point.

playboy: A number of others from the

movie crew were also busted, right? BROLIN: My assistant was arrested just for asking too many questions. She was more assaulted than anybody else. The back of her head was slammed on the ground. I heard this melon-like squish and she wound up with a baseball-size swelling on her head. I freaked out Ix-cause I kept say­ing, "She didn't do anything." PLAYBOY: You and Diane Lane have a home in Los Angeles, but you've also got this luxurious setup near Santa Monica beach that's part production office, part luxury pad. How do you divide your time? BROLIN: Diane was really worried when I got this place, saying, "It's not an office, it's a fucking house." She was rightfully worried, like, "Does he want to get away from me?" I either go up there to our house or she comes clown here. It's fan­tastic, man. It's just lifted everything to another place. We both love movies and spend a lot of nights in our screening room downstairs. Last night we watched The Lion in Winter.

PLAYBOY: Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole as 12th century British monarchs verbally shredding each other. Outside of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool ft it's one of the most savage portraits of a marriage. BROLIN: I kept cracking up watching it. Diane was like, "Why are you laugh­ing? It's just tragic." I said, "I absolutely understand it. There's this uncomfortable heat to it that feels like home." PLAYBOY: I Iome as in the way you grew up with your father, James Brolin, and your late mother, Jane Cameron Agee, a TV casting director who became an ani­mal activist?

BROLIN: Yes. My mom was a very loud, volatile, tough, extremely funny woman from Texas. My parents were married 12 days after they met, and the decision was made over their second huge scorpion. My mother was a drinker, and she met my dad, who was also sauced, when he was just coming oil"another relationship. My mother just said, "So, are we going to do it or not?" My father said, "Do what?" She said, "Get married," and they did. My mother was a veiy off-the-cuff person. My wife is veiy much like that. PLAYBOY: That sounds anything but dull. BROLIN: There was a lot of yelling and drama at home, which was a horse ranch in Paso Robles, California in San Luis Obispo County, about 200 miles from L.A. The yelling was not necessarily bad, though. PLAYBOY: What word best describes your upbringing? BROLIN: Feral.

PLAYBOY: Because your father was away working on TV shows like Marcus Welby, M.D. which ran from 1969 to 1976? BROLIN: My dad was working a lot, yeah, and went back and forth to LA., but hon­estly, Paso Robles was an unsettling place, out in the middle of nowhere, seven miles from town and a mile and a half from the nearest neighbors. When you have the

temperament that my mother, my younger brother, Jess, and I especially did—and my father has a little bit of that, too—you create drama just to make experiences more sub­stantial. There were a lot of those dramas. PLAYBOY: Was it your lather's idea to raise you far away from Hollywood? BROLIN: I don't know if that was my dad's or my mom's idea. She had run away from home when she was 17. She came out to California, and Clint Kaslwood and his wife of more than 30 years, Maggie, took her under their wing. I Ie was always coming up to the ranch, but it was more about visits from Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, fessi Colter—real country-and-western stars as opposed to what they have now. PLAYBOY: What did you learn from them? BROLIN: I loved that they were all incredible characters whose fame never overwhelmed or penetrated their char­acter. It's a romantic notion that I try to hold now. The minute you start believ­ing your own bullshit, all the creativity goes downhill. It's funny that directors I now work with are like that, too. Joel and Ethan Coen are the gurus of that phi­losophy; Gus Van Sant and Woody Allen are like that.

PLAYBOY: Did kids treat you better or worse because of your father's fame? BROLIN: My father was perceived as a celebrity, even though he's a great down-home, meat-and-potatoes guy. I got my ass kicked pretty badly on the school bus once when I was getting hit witli spitballs. I said, "Do you know who my dad is?" and it was like, "Okay, that doesn't work." My reaction toward fame and celebrity from that point on was "This is meaningless." It's the belief I raised my own kids on. PLAYBOY: Most people might imagine you as a swaggering, cheerleader-dating high school jock, not. a target for spitballs. BROLIN: I got picked on a lot. I was a complete geek in school. I had braces. I didn't have the hot. girlfriend. I wasn't ever sought after. I was a stocky, awkward kid who got. laughed off the tennis court when I tried that. Football? Forget it. I didn't have that tiling inside me where I wanted to smash against somebody and watch them break. I was too sensitive for that and disliked being that sensitive. PLAYBOY: What were your days like as a kid?

BROLIN: My brother and I had to feed up to 65 horses in the morning. There was a lot of work involved. I'd ride motorcycles and horses. Paso Robles became wine country after we left, but it still feels very much in the middle of nowhere, very Republican. It's not me, but I love it there. PLAYBOY: Did you ever find your crowd? BROLIN: Of tlie two guys I grew up with, one became a fugitive, man. I don't even know if he's alive or not. The other guy committed suicide. They were kind of fucked-up guys.

PLAYBOY: When did your cool quotient rise?

BROLIN: At 12, when we moved to Santa Barbara, I shaved my head into a Mohawk and started a punk band, and that was attractive to some people. I had a really pretty, nice girlfriend then. PLAYBOY: Was she your first? BROLIN: Well, I had my first French kiss at the age of six in summer camp. She was much older than I was. I remember I liked the sensation of that kiss so much that I would roll my tongue in my mouth because it felt almost the same. In Paso Robles, though, a girl named Gretel had been my first real girlfriend. PLAYBOY: When did actual sex enter the picture?

BROLIN: Well, I never had sex with the horses or sheep on the ranch, \laughs] The first time was with my girlfriend in Santa Barbara. I was about 13. The punk-rock thing had stalled, and one time a bunch of people were hanging out in the house and she and I just went off somewhere. It was awkward. It wasn't horrible. You have an orgasm and then suddenly you go, Wow, what do I do with that? Is it going to be like that every time? Should we try this again? Why did it happen so fast?

PLAYBOY: Your mother, whom your fattier divorced in 198(5, died in a car crash in 1995. She had been a TV casting director, but for most of the time when you were growing up she was an animal activist. BROLIN: My mother dealt with animals much better than she dealt with people. She started working at the California Department of Fish and Game and then lx'came somebody who would have people jailed for illegally taking animals out of the wild and trying to domesticate them. PLAYBOY: Did you do that work with her? BROLIN: I would go with her a lot. She didn't fly but she drove 65,000 miles a year. If the animals had been defanged or declawed, she'd find the most habit­able zoo, like a great one down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My dad is a good, not great pilot, and in his small plane we'd take off from this dirt airstrip in Paso Rob-les with coyotes in plastic boxes in the back, land in the Mojave Desert, release the coyotes and come home. PLAYBOY: When did you begin acting? BROLIN: I only took a high scIkxjI acting class because there was no other class I wanted to take. I loved it, but I was always

against acting as a profession. I didn't like the monetary fluctuations I saw. PLAYBOY: Aside from his long-running TV series, your lather was starring in movies like Westwarld, The Amityville Ilurrar and Capricorn One.

BROLIN: My parents spent money as it came in. We'd have a house, then suddenly we'd have to go live in somebody's guesthouse, and then we'd get another house. PLAYBOY: How did high school acting morph into a career? BROLIN: When my parents got divorced and I was living in Santa Barbara with my mom, she asked me to please go live with my father.

PLAYBOY: Were you getting hard to handle?

BROLIN: I was hanging out. with the surf gang the Cito Rats, 80 percent of whom are now dead. They were the impene­trable group that you always hoped for, romanticized, wished for when you were a kid. But the dysfunction was on a mas­sive scale.

PLAYBOY: Did the dysfunction include major drugging?

BROLIN: Everything. Even though I was one of the main guys, I could never lend myself to being one of the guys who would do drugs eveiy day all day. I needed more input, more diversity. These guys were really comfortable just drinking Jager-meister every day and listening to Black Elag and Circle Jerks. PLAYBOY: Did you do any jail time? BROLIN: Around the age of 17, 18, 19, yeah, for just doing shit, never for any-tiiing horrible. I loved the idea of mixing it up. I got sent down to live with my father and ended up on a couch in his place. I got situated in school and got a job cooking at a restaurant. I think my pop brought acting up, and I was like, "Yeah, I want to see if I can do that." I just did my own thing, making up a resume' entirely of bullshit, having a buddy take some head shots and going from agent to agent, handing out my resume. PLAYBOY: How did your first, break, The (loonies, happen in 1985? BROLIN: This agent started sending me out, but I was so bad, I was told I probably shouldn't do this and that just because my dad was an actor didn't mean I was going to make it. It was horrible. On probably the 300th interview, this thing happened with [director] Richard Donner and Ste­ven Spielberg.

PLAYBOY: Do you find it weird that no mat­ter how much good work you've done since, people keep asking you about a (loonies sequel?

BROLIN: People refuse to let go of this film. They watch it witli their kids and regress to even younger than their kids' ages as they're watching. It's gotten so I've told interviewers, "We're all planning the sequel and I'm meeting with Meiyl Streep about it," and the next day, I've actually seen it reported as exclusive news. PLAYBOY: Still, The (loonies was Citizen Kane

compared with your sophomore feature, Thrashin', a "seminal" skateboard movie, according to at least one Internet site. BROLIN: \Laughs\ Down here at the beach, dude, that movie is a big deal with the skateboarders. I was so terrible in it. That was one of the movie experiences—along with Hollow Man a lot of years later—that made me question whether I should be doing something else. I don't want to watch myself in something like that. It's a travesty.

PLAYBOY: Is it true you turned down the high school undercover cop role that made Johnny Depp a star when the TV series 21 Jump Street debuted in 1987? BROLIN: I wanted any job at that point. They had fired the initial guy and audi­tioned three other guys, and it came down to Johnny and me. The network wanted me, the producer wanted Johnny. He and I were at his apartment hanging out; our girlfriends were best friends at the time. Johnny had just finished a small part in Platoon and was talking about what it meant for him to work for this great director Oliver Stone. The phone rings, it's Johnny's agent. He listens, hangs up, stuffs liis clothes into his Platoon duffel and just walks out. The next time I saw him I was doing a guest role on the fourth episode of '21 Jump Street. PLAYBOY: Did you get why he landed the show and you didn't? BROLIN: He was special and very charis­matic. We're loose friends today, but I have more respect for that guy than for most people out there because he, very differently than me, has done it his own way. He's found whatever liis niche is, and it's a big one. What a fucking talent, man. Every movie I watch liim in, I just thank God he exists.

PLAYBOY: The same year Depp's career took off you starred on the 1987 poten­tial hit series Private Eye, set in 1950s Los Angeles.

BROLIN: The best guys were involved—-Michael Mann was executive producer with [producer-writer] Anthony Yerkovich, who wrote for Hill Street Hlues and later cre­ated Miami Vice. I tliink it was one of the most expensive series done at that point. It was liip, had a great look and was really interesting. It should have worked. PLAYBOY: The show bit the dust in its first season, but your good personal reviews helped lead to the Western series The Young Riders, which ran from 1989 to 1992. Didn't you meet your first wife, Alice Ad air, around this time? BROLIN: We met when I was doing Private Eye. She was this new actress who came on and did a couple of episodes on that and on The Young Riders. She was loud, funny, and I liked her a lot. We just started hanging out. We moved in together, and witliin a month and a half she was preg­nant with our son, Trevor. We just said, "Let's do this."

PLAYBOY: Your contemporaries Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Charlie Sheen

and River Phoenix, among others, were famously hitting the cool clubs and get­ting high. You were already a father. Did you avoid that stuff, or did you just not get caught?

brolin: I was never invited to that stuif, man. I wasn't a guy people wanted to par­ticularly hang out with. I didn't have that special tiling. That's line. I also would never put myself in a position where it was like, "Iley, I'm on the list and I know Johnny Depp. Can you let me in or at least tell him I'm here?" I didn't want to be sent back home being told, "Johnny doesn't know who you are." I didn't want his or anyone's acceptance or rejection to mean something to me. I did stuff, though. PLAYBOY: Like what?

BROLIN: I pushed the limit as much as I possibly could, right up until I was about 20—like seven, eight months into our hav­ing kids. Finally I said, "Okay, I've got to get serious here." PLAYBOY: Did you do hard drugs? BROLIN: I could never get into them because I knew that would be it. There was a little dabbling early on, but that's what most of my friends died of. Again, I

was too sensitive, too much of a pussy. I was never into the mentality of wanting to die by the time I'm 30 or whatever thai shit was. I was interested in having a very long life, and I always wanted kids. PLAYBOY: In the 1990s through the early 2000s you only rarely got to show how good you could be in movies, like in David O. Russell's 1996 comedy with Ben Stiller, Flirting With Disaster. Wliile some of your competitors were nabbing good roles for top directors, it had to hurt dial you got stuck doing a lot of minor stuff like Bed of Roses, My Brother's War and Best I Mid Plans, lei alone higher-profile misfires like The Mod Sqwid.

BROLIN: What was depressing to hear again and again was "Wow, you were great in that movie. Too bad about the movie." And "You're really talented, and given the right movie, you'd really hit, man." It got to (he point where I was on the verge of being resentful.

PLAYBOY: Was it a matter of saying no to roles you should have done, or were you picking the best of what was offered? BROLIN: I had bills to pay. I had bought a ranch in Paso Robles; I had my second

child, Eden, in 1994. It was a whole fuck­ing exhausting process to even get the parts I got. I had to fight to get this movie Into the Blue so Dean Cain wouldn't get it. "I'm Josh Brolin, man," but the stu­dio was like, "(loonies was 20 years ago. We want Dean Cain." Nothing against Dean, a smart guy who knows a lot of people, but they wanted him instead of me because aiwhal? So I get the movie, but the director didn't appreciate that I ask a lot of questions, that I want to try to tweak things, so it was, "Whatever, man, do whatever you're going to do. We should have gotten Dean Cain." PLAYBOY: Were you a handful? BROLIN: I wanted to work, but I wanted better parts with good directors. I remem­ber saying no when a TV network wanted to give me a holding fee while it came up with another show for me. I got so much shit from my agent, everybody, includ­ing my family. Why are you turning this down? Who do you think you are? I'd just go off and hang out with my kids more or go do theater, which I liked but which didn't pay anything. I've heard "Who do you think you are?" so many times in my career for the sole reason that I just didn't want to do what somebody else thought I should do.

PLAYBOY: What movie of that era made you gnash your teeth with jealousy? BROLIN: I remember looking at Russell Crowe in The Insider—the perfect con­temporary film—and thinking, That's the kind of work I want to be doing. PLAYBOY: You once credited your day-trading with helping you make far more money than movies ever had up to that point. How and when did you begin day-trading?

BROLIN: I was always good with numbers. Around 2005 I had to sell the ranch, which was sad. I had done a little part in a Spiel-ixTg ministries called Into tlie West and met a real financial expert, Brett Markinson, on a plane trip, and we talked the whole time about stock trading. On his advice I put some of the profit from the sale of the ranch into secured investments, apart­ments, and the rest I traded. PLAYBOY: So tliis expert coached you? BROLIN: I read every book there was to read on the subject. I was willing to ask a million questions. Brett liked that I was willing to listen and that I knew he had something to offer as a great teacher. From 5:30 a.m. every day, I'd be pinging him, saying, "I'm looking at this graph. What do think about this stock?" He'd say, "Why would you pick that stock, you fucking moron?" and he'd explain things. Finally, something clicked. I realized that a majority of the experts, Brett excepted, had no idea what they were doing and only followed the market trends. PLAYBOY: So you started learning for yourself.

BROLIN: I found you can hit pretty much

eveiy time or you've overlooked something.

(continued on page 120)

JOSH BROLIN

(continued jrom page i2) It taught me absolute, total discipline. You have to be okay with wins and losses. You can't just be looking for the wins, and when the losses happen, you can't buy more and more because you're sure it's going to bounce. We call that revenge trading. PLAYBOY: Did you learn about revenge trad­ing the hard way?

BROLIN: I lost probably $15,000 in 15 sec­onds one time on Google, the dumbest bet I ever made. I saw it going down and I'm screaming, "No, my God, no, no!" But I couldn't work my fingers fast enough on my computer to put a stop to it. When the big stock fall happened recently, we had taken out all our money. We lost nothing. I don't mention this stuff much because a lot of people are unhappy at having lost a lot of money, most of it because of revenge trad­ing. But in the past few years, I've made well over 100 percent on my investment from my stock trading.

PLAYBOY: Who are your financial heroes? BROLIN: I'm a huge Donald Trump fan. I

love who he is, what he's about. lie's hated like any other celebrity is—like he's got the comb-over, he's an asshole, he's a capitalist, and capitalism is bad, right? I've met bil­lionaires whose spirit is so dirty, their souls are so soot, shit and muck that it was mind-blowing to be in their presence. But that's not Donald Trump. People think I'm a left, left, left-leaning Democrat, but I'm a very conservative Democrat, more libertarian than anything.

PLAYBOY: Do people offer you money to help them trade smart?

BROLIN: A couple of people offered me a lot of money when they saw what I was doing and what I was doing with Brett, but I said no. I lose somebody's money, that's the end of the friendship, so forget it. PLAYBOY: Okay, we won't ask for trading tips, but do you think we have what it takes to survive another major economic crash? BROLIN: I've been thinking about how we are going to survive and whether we are true survivors. When the embargo of Cuba began, the Cubans were already sell-sustaining, with gardens on their roofs. We don't have any organic, sell-sustaining

survival mechanism we can resort to right away. That's how spoiled we've become. I'm not going to shit on the countiy. F.veiybody's doing the best they can, and they don't need advice from a guy who sits in front of a com­puter for two or three hours a day. PLAYBOY: Did your financial savvy make it easier to understand the polished, powerful, manipulative Gordon CJekko-like billionaire you play in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps? BROLIN: Oliver and I always spoke about my role in a Gordon Gekko way. The movie is more formulaic than anything Oliver's ever attempted before but in the most beautiful, Oliver-esque way. He's putting his stamp on a typical format and structure, which he can't help but do. What I love about Oliver as opposed to the Coens is that eveiy film he does is absolutely different in every way— lens choice, pace, subject matter. PLAYBOY: Having worked twice now with Oliver Stone, does he live up to his manic, driven, wild and woolly reputation? BROLIN: My whole thing, man, is—director, actor, whatever—you don't shit on people. Oliver had a reputation that I haven't seen a hint of. lie's great.

PLAYBOY: What did you make of Shia LaBeouf, who in the movie plays a crafty Wall Street whiz kid hired by your character? BROLIN: I think he's really young, is what I think. The arrogance makes me laugh. The arrogance is something I absolutely think is needed at this point. He's a talented guy, for 24. Oliver's right. lie has that Tom Cruise thing—let me try to think of the word— incredible enthusiasm. That's not the word, really, but he's got that thing. People trust him onscreen.

PLAYBOY: Did you give any advice to LaBeouf, who has told reporters that, preparing for the movie, he turned his investment of something like $20,000 into roughly $500,000?

BROLIN: Shia started trading and doing well, but it was during an upward trend. But he knows a lot about it, probably more than I do about it.

PLAYBOY: I jkc the first Wall Street, this movie is a bit of a father-son, father-daughter par­able. One of your showiest moments features the disturbing Goya painting Saturn Devour­ing His Son. As a son and a parent, do you think parents devour their young? Or is it more like the saying "Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth"? BROLIN: Neither. I have a great father. My kids, Trevor and Eden, are everything to me. They're amazing, incredible, hardworking people. They both deal with eccentricities on a massive scale. I know what it was like not to fit in, and that was never okay with me when it was happening either. The only thing I can try to instill in them is that, in retrospect, it becomes all right. They're way more inspiring than anybody I know, except probably the Coens.

PLAYBOY: You play a low-life thief and killer who is pursued by Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon throughout the Coen brothers' Ihie Grit. Did the fact that the Coens also directed you in the career-changing No Country for Old Men create extra pressure to do right by them?

BROLIN: I've now done two movies for them, and after I finish doing the young Tommy

Lee Jones role in Men in Black III in New York this winter, I'm going to act in four one-act plays in New York that Kthan wrote. We get along veiy well. I think they like that I'm willing to be completely and totally humili­ated, to put my ego and vanity on the line to fill a part in the most dynamic and inter­esting way. Like I've said a million times, acting is professional humiliation. PLAYBOY: As the Coons' friend and collab­orator, have you experienced any of their legendarily oflbeat behavior? BROLIN: Ethan came to dinner one night. It's just the two of us and we're sitting across the table from each other, and he just picks up the book he brought and starts reading to himself, humming. I'm like, "Dude, come on, don't do that," and he just g<x-s, "Oh, sorry." None of this is an affectation, you

know. It's just him. PLAYBOY: Woody Allen is quite a character too. How did it go making You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, your second movie for liim after the 2004 com­edy with Will Ferrell, Melinda and Melinda} BROLIN: I play an unlikable character— a writer who is a lazy, frustrated, untalented kind of victim. The character was a little normal for me; I like playing extreme ver­sions of people but with a lot of humanity. I remember writing Woody a long letter about how I kept imag­ining my character in a wheelchair, thinking that it would add some more contrast, depth and humor and coerce a few mothering types out there who want to "fix" me. Woody wrote back one word: "No." I don't want to say anything bad about Woody because I don't have anything bad to say. I love him and I value my friendship

with him. That process was so satisfying and fun.

PLAYBOY: Did you intentionally get heavier for the movie?

BROLIN: Almost 16 pounds heavier. I'm at 185 now and got there doing 30-minute intense workouts, biking and running on the beach. Surfing is the one thing I do consis­tently. Between doing Woody's and Oliver's movies, I went to Indonesia on a boat with seven of my buds, and we didn't hit land for 14 days. We just surfed the whole time. PLAYBOY: Could you see yourself doing one of Woody Allen's—or anyone else's— romantic comedies?

BROLIN: I wouldn't know how to do it. I don't like the genre, and comedies are not fun to do. Everybody on the set gets so seri­ous trying to figure out how to make the

timing and jokes right. Ryan Reynolds is one guy who I think nobody can do that better than, and he doesn't get any fucking credit for it. I went back to see him three times in The Proposal, [covers eyes, langks] I'm so gay. PLAYBOY: One thing you and Reynolds have in common is that you've both hosted Saturday Night Live.

BROLIN: He did the really bad skits arid still did a fantastic job. For years I'd thought about that show—could I actually do it—but then you do it and realize everylxxly's up all night writing the thing and you're given 60 scripts. You sit around a table trying to be good, but the more you want to be good the worse you are. A great experience but really, really tough.

PLAYBOY: What moved you to do the nar­ration for the gut-wrenching documentary

The Tilhnan Story, about how and why the U.S. Army covered up the facts about foot­ball star Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire in Afghanistan?

BROLIN: I was filming Oliver Stone's movie, and they sent me a rough cut. I was like, "I'm really busy right now," but I watched it in my hotel room and cried so hard, not just because of Pat but more because of his family's loyalty, heart and integrity. I love and believe in this country. I'm very con­cerned about bringing back our country as one of integrity.

PLAYBOY: You haven't talked much publicly about Barbra Streisand, whom your father married in 1998.

BROLIN: The fact that he got together with her and found this solace is such a coup and so wonderful. 1 he guy was so frigging

unhappy and lonely. She's always like, "Come over. We'll have cake or cocktails or soup or ice cream." I love her and I love what they've created together. I say thank Clod for her. I grew up with country and western, not her music, so I think she loved it when 1 said, "So you're a singer, huh?" When she invited me to her first concert in more than 20 years and she opened her mouth, it was uneartiily, from a different galaxy, like Billie Holiday, like Sarah Vaughan.

PLAYBOY: Although you took some knocks when Jonah Hex tanked at the box office, your co-star Megan Fox got slammed even worse. Does she deserve the bad press? BROLIN: What Megan has done is confuse everybody thorouglily. To me, she's doing something more interesting than what a lot of other young people in movies are doing.

I don't want to see her fight, rebellion, energy and confu­sion get turned into sell-loathing. Katha­rine Hepburn, one of the most appreci­ated actresses today, was hated back in her heyday. She was box-office poison. She was outspoken. She wore slacks and "men's clothes" and she made some peo­ple uncomfortable. They didn't under­stand her. Yet now we all look back and go, "Okay, she was incredible." And so you look at Megan Kox and what she has done to confuse people in her time; you have to con­sider that people's perceptions change. With my produc­tion company we're developing a lot of good projects, and maybe it sounds like megalomania, but I would love to be the person who puts Megan in a film in which she can actu-

ally do something interesting. PLAYBOY: What other big items remain on your to-do list?

BROLIN: I love storytelling. I love movies. We have wonderful things coming up with this production company. And I've become comfortable enough in my own skin not to try to dominate everybody else's cre­ative viewpoint.

PLAYBOY: What about in your personal life? BROLIN: Man, it's a tough transition time right now because my son, Trevor, is 22 and Kden is 16. From the age of 19, I've experi­enced adulthood only with my kids, whom my life has revolved around. Honestly, it's a veiy different time for me. See, people think I'm tough, but I'm still too sensitive.

I'm much more jealous than my wife is. She's working with my buddy Tim Robbins. She'll say, "I'm going out with Tim,"

and I'm like, "What did you do ? Where did you go ? "

/ had my first French kiss

at the age of six in summer

camp. I liked the sensation of

that kiss so much that I would

roll my tongue in my mouth

because it felt almost the same.

/ could never get into hard

drugs because I knew that

would be it. There was a little

dabbling early on, but that's

what most of my friends died

of. I was too much of a pussy.