Josh Brolin on if this is the best year of his life:

Career wise? Personally, I've always been pretty happy, so I'm pretty much the same. But yeah, I do know that most actors, when something like this happens, they're like “God yes! Thanks you, finally!” I don't feel that way. I feel that way in that I'm so happy to have worked with amazing people; that's what I've always wanted to do. It wasn't always that I wanted the success because I was always pretty happy just working. I always got to do pretty great characters and fun characters and characters in theater that I happy with and diverse stuff. So to me, I don't know, the biggest thing is that I'm really happy because I'm working with people who are brilliant storytellers, and that just makes the work a lot easier, and there's a lot less fighting, there's a lot less arguing and misunderstandings. That's great. But you could work with the greatest people, and the movies can still turn out awful, and I've done that quite a bit actually.

But the last movie that I did that I really, really loved that I watched and went “Wow I'm so happy I'm in this movie” was Flirting With Disaster with David O. Russell. To me, that's a great filmmaker. And then I started working with people like Woody Allen, when I watched Melinda and Melinda, that's a good movie, but I was happy with the character. And then I started saying, “Look, if I can't be in great movies, I want to at least want to be able to pull off a good character.” Into the Blue is another one where I was very happy with that character. I didn't think it was the greatest movie, but I was really happy with the work. As long as I can do good work. And they I really started to focus on that and pick my parts based on that, and then something came together. [laughs] I don't know how it happened; I don't know what it happened. So do I feel really fortunate? Am I smiling? Yes.

On if it’s the collaborators or the character that attracts him to a part:

It would be equal if I was in a position to make that choice. Had I been in a position to make that choice. But I was in a much better position to worry about material and character. My agents would go crazy because I was eight months out of work, and I'd go, “Give me a f**king job, give me a job.” And they'd say, “Okay, we got you Dukes of Hazzard.” And I'd say, “I don't want to do Dukes of Hazzard.” And they'd go, “You've been complaining for nine months; you're broke, and you're still saying no.” So I'm glad I set a precedent a long time before all this happened.

I did a movie--and people actually like the movie--called Thrashin' a long time ago. I did Goonies and then I did Thrashin’. And I went to the premiere of Thrashin' and I cried because I watched myself. Even though people look back at that movie now and go “God, I loved that movie, dude”, I couldn't stand myself; I just thought it was awful. And I went, “Okay, go do theater. Go figure out how to do this. Go travel. Learn. Get experience, and then go see if you can do it. If you can't, go do something else because this is unacceptable. If you're going to do it, do it well. And if you can't, go find the thing that you do well.”

On if working with Spielberg for his debut (The Goonies) spoiled him:

Oh, totally. Oh my god, yes. You've got a lot of amazing foreign like Russell Crowe or whoever, who can go do movies in Australia and go through that whole process in Australia. A lot of people get those movies [like Thrashin’] out of the way before they hit America. And by the time America sees them, you've got Ewan McGregor right out of the gate, amazing performances.

So yes, I was completely spoiled. Six months working on a $35 million film in 1984, which would be probably $100 million today. Totally spoiled. I thought that's what it was, and it wasn't at all.

Josh Brolin Interview Page 2