Pod Insights Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso The Stories of Actor Josh Brolin (‘Weapons’) About this episode With the arrival of Weapons https://www.fandango.com/weapons-2025-240417/movie-overview?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22748551661&gbraid=0AAAAA_ONcSoMoAxFa6dHBxqlOq-IxYyUE&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-4XFBhCBARIsAAdNOkv5FQalc56faOkT1yiaxjv92c4nXdDXXnT2YZdZDnxkYJCR-8xFhxsaAkeuEALw_wcB in theaters, we return to our conversation with actor Josh Brolin.
Since the turn of the century, Brolin has had quite a run. From No Country for Old Men and Hail, Caesar! from the Coen Brothers, to Inherent Vice from Paul Thomas Anderson, to Sicario and the Dune films from Denis Villeneuve.
His memoir, From Under the Truck, contains stories about the life in between. We discuss his upbringing bouncing from Paso Robles to Santa Barbara (8:49), the influence of his mother (10:05), and his entry to writing (19:40). Then, Brolin reflects on his vivid early adulthood in the 80s (26:14), the power of a story (32:30), and what actor Anthony Hopkins illuminated about sobriety (34:35).
On the back-half, we get into his collaborations with the Coen Brothers (38:48), his challenging relationship to drinking (50:50), and why finally, after three decades of playing characters on screen, it was time to fill in some of the backstory (1:07:13).
This conversation was recorded at Spotify Studios. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] .
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Transcript 14,733 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:21 Sam Fragoso? This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.
0:38 Sam Fragoso? Today, my conversation with actor and author Josh Brolin. Since the turn of the century, he's been on quite a run. No Country For Old Men and Hail Caesar with the Coen Brothers, and Heron Vice with Paul Thomas Anderson, Sicario and Dune with Denis Villeneuve. That doesn't even mention his roles in Deadpool in the extended Marvel Universe. Coming up later this year, he has two new movies from directors Edgar Wright and Rian Johnson. The Guardian has this line on Brolin I really like. "They call them the classic outsider on the inside, a study in friction." Which, I think, sums up his work in the latest film Weapons,
1:19 Sam Fragoso? playing Archer Graff, a tormented father desperately searching for his missing son. The new horror film directed by Zach Kragger is now playing in theaters across the country. If you already saw the film, I'd highly recommend our talk from last Sunday with actor Julia Garner. Last fall, I sat with Brolin on the heels of his memoir From Under the Truck, a celebrity memoir that's almost anti-celebrity in nature. The book offers an unflinching look at addiction and recovery, beginning with his tumultuous childhood in Paso Robles and Santa Barbara, where the role he was best known for outside of his work in Goonies
2:01 Sam Fragoso? was that of a juvenile delinquent prone to outbursts and bar brawls. From there, we get into just about everything. His collaborations with the Coen Brothers, his vivid young adulthood in the 80s, a piece of wisdom from actor Anthony Hopkins, and why finally, after three decades of playing characters on screen, Josh was ready to fill in some of his own backstory. I'm taping this from a hotel room in Philadelphia where we just finished recording a very, very special episode with a Philadelphia legend. I'm sure some of you will know exactly who I'm talking about with those context clues alone. That episode will be out in September, but we'll be back next week with our regularly
2:44 Sam Fragoso? scheduled programming with Mayor Karen Bass. So be sure to come back for that. Again, if you haven't checked out Julia Garner, a lovely, lovely episode. It's also now on YouTube and we're putting more and more of those up there. So if you haven't checked out the YouTube page, again, you can go to Talk Easy with Sanford Gosso on YouTube. You can also see the link we've put in the description of this episode. And so I hope you're enjoying your week at what is the tail end of summer and we'll be back next Sunday with a brand new talk. Until then, here is the one and only Josh Brolin.
3:35 Sam Fragoso? Josh Brolin.
3:36 Speaker 01 Hi.
3:36 Sam Fragoso? Nice to meet you.
3:37 Speaker 01 Nice to meet you.
3:38 Sam Fragoso? How you doing?
3:39 Speaker 01 I'm good, man. I was actually really looking forward to meeting you. A lot of podcasts that I do and have done over a 40 year career, not that there's been podcasts over 40 years, but you just kind of show, I like the idea of just showing up and not knowing. But with you, for some reason, I listened to part of your Joaquin, who's, you know, my good buddy and it's always fun with him. It always makes me laugh and it always actually makes me feel about anything that can happen. And it's just how it is.
4:09 Speaker 01 And then Willem Dafoe, I told you, I listened to. And then I saw that Marina is somebody who you've interviewed and her and Tilda Swinton are the two kind of heroes of mine, but it's this unpretentious kind of, we're just experimenting, man. We're just looking for the vivid, truer, you know, access, which I loved.
4:29 Sam Fragoso? You're going to find this whole podcast is one act of experimentation.
4:33 Speaker 01 Good.
4:34 Sam Fragoso? So.
4:34 Speaker 01 I'm willing.
4:35 Sam Fragoso? Should we try to do it together?
4:36 Speaker 01 Yes, let's do it.
4:37 Sam Fragoso? Your agent, Kimberly Witherspoon.
4:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:40 Sam Fragoso? She received the first 50 pages of the book and she quote, "corrected hidden agendas I hadn't told anyone about." I still don't understand. How you knew and you always somehow found my hand through the phone when I needed something true. So what were the hidden agendas then that you didn't know at the time?
4:59 Speaker 01 The book kind of organically wrote itself. I mean, there were, there was some moments in the process of the book where she said, you know, you don't have any of this at all. And I said, oh, no, I definitely do. And, you know, I just talked to her this morning, you know, there's very few people that I'll call and I'll say like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't like, I'm, and I said, I'm spinning. I said it this morning. I said, I'm spinning.
5:28 Sam Fragoso? About what?
5:29 Speaker 01 This is how I described it. I said, when you do a movie, people think that you're on this perpetual red carpet, just waving at people your entire career. Right? And I go, the, the truth of the matter, and you can't even tell them, you can't go on a podcast or go on an interview and you go, listen, you have no idea how scrappy it is on set and how vulnerable you are and you're, you're, you're trading ideas and you don't really know which is the right idea. And you're trying to design a scene within the scheme of the bigger story and all this kind of stuff. And it may work out and it may suck. You know what I mean? Ultimately, you know, people see the movie, you work your ass off. And then people see the movie and they go, yeah, it was all right. You know, when they go up an octave, you know, you've just blown it.
6:12 Speaker 01 I said, writing this book and promoting this book so far, not always, has been like being on set all the time, but in the public.
6:22 Sam Fragoso? Hmm.
6:23 Speaker 01 You know, that, that dream that you have where you wake up in the playground at school naked.
6:28 Sam Fragoso? Mm hmm.
6:28 Speaker 01 That's what it feels like. And I asked for it. Nobody did it to me. And I can't go, oh, the director said this, or the other actor did this, or this was the setting or this was, this is, so I was in the middle of doing the audible and I was like, why the fuck would I do this to myself? Why would you do this?
6:47 Sam Fragoso? We're just gonna have to dive in.
6:48 Speaker 01 Okay.
6:49 Sam Fragoso? Eight years old on a ranch.
6:51 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
6:51 Sam Fragoso? Paso Robles, is that how I say it?
6:53 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
6:54 Sam Fragoso? Five thirty in the morning, you're feeding fifty eight horses, mowing acres of grass for a dollar a week.
7:00 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
7:01 Sam Fragoso? In one interview, you were asked, uh, what's one word to describe your childhood? And you used the word feral. What did that, that look like?
7:09 Speaker 01 Bruised. That's what it looked like. It looked purple and bluish and a little yellow. It's all in hindsight that it's romantic enough to be able to write about. But during it, it's just, I mean, everybody I, I grew up around, it was that.
7:24 Sam Fragoso? Hmm.
7:25 Speaker 01 So it's normal. It's normal life. It's a normal living. It's what you're expected to do. Back in Paso Robles at that time, when our address was Route One, Box seventy one A, it wasn't even a real address. It was bucolic enough where you would take your kids out of school for two or three weeks if they had to do, if you had farming to do. You know what I mean? It was back in that mentality, like Dust Bowl mentality of like, you have kids to help you work.
7:52 Sam Fragoso? Hmm.
7:52 Speaker 01 That wasn't necessarily the case with my family. My family were raising horses. They were racing horses. They were breeding horses. We had a very famous horse named Stud Spider, who was a, a famous stud and, and all that. But waking up at five thirty in the morning, especially with a mother that, you know, ran a wildlife waystation. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was a pain in the ass and it was feral and it was bloody.
8:19 Sam Fragoso? You said once that, uh, she was better with animals than she was with people.
8:22 Speaker 01 For sure. Anybody would tell you that. Anybody who knew her would say that exact thing.
8:29 Sam Fragoso? Did you understand that as a kid?
8:31 Speaker 01 No.
8:31 Sam Fragoso? What did you think?
8:33 Speaker 01 Uh, there's two reactions and my brother and I, I can't, I think, represent both reactions. One is, why aren't you paying attention to me? And the other is you will pay attention to me.
8:43 Sam Fragoso? Which one were you?
8:44 Speaker 01 You will pay attention to me. I'll become an animal for you. And therefore you will see an animal and not a child and be able to relate.
8:52 Sam Fragoso? So you weren't just tending to the animals, you were also becoming one?
8:54 Speaker 01 Becoming an animal. It was like, what do they call it? Lycanthropy? That was the thing, like become more like her, which she definitely was animalistic. Become more like her, more reactionary, less thoughtful. And therefore be able to share sensibilities, something like that.
9:15 Sam Fragoso? Like her was a five foot three, a hundred and ten pound woman, who often smoked out of the corner of her mouth, uh, cool kings.
9:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:27 Sam Fragoso? You said that she raised you to be a drunk.
9:30 Speaker 01 And I don't say that as a victim.
9:32 Sam Fragoso? How did you understand that as a kid?
9:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, when you go to, when you hang out in, in cafes and when you're on CB radios, basically half your life, if not more, because we were on the road fifty, sixty thousand miles a year. She was driving because she didn't fly, so we were always in the car with her. I was always in the car with her. You know, my dad even tells this story. He says, I remember you being in the passenger seat, her driving and me in the back with my hands over my ears. So what does that mean? That he was the child? And I was the surrogate husband or whatever that was. So it was like I was the partner.
10:08 Sam Fragoso? Is that how you took it?
10:09 Speaker 01 When I look back on it, you're trying to define it. You go, what is, what is the, what's the Freudian, you know, definition of that, which I totally accept. It's not even, I look at and I go, oh, that's horrible or what a horrible mother. I, I don't think in those terms. That was the movie that was playing and it was Apocalypse Now and I was three. And she was Kurtz and she was all the other characters too. She was the one dancing for the guys and that was flown in. And she was the one dropping from the helicopter and she was at all. So for somebody who appreciates, you know, a vivid experience. She was vivid in every which way.
10:51 Speaker 01 What I think was lacking was a, was an emotional caress. Do you know what I mean? So when you wake up in the middle of the night. And she's had a blackout, but she was drinking Calypso coffees. So she had to wake up because the alcohol wears off. And then now the coffee's starting to.
11:09 Sam Fragoso? Is that, what is it, rum?
11:10 Speaker 01 Rum, Tia Maria, coffee with a little whipped cream on top.
11:14 Sam Fragoso? Unbelievable.
11:15 Speaker 01 I mean, it's a speedball, dude. It's a speedball. So she'd wake up and she'd wake me up, my brother. And she'd say, you know, what happened? What did I do? So all that lends itself to your future in some way. You either defy it or you accept it.
11:33 Sam Fragoso? The way your dad described you in the front seat of the car. As a kind of surrogate partner. Reminds me of a section early in the book. I think around page thirty five, which is you in the early seventies. Your dad has just come home. I'm assuming from a late night of shooting on a set. Or whatever else one does.
11:57 Speaker 01 Whatever else one does.
11:58 Sam Fragoso? Working late.
11:59 Speaker 01 Late at night.
11:59 Sam Fragoso? Set.
12:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:03 Speaker 01 Right? The coffee mugs that mother had bought in Mexico the summer before were just missing the father's head as he walked down the brick walkway of the home where the family lived. The glass of the windows where little Johnny was looking at the moon and the moon was looking back at him were no longer there. The windows were now in sharp pieces all over the carpet that looked like curly brown dog hair and all over the grass that had just been mowed earlier the day before. The mother screamed and told the father to leave, even though the father had just gotten there. The mother was mad at the father, that the father had just been gone. And now the mother was mad that he was there in the home where the family lived.
12:46 Speaker 01 Little Johnny watched and thought how he learned about numbers in school. How he knew that when you have one and one, that it makes two. But there was one of the mother and one of the father and one of him. And he didn't know what that made. And there was a bunch of numbers on the ground now, and he felt bad for those numbers. All those numbers on the ground didn't make more, little Johnny thought to himself. He liked the window when it was one and he liked the moon when it was one. And he thought of himself as being one and he liked himself that way.
13:18 Speaker 01 The father got back to his truck and the red lights came back on and then slowly disappeared down the driveway. The dogs barked. The mother wiped her nose and opened the cupboards to make pancakes. Little Johnny fed the mother of the mice in the plastic container in his room and put a check on his blue chore chart. The phone rang while little Johnny ate his pancakes and the mother crushed across the broken numbers on the ground to pick it up. There was talking and there was smiling and there was laughter. And the sun rose in the sky and the dogs stopped barking and lay down in the dirt resting their long chins on their crossed over paws. And through the broken windows, little Johnny saw in the distance the moon as she slowly
14:01 Speaker 01 walked down the driveway disappearing quietly like the red lights had done just moments before. Yeah, I like that story because it's it's an innocent child. You know what I mean? And and and it's written and I know I wrote that story initially straightforward. And then I liked the idea, the cadence of it. I liked the idea of it being a little sing songy, almost a little Dr. Seuss. And I love the idea of seeing it through a child's eyes. I used to have these dreams and I only had it like three times. And I guess they were called, they were like night terrors of sorts where something would break in half. And it makes sense to me because the family was kind of breaking in half or broken in half.
14:46 Speaker 01 So I would see a ship break in half or I would see a Rolodex spin and then stop halfway and then I'd wake up in a terror.
14:55 Sam Fragoso? The fact that you were more used to seeing her screaming than crying.
15:00 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
15:01 Sam Fragoso? And that moment of consoling her and her feet on the bed. Did you understand why she was crying?
15:09 Speaker 01 No, I didn't. And it was like you just said, I mean, you pointed out very astutely that it's very rare. It was very rare for her tears. You know, and then you see yourself later on, myself of like, you start to mirror that. And then you realize you get into life, into public life, you realize this is not necessarily how people do things. So it's kind of hard to fit in. Meaning that the way my mother demanded that I speak to her is not normal. My mother liked to be put in her place because nobody would put her in her place.
15:45 Sam Fragoso? And your father wouldn't?
15:46 Speaker 01 No. So she cultivated this relationship. So when I would see her cry, it was confusing. And you want to be a caretaker. I mean, even at four years old, who was it? Morgan Stapleton, Chris Stapleton's wife, read the book and said, I want to give that little boy a hug, you know, and it's one of those things that I take sweetly as opposed to, oh, you poor thing. Now we have to take care of you. Like, look, I've taken care of it. I've definitely confronted all this stuff in a big way. As traumatic as it was, it was, you know, there was, it was very normal. It was all the time. So if it was, if it was a fight in the house, or it was a five, you know, three hundred pound, five
16:30 Speaker 01 hundred pound lion biting somebody's thigh, it was, it was relentless. It never let up. It was always something heightened.
16:40 Sam Fragoso? But she could tame the lion.
16:42 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
16:43 Sam Fragoso? She couldn't tame you, though.
16:45 Speaker 01 Maybe that's why I lasted as long as I did, is that she couldn't, she couldn't figure me out because I was more like her than any of those animals. But I think that she instilled that in me. Keep fighting. Fight beyond me.
16:59 Sam Fragoso? Right.
16:59 Speaker 01 And it's so interesting. I'm literally just thinking of this for the first time. My dad said to me at some point, it was after my mom died. He said, I remember when you went to war. And I go, what does that mean? And he was like, with your career, but I think my career is always, it's a personal thing. He was like, I remember when you just, you wouldn't take no for an answer. It was like, oh, you should go do this. And I go, yeah, I don't want to do that. I want to be, you know, I want to do more character stuff. I want to do more theater and you just fucking went for it. Just saturated yourself with it.
17:32 Sam Fragoso? I want to talk about that period.
17:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:34 Sam Fragoso? But I think one of the earliest instances of you going to war, to bring it back to writing for a second, is a formative piece of poetry that you wrote, I think around the age of eight or nine. And it was a poem about death, written in the shape of a circle.
17:49 Speaker 01 Very good.
17:51 Sam Fragoso? I don't think it's in the book.
17:52 Speaker 01 No.
17:53 Sam Fragoso? And I wondered, one, why is it not in the book? And two, when you showed your mom that piece, what did she say?
18:02 Speaker 01 I didn't show it to her, she found it.
18:04 Sam Fragoso? Okay.
18:04 Speaker 01 And then she confronted me and she said, what is this? I don't understand it. Why are you thinking like this? And it wasn't, but it wasn't a, it was a death piece, but I don't, it wasn't like, oh, I'm feeling black and I want to die. It wasn't like that.
18:17 Sam Fragoso? It was more abstract.
18:18 Speaker 01 It was more abstract. It was definitely more abstract.
18:21 Sam Fragoso? In a circle.
18:22 Speaker 01 In a circle. It was circular. And I don't really remember what it was, but I, I do remember that she confronted me about it. More curious than anything. There was never a like a, you shouldn't behave like this. I think when I, later, when I started going to jail and, but even then, I told you, it'd be like a smile on her face. But, but then I remember I was in Tucson, Arizona, and then I started really writing. A lot more poetry and a lot more prose. And, and she was sitting on the floor in my little office. And she was reading through stuff and she looked at me and she said, I don't understand you. And I go, no, you don't.
19:02 Sam Fragoso? When she said that, how did you feel?
19:07 Speaker 01 I can't say I was devastated because as I just told you before, I think there was something in her. There was something silent in her that couldn't help express and want me to be more than what she was cultivating.
19:24 Sam Fragoso? And what was she cultivating?
19:26 Speaker 01 Just a cowboy, fighting, drunk.
19:30 Sam Fragoso? Mm hmm.
19:31 Speaker 01 That guy. Being a man was all encompassing. It was, it was very specific and it was very like truck driver and cowboy and,
19:40 Sam Fragoso? Mm hmm.
19:40 Speaker 01 and CBs and, you know, it was like every fucking old school, country western song you hear.
19:47 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
19:48 Speaker 01 You know?
19:48 Sam Fragoso? Came with a beer.
19:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, and then you have this poetry that came out of nowhere. Like, where is that? Is that innate? Is that something that I just kind of came out of me? Was I the first person to ever create a poem? Because it was like, I didn't, I didn't have books of poetry in the house.
20:05 Sam Fragoso? Do you know why I'm asking you about this?
20:07 Speaker 01 Why?
20:07 Sam Fragoso? Because when she says, I don't understand you.
20:10 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
20:10 Sam Fragoso? The two of you, as you've said, are so, were so similar.
20:15 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
20:15 Sam Fragoso? And so when she saw you at 20, I'm like, did she not see what you were going through? Your, you know, newfound fatherhood and you drinking. Did she not relate to that? Like, did she not, I don't know, empathize with where you were at?
20:30 Speaker 01 I think, tell me if I'm wrong, but it's, it's one of those like emotionally, you don't understand me. It wasn't that. It was, I'm surpassing you. There was nothing that she offered. There was nothing that I felt like I wasn't getting from my mother until later. Like, when I got sober, and when I was looking at many years in prison and my mother came, you know, those family things, right? And my mother fought against it tooth and nail. And she looked at me one day and she said, you're doing this to me, you're gonna give me cancer again.
21:09 Sam Fragoso? When was, when was?
21:10 Speaker 01 When I was like 19, before I had my kid. And my, my, my significant other Debbie was pregnant at the time. That was one of those moments like I go, there's no support in what you're telling. You're saying that I'm hurting you by taking care of myself. Whereas the other one is, I don't understand you. And I'm like, yes, because something in me wants to, wanted to graduate out of my family. Something in me wanted to, to be more substantial, more well-rounded, more worldly than what my family represented.
21:50 Sam Fragoso? Was there a part of that also wanted to leave behind? You in Santa Barbara, in the Cito Rats, bottle shop parking lot on Coastal Village Road, hanging out with you guys, you know, doing all the things that happened in the eighties.
22:07 Speaker 01 All, all of, every part of me in every milestone that you're mentioning always wanted to graduate. There was a part of me that always wanted to graduate out of it. The only thing I've never wanted to graduate out of are my children. And I think I can confidently say my marriage. It wasn't always the case.
22:26 Sam Fragoso? Yes.
22:27 Speaker 01 But I think like, and I would be honest.
22:29 Sam Fragoso? We're gonna send him the tape after this. It'll be good.
22:31 Speaker 01 Well, that's all right. It's all right because it is what it is. I never understood the longevity of one thing.
22:37 Sam Fragoso? Reading the book, the reason I think it's cathartic is because there always seems to be two people warring with each other. And the challenge of that, to me, is wrapped up in you dropping out of high school. And it's my understanding that your dad said to you, well, it's fine. You wouldn't have made it anyway. This is from the earliest interview you've ever done from like 1988.
23:04 Speaker 01 I was probably lying. Um, I'm curious, you have the interview?
23:08 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
23:08 Speaker 01 No shit?
23:11 Speaker 01 I'm already really enjoying you. Yeah, Dad wasn't pleased when the young writer dropped out. So he used reverse psychology. You wouldn't have made it anyway. You don't have it, he told his son. It worked. I went back and graduated with honors. In school, he became interested in theater and in writing. His father gave him some stern advice. It wasn't that he forced me. He was just very persistent. Yeah, that's whatever reverse psychology that he used. He, he, it, it worked. It was, it was along the same lines as when I, you know, became an actor or wanted to become an actor and was pursuing becoming an actor. And people would say, you should find a new profession. That just worked.
23:56 Speaker 01 That was, that was along the Jane Brolin line of defiance.
24:03 Sam Fragoso? You going to war?
24:04 Speaker 01 Me going to war. A version of me going to war. Going to real war didn't happen later because the real war was with myself.
24:12 Sam Fragoso? When you think of that now, is that wrapped in drinking and drugs and all that?
24:18 Speaker 01 Absolutely. Absolutely, man. I mean, like, who, like, how many people you know that are sober now? And it's like, oh, jerk off, you're sober. You're another sober guy, you know? But I think in my case.
24:30 Sam Fragoso? I don't really think like that.
24:33 Speaker 01 Well, I think some people do, though. I think some people like, oh, that's cool. You're sober. But then I also know that there are things that are trending. It's like, hey, I'm sober and I'm doing Pilates. It's like, oh, Pilates is like a new thing. And it's like, what's that? You're doing ice baths. Of course you are. Yeah, I've been doing ice baths for 20 years. It's just been a thing that's always been in my life for a very long time. I find massive benefit in it and all that. So, you know, the sobriety thing before was kind of, maybe I'm just, I'm expressing it in a way that I thought about it before.
25:05 Sam Fragoso? Okay.
25:06 Speaker 01 It was a ball and, it was a ball and chain. Sobriety was a ball and chain. It was keeping me from doing the thing that came natural to me, which was to act out. So if you're sober, that means you can't be yourself. Zero belief in that.
25:23 Sam Fragoso? That's how you thought about it in the 90s.
25:24 Speaker 01 In the 90s.
25:26 Sam Fragoso? So when you're bouncing between New York and California.
25:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:30 Sam Fragoso? And you're wrapped up in drugs and all that shit. You thought without it, you wouldn't be Josh.
25:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. You're not letting me be me like I I didn't like the effect and and how I was acting and who I was hurting and how I was hurting myself. When I would act out on drugs and alcohol, but it came down to. The last time I went out, when I finally went from sober for the second time to going out for 12 years before I finally got sober this time.
26:05 Sam Fragoso? And when it, when was that?
26:06 Speaker 01 I think I went out when I, let's see, I was 29 when I got sober, five years later I went out and then I stayed out for 12 years. So when I went out for those 12 years, I said, I will never get sober again. It was almost like one of those leaving Las Vegas moments where I was like, this is how I will die. I'm not, I don't want to die soon, but this is, I will die with this stigma on my back.
26:32 Sam Fragoso? When you're in New York. And you're like picking up between 11th and 12th street, avenue A and B.
26:43 Speaker 01 How do you know that? Did you, were you there too?
26:48 Speaker 01 Did I see you there? Were you a little kid on a stoop?
26:51 Sam Fragoso? Not sure I was.
26:52 Speaker 01 Was your mother a dealer?
26:53 Sam Fragoso? Born yet? Yes, she was. She actually, I don't know if, I didn't want to tell you this, Josh, but um, this whole thing is about me collecting.
27:02 Speaker 01 You owe me.
27:03 Sam Fragoso? There's back pay on uh, on on drugs you bought from us.
27:06 Speaker 01 Avenue A, between A and B or between B and C, between A and B on like 10th street.
27:13 Sam Fragoso? Can I ask you, what did you like about heroin?
27:17 Speaker 01 I didn't.
27:19 Speaker 01 I never, like, I had, God, I haven't talked about this very much, but I was, I had junky friends, like severely, you know, junked out friends.
27:28 Speaker 01 True, true, true, like strung out addicts. And they were like, what is the matter with you, man? Because I was, when I was into that, for the short time that I was into that, I was always sick. I was either sick getting on it, or I was sick getting off it. So they were like, just be a junkie. I was like, I can't. I don't want to.
27:48 Sam Fragoso? You always had a foot in and one foot out.
27:50 Speaker 01 That's exactly what it was.
27:52 Sam Fragoso? Right.
27:53 Speaker 01 Because I didn't want to be just that. I didn't want to be defined as that thing. So something, alcohol was different. Alcohol was a total through line for me, whereas drugs, I was in and out of, all over the place.
28:06 Sam Fragoso? And was any part of it pleasurable? Like, what kept the foot in, I guess?
28:11 Speaker 01 Probably the idea of it.
28:14 Sam Fragoso? The romantic idea of it.
28:15 Speaker 01 The romantic idea of it, and also that I came from a culture that did a lot of it.
28:20 Sam Fragoso? When you were a kid, when you first started all this, you're in Santa Barbara, teenager, you do some acid in the beginning, and that turns into heroin and that stuff.
28:31 Speaker 01 Way later.
28:32 Sam Fragoso? Way later.
28:33 Speaker 01 For me.
28:34 Sam Fragoso? For you, yes, for your friends. Most of whom, it should be noted, and should be on the record, are not here now.
28:42 Speaker 01 No.
28:43 Sam Fragoso? And their lives are, in some ways, embedded in the stories of this book.
28:48 Speaker 01 For sure.
28:50 Sam Fragoso? You said about that group, 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.
29:01 Speaker 01 There was nothing romantic about it. And I'm not saying it was morbid or anything. It was super, there were so many great times. But it was, it was, you know, somebody said the other day, they were like, well, you know, tell me about this Cito Rat gang. And I was like, there was no gang. It was a group of people that became known and are still known as the Cito Rats. And Cito Rats don't exist anymore. Some people will say they do. They're not. They're us, old school, most are dead, some are still around. You know, I mean, it's like, there's a fluctuation of the people who have survived. The romantic side is, I'm into story. I love story. Again, we keep saying it, the vivid nature of a story, whether it be.
29:43 Speaker 01 I love the idea of hybriding emotional content and heavy, heavy visual. You know, I don't want it just to be technically brilliant. I don't want it to just be me going.
29:56 Speaker 01 You know, I want there to be something that's driving it forward like the thing that I feel, but that's the thing about that group of guys is it's it was always driving forward and we could always lean on each other. And it's something that I've now noticed myself recreate again and again.
30:17 Sam Fragoso? That driving, that desire to drive forward together into some great unknown. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that there was a period of time where you thought in order to be a great, dynamic, interesting and interested actor, you had to experience everything.
30:39 Speaker 01 Totally.
30:40 Sam Fragoso? Is that what you thought the job required when you're in your twenties and early thirties?
30:43 Speaker 01 That's what I wanted it to require because I didn't want to be a personality. I didn't feel like even had enough of a personality to be a personality and to have my profession rely on a personality. I wanted to, I was somebody who was not interested in acting as a celebrity, as a conduit to celebrityism. I was interested in behavior because it was curious to me because I grew up around a fucking bunch of crazy people that I couldn't figure out. And then I had my guys and then I, and even then behaviorally, they were all over the place. There's still be stories being talked about, about Cita Rats or about my mother. People are still, God, I miss your mother so much.
31:26 Speaker 01 Because they missed that story in their life because it made their life bigger than how it is, than what it was. And acting to me was absolutely fucking useless. If we didn't get into inside the behavior of what people do and why they do it and how curious and how chaotic and how nutty it is, which I think is the manifestation of this book. If there's anything to me to identify with, it's the fact that instead of a self-help book that used to be as big as the poetry section, about a foot wide and about six feet high, is now seventy-five percent of the bookstore. And it's fine, but why do they all, why are there so many? Because they don't work.
32:09 Speaker 01 Most of them don't work, so you go buy another one and you go buy another one because they say, find the solution and then just live in the solution and breathe. And you go, life is way more chaotic and messy than that. Do you really exorcise the demons in you? Or do you get to a point where you actually just accept them? And you learn to direct them, as Anthony Hopkins told me, it was one of the greatest things I ever heard in sobriety. He was like, how great is it that we're like this? And I was like, what the fuck does that mean? And he was like, that we're alcoholic and we're edgy and we're driven, we're angry. And I was like, why is that a good thing? And he was like, because left to its own devices can be the most destructive, hurtful
32:54 Speaker 01 personality behavior ever. Directed in the right way can have such a profound and positive impact. And it's just that, it's learning and acquiring tools to be able to direct it in a way, that engine, that engine in a way that is showroom ready. And I'm kidding because I will never be showroom ready, but you know what I mean? In the most positive sense. And I was like, oh, so I don't have to be somebody else in order to be good or in order to be productive, in order to have a positive impact.
33:35 Speaker 01 And I'm not even looking to have a positive impact, but I'm looking to be able to find things in myself that shine a little bit, that maybe sparkle a bit.
33:45 Sam Fragoso? After the break, why don't we talk about what that engine is?
33:52 Speaker 01 Is.
33:52 Sam Fragoso? And what it produced.
33:54 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
33:55 Sam Fragoso? And that's the work itself.
33:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:57 Sam Fragoso? Okay, we'll be right back with Josh Brolin. We're going to the bathroom.
34:02 Speaker 02 I hope you keep that in there.
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36:53 Speaker 01 Just for the audience, we just urinated together. Separate urinals.
36:59 Sam Fragoso? I didn't look.
36:59 Speaker 01 I had the lower one. I didn't look either. You're taller than I am, I think, though. So if anybody looked, it was you.
37:09 Speaker 01 Tell me afterwards.
37:10 Sam Fragoso? Coming back from the bathroom break here. When you're a young actor, in all the years leading up to No Country For Old Men, you would go on all kinds of auditions. And there's one woman who used to work at Miramax named Merrill Poster. And she said, "You and Benicio del Toro were the worst auditioners we ever experienced. In all the thousands we saw, by far, the two of you were the worst."
37:39 Speaker 01 By far?
37:40 Sam Fragoso? By far.
37:41 Speaker 01 Like, why add that?
37:42 Sam Fragoso? I don't know.
37:43 Speaker 01 Why not just say you were bad auditioners?
37:45 Sam Fragoso? What we call insult to injury.
37:46 Speaker 01 That's an insult to injury, for sure.
37:48 Sam Fragoso? And yet, did you think you were that bad?
37:51 Speaker 01 Yes. Benny, I don't think did. I think Benny thought he was being pretty fucking good. Because he's a great actor. But I hated auditioning. I hated auditioning, man. You're behind a couch and you're in the Black Forest in Germany and, you know, and you have a gun and everybody's sitting in their chairs. And you come up from behind the couch and you go, "Don't fucking move." You know, I mean, it's super humiliating. It's just fucking awful. You're sitting there and you're like, they're like, "Do the thing." And you're like, "What thing?" You know, "Be a good actor." How?
38:30 Sam Fragoso? And you seemed pretty reluctant about the whole thing in the first place.
38:34 Speaker 01 Reluctant about acting?
38:36 Sam Fragoso? Kinda.
38:43 Speaker 01 It makes me want to cry when you say that because it makes me so, it makes me so happy when you're sitting there telling the truth. It's a rarity. That's what was a great thing with alcohol is that, you know, if you needed information, just alcohol somebody up and you probably would find out a lot more shit than they were presenting. But I do think that we all have that kind of contrasted thing. And that's super funny. Um, yeah, I think that I have a love hate relationship with it. I just did something with Ryan Johnson. It's, uh, Knives Out three. There was a pleasure that I found in doing that movie with him that I have not experienced
39:28 Speaker 01 for quite a while. I've found pleasure for other reasons doing movies. Denise, a really close friend of mine and that, but from an acting standpoint and scaring myself and living up to something. I've, that was something that I, that I just experienced for, and that keeps me going. It's like hitting the golf ball well, once in a great while, and you go, I guess I'll just keep playing fucking golf.
39:55 Sam Fragoso? The first time you hit the golf ball well.
39:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:59 Sam Fragoso? Was Flirting with Disaster.
40:01 Speaker 01 It's funny, I was gonna say that.
40:02 Sam Fragoso? Right?
40:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:03 Sam Fragoso? You opposite Richard Jenkins.
40:05 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. Genius actor.
40:06 Sam Fragoso? The second time, I think, is No Country for Old Men. When you think of this period now, and, and you, you described yourself once as a guy who was always on the verge of making it.
40:19 Speaker 01 That was other people's perception.
40:21 Sam Fragoso? Right. You didn't think that.
40:22 Speaker 01 No.
40:24 Sam Fragoso? Tell me about the distance between those two. How you saw yourself and how they saw you.
40:28 Speaker 01 There was a process in me just admitting that I was a working actor, you know? So if Alan Mandel called and said, hey, can you put on pantyhose and play a, you know, I'm like, sure. We just need you in Milwaukee for two days. Great.
40:42 Sam Fragoso? It was a paycheck.
40:43 Speaker 01 It was, yeah, it's just what you do. You act, you know, you didn't have a choice.
40:47 Sam Fragoso? We had two kids.
40:48 Speaker 01 Going to act. I had two kids at the time. Sometimes I wouldn't work for 12, 16 months and it was nuts, man. And the, in hindsight, looking back on that, I got to spend so much time with my kids and I had this amazing time during my kid's childhood, which I was so, I'm so pleased with now, but the frustration, like I went into my, I won't say who the agent was, and he's my good friend now, still, but I went in and I was like, is my head too big? Are my arms too short? Like, like, just tell me, like, just be honest with me and then we'll go from there. Like, I don't understand how I'm not getting so much work.
41:26 Sam Fragoso? What did he say?
41:28 Speaker 01 He put in a tape and he had played both parts from the big scene in Heat between De Niro and Pacino.
41:34 Sam Fragoso? At the diner?
41:35 Speaker 01 And he played at the diner.
41:39 Speaker 01 And he played me the version of him playing both parts. So his response was showing me how well he acts.
41:47 Sam Fragoso? He's an agent?
41:48 Speaker 01 He's no longer an agent. It wa- it was amazing to me and we tell, I tell that story because it was such a ballsy move.
41:58 Sam Fragoso? Wow.
41:58 Speaker 01 It's such an insult and I know he didn't mean it like that in the least.
42:02 Sam Fragoso? I really hope Michael Mann has seen that tape.
42:05 Speaker 01 Seriously. And I go, God, man, my fucking agent is showing me a tape of how good he is acting. He's so pleased with the tape. I'm fucked.
42:14 Sam Fragoso? I did find it weird when you walked in here and gave me a tape of the podcast you're gonna host next.
42:20 Speaker 01 That's what I mean. It's basically the same thing. It's the same thing. It's like, hey, man, by the way, like, I can't wait to do this. I'm so psyched. But I have a podcast too.
42:31 Sam Fragoso? Is it long form interviews where you get into trauma of your past?
42:34 Speaker 01 Exactly.
42:35 Sam Fragoso? Interesting.
42:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, all the things that we're gonna talk about, I've already talked about on my podcast.
42:42 Sam Fragoso? It's good we're getting laughs in here because it's been all this serious.
42:46 Speaker 01 I know.
42:47 Sam Fragoso? We have to oscillate back and forth. It's beautiful.
42:49 Speaker 01 It's the oscillation, it's the fluctuation that makes it makes for a good life.
42:54 Sam Fragoso? I'm trying to think of which part I want to talk about with the movie. What matters most to you in telling the story of you getting it and doing it?
43:02 Speaker 01 It was such a light set. We had a lot of fun. Me, Woody, Javier was depressed off on the side, but we'd always pull him out and he'd have drinks and he'd end up doing karaoke. And Joel and Ethan, I got very close with, you know, especially Ethan. I mean, I got close with both of them, but Ethan, you know, that was a friendship that, you know, continues.
43:24 Sam Fragoso? On the set, did you notice Ethan's quiet torture?
43:28 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would make fun of him all the time. I still do.
43:32 Sam Fragoso? What would that look like?
43:33 Speaker 01 First of all, he hums all the time. I mean, he would, hmm, hmm. I mean, that's a form of insanity. And it's not an affectation. That's what's so great about Ethan and Joel, but especially Ethan, is that he's, he doesn't even understand affectation. He couldn't do, he couldn't think of a romantic version of how you wanted to, how he wanted to be perceived of by you. He just can't help but be organically, dumbly himself, like it or not. He probably likes it the least.
44:06 Sam Fragoso? There was one project you wanted him to maybe work on with you, and you said something like, would you want to revisit that? And he said to you, yeah, I'd love to revisit it when it's done.
44:19 Speaker 01 What was that, Quasimodo? Was that Hunchback?
44:21 Sam Fragoso? Something like that, yeah.
44:24 Speaker 01 He said, I would love to revisit it when it's done and I see it in the theater.
44:30 Sam Fragoso? I mean, these are the kinds of people that after having worked with you on several projects, before casting you in Hail Caesar, called around and asked people if they thought you could handle.
44:42 Speaker 01 That's the truth, man. That's literally the truth.
44:46 Sam Fragoso? I know.
44:47 Speaker 01 I go, why would you do that? Like, I confronted them. I go, why would you do that?
44:50 Sam Fragoso? Asking them, they were asking people if you could handle that dialogue.
44:55 Speaker 01 What a fucking, what an asshole thing to do.
45:00 Speaker 01 But they're practical. That's what I appreciate about them is they're practical.
45:05 Sam Fragoso? When you're making No Country, 2006, there's a page in this book that I tell you it's the page that has stayed with me since I first read it.
45:17 Speaker 01 Okay.
45:18 Sam Fragoso? And it's you on set, and I thought maybe you could read this page.
45:23 Speaker 01 Okay, let me see, 2006, "The El Camino Hotel." "I don't remember what the room number is, but they're all the same. Room eight looks like room 12, looks like room six. A queen bed, pulsing plastic alarm clock, beige carpet, paper-thin sheet rock, a sliding aluminum and glass door to the shower bath, small knobs on a small sink on either side of a small spigot. My hat sits on a cheap wooden chair and my blue jeans seem foreign against the dirty floral print of the bed's duvet. My boots stand alone next to the door with socks draped over the tops of them, as if they belonged to somebody else. A film script sits open on the small fromica table to a
46:08 Speaker 01 scene where I hitch a ride from a stranger and he gets shot by the bad guy the minute I climb in and close the truck's door with a metal crunching slam. I don't work until it's dark tonight. Outside it's hot, it's summer. I hear high heels against concrete and I pull back the curtain and there she is, standing in front of me at the other side of the window. I unlock the door, let her in. She doesn't even look at me, just walks right past, wafting in a scent of plain food. She puts her bag down, walks into the bathroom and closes the bathroom door behind her. I hear the shower turn on. My stomach cringes, contracts. I feel the heat of the day behind me and the heat of what's to come.
46:51 Speaker 01 I wish it were nighttime already. I wish my kids were here. I wish there were some things I just didn't have to do."
47:00 Speaker 01 That's hard for me to read, dude.
47:04 Speaker 01 Yeah. The context is being at the Al Camino motel where I stayed with the prop master and somebody else and somebody was coming to visit me.
47:20 Sam Fragoso? I wish there were some things I just didn't have to do.
47:23 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
47:24 Sam Fragoso? What is that?
47:24 Speaker 01 It's the life that feeds. It's the life that feeds, all that kind of stuff. It's like, what makes the, you know, is it the fact that I broke my clavicle, you know, two weeks before I did No Country? And he gets shot in the right shoulder and that's the only way I was able to do the film? And did that create a pain and did that have an impact on the movie? And do you know what I mean? My character and all that? So I think that my, in my past, and I'll get back to that, but in my past, everything had to be earned.
47:52 Sam Fragoso? Hmm.
47:53 Speaker 01 It was like, everything had, not, not a torture. You know, you brought up Benicio del Toro before, and I remember him, I did a series a long time ago when I was nineteen called Private Eye. And it didn't go anywhere. And it was the guys from Hill Street Blues and Saint Elsewhere and Miami Vice. And, and it was Tony Yurkovich and this whole thing. And, and Benny did a two-part episode called Bario Nights. And I remember him, I think they kept it in. Like he fucked up a line or something and then he just started slamming the, you know, and I knew it was from that. He was so hard on himself. He expected so much of himself. Being a student of Stella Adler and all that kind of stuff.
48:36 Speaker 01 And we were all, that was our group, you know, it was like, not that we were hanging out, but me, Benny, Ruffalo. It was.
48:43 Sam Fragoso? You studied with her too.
48:44 Speaker 01 And I studied with her too. And it's one of those things that it's like, it was back in the old days where it was kind of like, it meant everything. You had to go through the shit. You had to like, get. At least that's how we felt. And it was fairly cosmetic. But we're, you know, we're like, we're an actor. We want to be Brando and we want to be James Dean and we want to be all these people.
49:07 Sam Fragoso? And your life outside of the frame also needed to be full of material.
49:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, material, like writable material.
49:15 Sam Fragoso? Yes.
49:16 Speaker 01 Everything was a story. Everything was a story. And I say that about alcohol, by the way, you know, I go, if I speak at a meeting or something, I go, listen, without, with alcohol, I had a personality, I had it, I was, I was identified.
49:30 Sam Fragoso? Who were you drinking?
49:37 Sam Fragoso? Cause the identity and personality, you and I just met today.
49:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:41 Sam Fragoso? There's a personality.
49:42 Speaker 01 There's enough of a personality.
49:44 Sam Fragoso? I didn't say there was enough. I said it's been felt.
49:47 Speaker 01 There's a personality.
49:48 Sam Fragoso? And I like it.
49:49 Speaker 01 I appreciate that. Thank you. I like yours, by the way. Um, I think my perception of it was it was, I have a different relationship with it now. I was racked with fear. I was racked with how I was perceived. Not that I wanted to be perceived as cool, but I wanted to be perceived as something substantial. So I was racked with this heady thing that would make me trip over my words, that would make me shake, that would make me do all these things. And alcohol disintegrated that.
50:29 Sam Fragoso? Hmm. And turned you into what?
50:32 Speaker 01 It just, it didn't turn me into a monster. I was super fond sometimes, you know, it just, it's like, I think I write it in the book, what T. Roll said. It, he said, shark eyes. I would literally blink and become somebody else. You know, which is fairly well known in the sober community. It's like Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.
50:51 Sam Fragoso? You wrote, uh, "I was nice until I wasn't. Shark eyes, my buddy T. Roll called it. In the snap of a millisecond, you went from charming to dark. The next morning, I'd lie there crawling through the black molasses of my memory and desperately searching for any evidence of what I'd done the night before."
51:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's pretty bright on.
51:14 Speaker 01 You know, and and then it became, which is an absolute parallel with my mother, which I know right before she died, which I'll get to, but there was a guy who took me out and a friend of his was visiting him. He said, Do you want to go out tonight? And I said, Yeah, sure. And I had gotten in some trouble or drank too much a few days before, so I was deciding not to drink. And when I decided not to drink, he was like, you know, what can I get you? We went to bar or something and he said, What can I get you? And I said, It's water. I'm fine with water. He was like, What do you mean? And I go, I'm just gonna drink water tonight. I don't think I'm gonna drink. And he was like, But I have my friend here. And I was like, What do you mean you have your friend here?
51:57 Speaker 01 What like, I told her about you. And I was like, What the fuck does that mean? It was like, I told her how, you know, like, and I, and I realized it's like, oh, no, no. I want you to, I want you to song and dance for her. I was like, Oh, I'm a freak to you. I'm a sideshow to you.
52:15 Sam Fragoso? It was, why stay home and watch a show on the couch?
52:20 Speaker 01 When you can experience one.
52:22 Sam Fragoso? At the bar.
52:22 Speaker 01 In real life. And its name is Josh Brolin. It's name is Josh Brolin.
52:28 Sam Fragoso? Not even with the sidecar.
52:29 Speaker 01 Not even with the, it doesn't even need a sidecar. And all you gotta do is buy it a few drinks and it will dance for you. And it might even go to jail and we'll go home and talk about how crazy that was. That guy's crazy. Him, him, him, him, him. And that's what my mother was. Her, her, her, her. It's easy to point the finger at those people who are loud and do that song and dance and all that. And then you get caught up into being everybody's freak show. And that becomes its own kind of, you know, hamster wheel.
53:03 Sam Fragoso? The book is so much about you and your mother and, and the relationship you had and the one that got cut short. It's tough because on one end, you're talking about how she was this larger than life figure in a positive way, like people loved her. And then on the other end.
53:23 Sam Fragoso? She was this larger than life figure. They rendered her a drunk cartoon, essentially.
53:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:30 Sam Fragoso? And thinking about her now, like, how do you hold those two?
53:35 Sam Fragoso? How people perceived her versus who she was?
53:38 Speaker 01 I don't think that she knew who she was. Period. I remember this one moment where she was crying at the end of her life. And she had been taken seriously about this idea that she had thought of. And I remember her crying and I said, what are you crying about? And she said, I've never been taken seriously before. That was a moment that I'm so glad that I had before her death. Because it was a reveal of you're not happy in this place. You do feel like a freak show. You feel like this sideshow, this dog and pony thing. And so when I felt that, I went the opposite direction. I said, I don't, I don't wanna, I don't wanna see what happens.
54:23 Speaker 01 I can either have that life. Or I can see what this other life is gonna be like. And that's sober life. I didn't have to self-destruct completely. I tried. I'm not supposed to be dead, you know? Whatever, for whatever reason. And I did a lot of things.
54:42 Sam Fragoso? This all, to me, comes to a head.
54:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:45 Sam Fragoso? We do keep kind of oscillating back and forth between the past and present. And
54:48 Speaker 01 It's my book.
54:49 Sam Fragoso? The structure of the book is such that you go from 1973 to 2003 without much explanation. And that, in some ways, the reason I'm structuring our conversation like this is because I like the idea of holding these moments. And the way they sit next to each other in and of itself is telling a story. So the personal and the professional seem to dovetail. In 2013, in the summer of that year, you're making Inherent Vice. And you're playing this detective Bigfoot, who's a hard-nosed detective on one end and a desperate,
55:34 Sam Fragoso? aspiring actor on another end. I wonder, when you think about that performance and that time in your life, because it's the year that you decided to get sober. Making that movie, did it feel like an inflection point?
55:50 Speaker 01 No, the trajectory of my alcoholic life, let's call it, was not a, you know, it's like, oh, it started fun and then it just got worse. And when it gets bad, it never gets good again. And then it just gets worse. And then it turned into this fiery, you know, hellhole. And it's not, it was bad at 15. There were things that I was doing at 15, which totally, you know, earned my seed, as they say.
56:17 Sam Fragoso? Right. But was it also fun at 44, 45?
56:20 Speaker 01 Super fun, super fun. And then super not.
56:27 Speaker 01 Which was always the case.
56:29 Sam Fragoso? Right. So you're making this movie and you're having that, right?
56:32 Speaker 01 I'm making this movie and I would, I don't think I've ever said this, I would write texts to Paul that literally are totally nonsensical. Like I have them on my phone and I, it, it looks like I'm, it looks like a recipe for goulash, you know, for an infection together. Just like while I'm doing the movie, say I have a couple of days off and I miss Paul. So I'm like, hey, uh, uh, uh, obviously Josh is out having a good time, but unable to communicate, which is why I would wake up on the sidewalk because I would, I wouldn't know how to get the key in the door to open the door so I could sleep inside.
57:17 Speaker 01 That's not, didn't happen once or twice. That happened many, many, many, many, many, many, many times. I just went brain dead. So I'm doing this amazing movie that I care so much about, given that I was just stabbed before I started.
57:32 Sam Fragoso? In Costa Rica.
57:33 Speaker 01 In Costa Rica, 10 days later, I'm beating Joaquin up in some scene where he's walking out. It's literally the first scene that we have and I think my stomach's going to rip open. And that's my life, man. That's the whole point. It's like, and I'm not sitting here and praising it. I'm not celebrating it. I'm saying that that is, that was the moment where the normalcy of that thing, where you'd see other people go, holy shit, dude. Oh my God. Joaquin came up to me, was like, dude. You know, and I'm like, yeah, it's a Tuesday. The chaos was at a point where anything could happen at any time. And it did often.
58:17 Speaker 01 And it didn't faze me.
58:19 Sam Fragoso? And watching the film.
58:21 Speaker 01 You feel that.
58:22 Sam Fragoso? Anything could happen at any time and none of it fazed me.
58:26 Speaker 01 Right.
58:27 Sam Fragoso? It all amazed me.
58:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:28 Sam Fragoso? Especially knowing your story.
58:30 Speaker 01 I understand.
58:30 Sam Fragoso? Watching it last night.
58:31 Speaker 01 Oh, really?
58:32 Sam Fragoso? Yes.
58:32 Speaker 01 That's funny. You know, us improvising and even Paul, to this day, wouldn't show me. There's so much stuff that we did for that film that you don't, that you haven't seen, that I haven't seen. And I would ask Paul once in a while, I'd say, do you want to Tom and Jerry this one? I remember Joaquin getting mad at some point. He was like, you guys talk more like within, this was like the first week of filming. He goes, you guys talk more than Paul and I have ever spoken. Cause we'd go back and forth and we'd have this banter. And I go, do you want to Tom and Jerry this? He goes, yeah, let's do it. And we'd just heighten everything. Just, you know, do crazy shit. And maybe it was just too over the top. Maybe it took away from the story or whatever it was. But I had a great time doing that film.
59:16 Speaker 01 I have brilliant memories of doing that film. I'm absolutely and have always been in love with Joaquin. And I know this is not what you're asking, but working with him felt so right because it was like, it, it played into that whole thing, especially at that time, of not knowing what's going to happen at any moment, that it was all very dangerous and with a perpetual smile.
59:43 Sam Fragoso? Why don't we play a clip from the film and hear advice?
59:47 Speaker 03 After a long and busy day of civil rights violations, I found myself in the neighborhood and compelled to drop in just to check and see the current state of affairs at my old stomping grounds. Seeing as your effort to keep lines of communication have been limited, to say the least. Well, I've been busy. Trying to figure out which side of the zigzag paper is the sticky side?
1:00:19 Speaker 03 Give it to me.
1:00:49 Speaker 03 Listen, I'm sorry about last night. You? Why should you be sorry?
1:00:58 Speaker 04 Weird.
1:01:35 Speaker 04 Are you okay, brother?
1:01:42 Speaker 03 I'm not your brother.
1:01:46 Speaker 04 How about you could use a keeper?
1:01:52 Sam Fragoso? That was unbelievable. Unbelievable, man. He goes, "Oh, man." It's so genius. Just, you just ate all of the weed, which is a pothead's worst nightmare. When you're done with that movie, and on your two days off, you're doing god knows, and you're coming back and having to do this job, which is an unbelievable job, you find yourself in Halloween of 2013. What happens that night?
1:02:23 Speaker 01 My wife now, um, and I, uh, put on onesies and then get on the bicycles and go down the boardwalk at Venice Beach and go look for, you know, other people with iridescent onesies. But there was nobody out and I remember the sunset took forever and it was this long gorgeous sunset. We were riding back and I looked over at the Venice Ale House, which we'd been to many times and I knew everybody down the boardwalk. I knew all the homeless, the homeless community there. We were all close. It's all changed now. It's all gone totally berserk. But back then it was still intimate and I've been in Venice since I was 16.
1:03:05 Speaker 01 So we saw the Venice Ale House and I go very innocently, should we have a beer? And she was like, yeah, let's try, yeah. I mean, let's do it. And my grandmother was in the hospital. Her grandfather had just had a stroke in Georgia, so she was flying to him that night and I was supposed to drive her. So we stopped for a beer, which turned into five beers and five beers always turns into O'Brien's, which is no longer open, which is on Main Street, which was a scrappy, hard bar. And I had been 86'd out of every other bar on Main Street, except for O'Brien's, because O'Brien's doesn't 86 anybody. You can do anything in O'Brien's. So I never got to take her and we went home.
1:03:50 Speaker 01 We rode bicycles home, might've crashed a time or two on the bicycles. And then she took an Uber and she said, don't leave home. Don't, don't leave here. And I said, okay. And, uh, and then she said, when you respond, why does it sound echoey? I said, I don't know. I think it's my phone. I was already in the car going to a bar back. I mean, there was no way I was gonna, what was I gonna do? Stay home and go to sleep? The gas had been ignited and, uh, and the engine took me back to O'Brien's, I think. Anyway, there was a lot of things. There was like some fairly innocent hit and run at Del Taco. There was a fight at O'Brien's.
1:04:32 Speaker 01 And then I woke up on the sidewalk and then I was supposed to be at my grandmother's. I was two hours late.
1:04:37 Sam Fragoso? Do you remember waking up on the sidewalk that morning?
1:04:41 Speaker 01 I do.
1:04:42 Sam Fragoso? What did it feel like?
1:04:43 Speaker 01 Normal, like you have your shame. Ah, what did I do? You know, and then I, and I think Deacons, cause Deacons lived fairly close by Roger and, and he would run in the morning. He would run.
1:04:59 Speaker 01 It's so wrong, dude. It's so wrong. He would run past in the morning. He would never look at me. And he always put up his hand. He'd go.
1:05:11 Speaker 01 And I would always see him and I'd be like, he, he was not looking at me because it's shameful. It's like, it's not like waking up with a pillow and a blankie. It's like waking up and dirty and, you know, scratched up and all that.
1:05:26 Sam Fragoso? Early nineties, you get into a fight with your first wife. You walk down New York, you're in New York down the street. You have no shirt on. You walk further down and you spot Philip Seymour Hoffman. He knew, talking to you, definitely high or drunk or whatever. Did he mention anything about you not wearing a shirt?
1:05:52 Speaker 01 No, I did know him. I knew him. He had done a movie with my wife in Poland, his first. But he had just started taking off. He was like, he'd started doing a lot of independent films and was getting a lot of praise. And I said that, I say in the book, he's got his feet, always makes me laugh.
1:06:15 Sam Fragoso? Going the other direction.
1:06:15 Speaker 01 It's like Charlie Chaplin feet. It's like the one that has to deal and the one where the one wants to go. And he just, he didn't want to have anything to do with me and I don't blame him because I had seen him a lot. I'd see him on the street in New York and sometimes he was super nice to me and some, but at that point, it was like he was getting some real traction around his career. And I just represented something that he was getting away from. He was sober. He was really focusing on doing the best work he could do. And I was this guy who was auditioning a lot, not getting a lot of things and then taking it out in ways that. Were not helpful.
1:06:56 Speaker 01 My life was an absolute chaos, even though I was a dad. And I was a good dad. I was always a good dad. I did things like there were drunk episodes in my kid's life that my older kids would talk about now. That were are super unfortunate and that I've apologized for and that I hate knowing exist. But the truth of the matter is, is I was pretty present for my kids and and and then these things would happen, you know, and that's the thing. It's like when you watch a movie, it's it's really interesting to watch somebody who is, you know, feral and chaotic and all that kind of stuff.
1:07:36 Speaker 01 And there was never an attempt at me trying to emulate that kind of thing. It just existed in my life and and it was really attractive in film. Like you do a movie like Inherent Vice and that's how it reads.
1:07:53 Sam Fragoso? We fold this in such as I'm like the way we're putting this together.
1:07:57 Speaker 01 It seems chaotic and abstract, but it's not.
1:07:59 Sam Fragoso? It's design. Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman's feet were pointed the other direction. But there was also some part of him that was letting you be you in the same way that Deakins that morning on the 31st is running past you. This is a man who's worked with you many times at this point. Who respects you as an artist, who's your friend. And is doing his morning run, which of course Roger Deakins does a morning run. And he waves. That to me is significant. There's an acknowledgement, but he doesn't want to pry. And he's giving you the space to do whatever you were doing. I don't know, waking up in front of the door.
1:08:44 Sam Fragoso? I think there is something to this.
1:08:46 Speaker 01 There's an acknowledgement of that part of me that they respect. And I don't know if that's right or not. And then there's the other part that they don't want to have anything to do with. That they realize that it comes in one package. You know, I did, I did a speech for Bradley Cooper at one point. There was one point where people were kind of, they liked how I wrote. So I became this go to guy to write people's speeches.
1:09:15 Sam Fragoso? The ghostwriter of acceptance speeches?
1:09:17 Speaker 01 It's unbelievable, dude. Like, talk about, add insult to injury. Like, I'm not really working as an actor.
1:09:26 Sam Fragoso? Hey, Josh, we know you'd like to maybe be in these movies and win some of these awards.
1:09:30 Speaker 01 But will you write one of those amazing speeches for me or whatever? And, but I gave this speech to Bradley Cooper and I had just gotten out of jail. And I'd seen a couple of actors backstage. And they were all like, again, it was the freak show. They're all, it was like that guy with the Canadian girl that it's, they were like, yeah, you, no way. You're crazy, you know? And then they'd go back and do their work and Leo was going back to do Wolf of Wall Street and, you know, whatever it was. So I was living these parts that they were playing. But Phil, there was always a respect because there was a lot of history there.
1:10:13 Speaker 01 And then when Phil went up and, you know, I've had a lot of people in my life pass and die and,
1:10:22 Speaker 01 when I was in the hills of Italy and Michael Kelly came out with a glass of wine, I'll never forget. And I walked in, in the mountains, walked into this little chalet and he came out and he said, did you hear about Phil? And I go, what? And he goes, you didn't hear, he's dead. That it's the only time I've ever believed, which I thought was such a lame description of when your knees buckle. I could not believe Philip Seymour Hoffman.
1:10:55 Speaker 01 One of the great actors of the stage and screen, somebody who had beat the odds, every odd there was to beat,
1:11:04 Speaker 01 was dead from a, from a, from a drug overdose. Impossible.
1:11:11 Speaker 01 And I think that was the end, that was the beginning of the end for me. I think I probably would have stayed sober for a couple more years and probably gone back out and justified it somehow. And, you know, I would have found my, I'm really good at, like, deluding myself. And that was like, that hit me so hard. And I was like, yeah, no, thanks. No, thanks. The, the, the, the chaos train ends. And I'm not interested in it ending. I want to try and string this thing out as long as I can, as long as I can.
1:11:50 Sam Fragoso? So tell me about November 1st, 2013.
1:11:54 Speaker 01 So November 1st, I woke up and I went and I saw my grandma, because I was late picking up my brother and I, she was in the hospital and the whole family was around and I had been in charge of the whole family and kind of who can be there at what time and when. And I had been pretty dry and, and I went in there and my fam, all their heads went straight down immediately. Like, because I'm sure I smelled bad, I hadn't taken a shower, was scratched up. And, and then my grandmother lifted her head. She turned her head toward me, 99 years old, and she smiled just the most, the biggest, she was so happy that I was there. Just this huge smile. And it just, that was it. Went off in my head. So that's it, I'm done.
1:12:39 Speaker 01 How dare me, a woman who had lived 99 years on life's terms, and I have everything at my beck and call, for the most part. Like, I have my health, I have my wit, I have my intelligence, I have my kids, I have my this. And I'm throwing it all away in the name of The Freak Show. Carrying on the legacy of The Freak Show. Done. And it was done.
1:13:06 Sam Fragoso? I'm, I'm curious, you know, because you've talked so much about sobriety.
1:13:11 Sam Fragoso? You had had periods, like you said, where you were sober for a while.
1:13:16 Sam Fragoso? What about now with your two new kids? What about now says, no, I, this is it?
1:13:24 Speaker 01 No, because of what I said Tony Hopkins had mentioned, you know, this is, this is the rebel way. This is the defiant way.
1:13:31 Sam Fragoso? The most defiant.
1:13:32 Speaker 01 This is the most defiant way. What if you get to live two lives in one life pretty severely? This is respecting my mother and saying, you won, you won the war. The war is, is that you don't adhere to other people's expectations. There's a singer for a fairly famous rock band. And he said, surprise everybody with a happy ending. And I, and I, and it, and it affected me when he said that. I still think about it because what that means is nobody expects a happy ending out of you. And then when you get sober for a little while, I've been sober for a little while. I mean, literally within the first couple of years.
1:14:16 Speaker 01 And then people would come around like, oh my God, this isn't just a thing he's going through that it's actually like he's taking this seriously. And then people would reveal how they really, you know, what they, what they thought was going to happen or what they were expecting. And the fact that it was pretty bad sometimes and they were pretty certain I wasn't going to make it. So I had gotten to a point where it became kind of a through line, but now we're at the end.
1:14:44 Speaker 01 And this is, and it's going to look bad. And, and I like the idea that I was given the opportunity to say, nah. Because I do, I don't think there was ever a death wish of my mother's, of mine, of my this or that. I think it was just needing to live life on a very vivid plane, which I still am. I just do it in a different way now.
1:15:09 Sam Fragoso? The expectations people had for you. Yeah, there was no bigger expectation than the man that your mom set you up to become. Like that guy we're talking about, the cowboy who drinks and has a story, not with a happy ending.
1:15:28 Sam Fragoso? I wanted to read from a page towards the end of the book, which I think talks about where you are now and where she is now in you.
1:15:38 Speaker 01 Oh, she was funny. She was unique. She was all the things most have become so deathly afraid of becoming today, different, not as an affectation, but as a mineral. I see her in my children, the way they accentuate a point or discover awe and what would otherwise seem mundane, but in ways a little less destructive, a little more at peace. My mother at peace. Imagine.
1:16:05 Speaker 01 Just recently, there were several Super 8 reels revealed with her running around as a little girl. To see my mother as a little girl confused me. In my mind, she had always been an electric child. And as I watched those scratchy faded colors with her smiling, she ran about. I looked to my left and right, and there were my little girls doing the same with similar smiles and similar glints of mischief in their eyes. I like it. It moves me, knowing that they have inside them what freedom she demanded. It was her lack of grace in that freedom that drove her insane. Or at least right to the edge of insanity. I don't see that in my kids.
1:16:48 Speaker 01 There is so much to write about. There are so many stories to tell. I guess I'm looking for a deeper sense to it all. That world was huge, and the world is now more literal.
1:17:01 Speaker 01 I haven't decided which I like better.
1:17:05 Speaker 01 The only thing I don't like about that last line is because it involves my kids, and my kids are always the preferred.
1:17:12 Sam Fragoso? What do you not like about the line?
1:17:15 Speaker 01 You know, I don't know which I prefer better, which is obviously, you know, about that big of a life where things were that dangerous and that unpredictable. You know what I mean? I miss that. I miss that level of unpredictability, but less now than I did. I think the longer I stay sober, I find my moments of unpredictability and how to be able to live within that and it not be... Threatening to my sobriety.
1:17:46 Sam Fragoso? For a time.
1:17:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:17:47 Sam Fragoso? For a long time.
1:17:48 Speaker 01 Hmm.
1:17:49 Sam Fragoso? The unpredictability was in drinking. It was uh in heroin for a moment.
1:17:57 Speaker 01 Hmm.
1:17:58 Sam Fragoso? You're you're flinched when I said that.
1:17:59 Speaker 01 I just don't talk about it often. I hate it.
1:18:02 Sam Fragoso? What would you like me to do?
1:18:03 Speaker 01 No, I'm not asking you to do anything differently. I just don't like it. I don't like that I was subservient to that drug.
1:18:12 Speaker 01 At for any amount of time, even if I was the shortest of all my buddies.
1:18:16 Sam Fragoso? Yeah.
1:18:17 Speaker 01 I just don't like it. It's like such a, to me, it's such a checkout. But then again, so was alcohol, you know, in some way. But keep going. You were dismounting.
1:18:29 Sam Fragoso? Do you feel like now? The work itself, whether it's on screen or in this book or in the play that you've recently written? You directing that episode of your show Out of Range, whatever it is. Do you feel like the unpredictability is most interesting to you in the art that you're making?
1:18:49 Speaker 01 Barna, for sure. It is the thing that I have found that I think I had a real hate for in the beginning. That I had a big curiosity about because of how I found my way in it. That has now become a great solace and something that I respect highly. And if this book is anything, it's a human being finding a great release in creativity, in the manifestations of those creativities. I see it in my kids. I see it in my friends. And uh and I never had a respect around the idea of the art because I couldn't see it beyond the idea of celebrity.
1:19:36 Speaker 01 And and now I it's hard for me to find the celebrity. And if I do see the celebrity, I try and snuff it out pretty quick, even though it does maybe get me work that I I I need and want.
1:19:55 Sam Fragoso? You know what it is?
1:19:57 Sam Fragoso? You and I have never had a drink together. You and I will, I don't think ever have a drink together.
1:20:03 Speaker 01 Probably not.
1:20:04 Sam Fragoso? The guy that you were, that your friend wanted you to be. Well, I brought you here to watch Josh. Give me season eight of Josh Brolin here.
1:20:16 Speaker 01 Totally.
1:20:17 Sam Fragoso? At the bar. At O'Brien's. Whatever that person was, what I imagined him to be is what I have seen growing up, watching your work, especially in the last decade. Like, every part feels like some extension of whatever that person was with a few drinks in. The unpredictability, how alive and vulnerable and raw and uncomfortable your performances can be.
1:20:50 Sam Fragoso? All of those things you thought you needed alcohol to be in public. I have seen, as someone who's never met you and never saw you drink, I've seen in the work, I have felt it in the work.
1:21:06 Speaker 01 I literally can't think of a better compliment, at least professionally and and personally, that I have broken that chain. You know what I mean? With the help of many other people, I have broken the chain that thinks that he exists only in the chaos that he creates in the freak show. And if whatever anomalies, creative anomalies exist in me can come out in more pure form, then I beat the system. You know, again, nature nurture, you know? And the nature would suggest otherwise and and.
1:21:48 Speaker 01 Because of what I was surrounded by, but, but I think through the nurturing of a community that I was lucky enough, I'm not just saying sober community, but really, really interesting, good, empathetic, inspired people. Ethan, Tilda, a lot of people.
1:22:09 Sam Fragoso? My last question.
1:22:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:22:11 Sam Fragoso? The first thing you said when you walked in today.
1:22:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:14 Sam Fragoso? You and your agent, who you talked to this morning. And you said you're going through a disaster, I think it was, or what did you, what did you call it?
1:22:22 Speaker 01 Spinning.
1:22:22 Sam Fragoso? So you were spinning.
1:22:24 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
1:22:25 Sam Fragoso? Now that we're at the end of this, how you feel?
1:22:29 Speaker 01 I feel strangely good. I don't know how to feel about that yet. I think that there's something about this process that means a lot to me. And that's being able to, like you pointed out, manifest things. Not distilled, but a clean water with all the minerals in it, that it's productive, that it's healthy in some sense. But it reads as chaotic and dirty and messy and all that stuff that we all are.
1:23:04 Sam Fragoso? Why does that make you emotional?
1:23:09 Speaker 01 Because that's the showing up that I respect, you know? It's the showing up that I, you know, you put yourself on the fucking firing line, you know? And this scared the shit out of me.
1:23:22 Speaker 01 To, to, to use my own crude language. It scared, it scared me and, and that's why I didn't want to talk about being a writer, talk about writing in journals anymore. Talk about the books that I've written and put in a dark corner and
1:23:38 Speaker 01 just do it, man. Do it. And, and I, I can't blame anybody else here. I can't blame a director, I can't blame setting, I can't blame timeline, I can't. This is all me. This is a hundred percent me for better or worse. And for somebody who was close to Cormac, who didn't want to talk about any writing, ever. You know, there's, there's a small part of me that's like almost embarrassed to celebrate the attempt. But even then, I'm like, I'm more okay with
1:24:14 Speaker 01 the fact that that means something to me, is okay with me.
1:24:18 Sam Fragoso? I appreciate the attempt.
1:24:20 Speaker 01 Thanks.
1:24:21 Sam Fragoso? I think you have been more than generous today, going through some uncomfortable pockets. What I said about the work, I hadn't written that in my notes.
1:24:32 Speaker 01 I got, that was from you.
1:24:34 Sam Fragoso? That was from you.
1:24:34 Speaker 01 In the moment.
1:24:35 Sam Fragoso? That was from me in the moment.
1:24:38 Sam Fragoso? Josh Brolin, appreciate the time.
1:24:40 Speaker 01 Dude, you will go down as being maybe the most organic, funny, unpredictable person that I've done an interview with.
1:24:56 Sam Fragoso? That's, that's the aim.
1:24:58 Speaker 01 For real. What a pleasure. What a true pleasure.
1:25:55 Sam Fragoso? And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Josh Brolin, be sure to share it on social media and tag us at Talk Easy Pod. Special thanks this week to the teams at Relevant PR, Searchlight, Harper Collins, and of course, our guest, Josh Brolin. You can see his new film Weapons in theaters across the country. To learn more about his work or to read his memoir from under the truck, visit our show notes at talkeasypod.com. For more episodes with other great performers, I'd recommend Julia Garner, Joaquin Phoenix, and Viola Davis. To hear those and more Lemonada Podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also subscribe
1:26:40 Sam Fragoso? to Lemonada Premium for exclusive bonus content and ad-free listening. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple or head to lemonadapremium.com. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy. You can do so at talkeasypod.com/shop. And again, you can check out our brand new YouTube page, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso on YouTube. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Lindsay Ellis and Adam Jamal and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Chris Shano. Photographs today are by Maria Alvarez and Ethan Newmeyer. This episode was
1:27:25 Sam Fragoso? made in partnership with the good people at Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday with Mayor Karen Bass. Until then, stay safe, and so long.
1:28:01 Speaker 05 I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.
1:28:09 Speaker 06 We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.
1:28:13 Speaker 05 I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?
1:28:15 Speaker 06 There were 32,000 pounds of them.
1:28:18 Speaker 05 32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats. That's correct. Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.
1:28:32 Speaker 07 History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed,
1:29:14 Speaker 07 avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S.com/rz for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.
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