Josh Brolin dealt with some very adult issues during his childhood.
In the February issue of Men's Journal, the 44-year-old Gangster Squad actor speaks candidly about his drug- and alcohol-fueled days as a young star in Hollywood.
Growing up in Montecito, Calif., Josh (son of veteran TV and movie star James Brolin) joined a surf gang called the Cito Rats. "I stole a lot of radios from cars," the actor recalls. "I could pop the detail with a coat hanger real easy. I got very good at it. I can still do it today." Josh sold the stolen car parts to buy "drums and drugs," he explains. "What else was there?"
"I was the last [gang member] to get into heroin — I smoked it — and the first to get out. I was around 16 or 17, so it was around the time of The Goonies," Josh reveals. "But I liked working and learning, so it was very difficult for me to lend myself to that drug completely."
Josh — who lost his virginity at age 11 to a girl named Greta — says he became an "intimidator" and a "goon" as the years went on.
"When I was 19 a fight broke out, and when the police came, I fought the police. I was pretty drunk. To this day, I have no idea what the fight was about. I woke up in jail. The police were very angry with me. Very angry. They kicked my ass really well. I was looking at a long time in prison. So, basically, I put everything I had — everything I had earned from a TV series I did — into lawyers," Diane Lane's husband tells the magazine. "I did a bit of jail time. Not much, but a little bit."
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Josh hasn't been able to completely change his wild ways. He was was arrested for public intoxication on Jan. 1, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. He called the incident "a pretty innocent thing" and mocked his mugshot.
In 2008, the actor was one of seven W. actors and crew members arrested for an altercation at the tray Cat Bar in Shreveport, La. The charges were later dropped. Four years earlier, Lane, 47, called the police on her husband, and Josh was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. She later declined to press charges.
For more from Josh's tell-all interview, pick up the February issue of Men's Journal, out now.
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