Josh Brolin belonged to a surfer gang called the Cito Rats and dabbled in hard drugs when he was a teenager, he said in a recent interview with The Guardian. Brolin opened up about his childhood, telling the British newspaper the Rats were a group of “children of rich, neglectful parents or children of poor, neglectful parents.”
“I tried heroin,” Brolin said. “That sounds so horrible when you put it like that. But yeah, I tried heroin.”
Brolin never took to the drug, but many of his friends did.
“I’ve had 19 friends who died,” Brolin said. “Most of those guys I grew up with, they’re all dead now.”
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Brolin sat down for the interview to discuss “Labor Day,” Jason Reitman‘s latest movie in which Brolin plays Frank, an escaped convict who lands in suburbia.
The question of sobriety has hung over Brolin since he was arrested for public intoxication on New Year’s Eve of 2012. Despite media repots that he entered a rehab facility last November, Brolin swears he is clean and focused on his upcoming projects.
The actor appeared in “Gangster Squad,” “Oldboy” and “Labor Day” last year, three movies viewers received poorly. He will appear in two movies this year that should fare better, “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” a sequel to Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller‘s hit film, and “Inherent Vice,” the latest movie from Paul Thomas Anderson.
