Josh Brolin

Brolin married actress Alice Adair in 1988. They had two children, Trevor and Eden, before divorcing in the 1990s. He was briefly engaged to actress Minnie Driver in 2001. In 2004, he married actress Diane Lane. Their marriage ended in divorce in 2013. Brolin married model and former assistant Kathryn Boyd in September 2016. The couple has two daughters, Westlyn Reign and Chapel Grace.

He was arrested for public intoxication on New Year's Day in 2013, a moment that spurred him to confront long-standing grief over the death of his mother. He entered rehab later that year and has remained sober since. In 2024, he published a memoir titled From Under the Truck.

Brolin was born in Santa Monica, California, to actor James Brolin and casting director and wildlife activist Jane Cameron Agee. He grew up on a ranch in the Paso Robles area and attended school in Templeton. His upbringing remained mostly separated from Hollywood. As an adolescent in Santa Barbara, he ran with a local surf group called the Cito Rats and co-founded the punk outfit that later became Rich Kids on LSD. Drugs were a constant presence. He stole cars to fund his habit and watched dozens of childhood friends die young.

He found acting in high school after taking an improv class and portraying Stanley Kowalski in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire. The craft hooked him immediately. His feature debut arrived at age 17 as Brand Walsh in Richard Donner's The Goonies (1985). The film was a hit. Yet his follow-up, the 1986 skateboarding drama Thrashin', left him horrified by his own performance. He pulled back toward television and stage work, spending three seasons portraying Wild Bill Hickok in the ABC western series The Young Riders from 1989 to 1992.

Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, steady film work proved difficult. Brolin traded stocks full-time to generate income and co-founded an online market-analysis website. His career turned in 2007. He auditioned for Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men with help from directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Shortly before filming, a motorcycle collision broke his collarbone. He kept the injury quiet and played Llewelyn Moss, a welder on the run after discovering drug money in the Texas desert.

In 2008, he starred as President George W. Bush in Oliver Stone's biographical drama W. That same year, he portrayed city supervisor Dan White in Gus Van Sant's Milk. His portrayal earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor alongside honours from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review. He reunited with the Coen brothers for the 2010 western True Grit and starred as a younger Agent K in Men in Black 3 (2012).

Brolin took on major comic book adaptations starting in 2014, making cameo appearances as Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before headlining Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). He performed the character via motion capture and voice work. In 2018, he also debuted as the time-traveling cybernetic soldier Cable in Deadpool 2.

He joined Denis Villeneuve's Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024) as House Atreides weapons master Gurney Halleck. On television, he executive produced and starred as rancher Royal Abbott in Prime Video's supernatural neo-western series Outer Range, directing an episode in its second season. He later launched Brolin Productions, backing films like the 2024 crime comedy Brothers.