Star Josh Brolin called everyone’s favorite actor

The Dune star singled out the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as one of the all-time greats. “He was at the helm, man,” he wrote (via Black). “He was the. He was the most talented of us all and lived his sobriety as a badge of honor. It meant a lot to him.” He referenced the troubled actor’s struggle with drugs, which he managed until a relapse in 2012. Hoffman ultimately died in 2014 of an overdose.

“I said, ‘If you ever want to talk about any of this shit, let me know,'” Brolin said of a meeting he had with Hoffman after his relapse. “And he was dead a month and a half or two months later. It was terrible. This was a guy who became all of our favorite actors.” This was in stark contrast to another incident Brolin wrote about that took place during Hoffman’s sober period. “There’s sweat all over my bare chest,” Brolin recalled. “I see back on the subway stairwell, but he (Hoffman) is already gone. I know he’s sober. I am no longer. He knows that too. I could tell by the way he looked at me that I just didn’t get it.”

Brolin and Hoffman never worked together on a project, but the former had met the latter’s mother while they were both acting together. They had discussed staging a version of Kenneth Lonergan’s Hold me dear starring Brolin and Hoffman directing, but the Capote the actor died before they could make this plan a reality.

Like Hoffman, Brolin had his own struggles with drink and drugs. In the book, he recalled the turning point in his life; when he showed up to visit his dying grandmother after drinking heavily the night before. “I had a moment where she was smiling at me and I was like, ‘How dare I?'” he recalled. “It made me realize that I had everything on my watch and yet I ruin it. And that was it. I like the clarity that comes with sobriety. Maybe it’s an influence, but I like the rebellion of saying, ‘OK, I lived 45 years of that life. Now I have to live another 45 years without drinking.”

“I don’t have survivor’s guilt,” the actor said of his many friends who lost their lives to drug addiction. “But I feel a sense of responsibility to live my life to the fullest… I chose to drink and I did some terrible things after making that choice. I was willing to endure those terrible things to have an identity .Because without alcohol, I didn’t feel like I was a full person.”

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