Josh Brolin

Josh: (revealing he was inspired to take acting seriously by the death of his mother, killed in a 1995 car accident) When my mother died it brought it all home, magnified everything. 'What do I want to do? Where do I want to go?' It made me appreciate how fragile life was. I didn't know where I was going. I had a healthy fear of looking back on my life and thinking, 'Have I done enough? Am I proud of what I've done?'

Josh: (on working with Paul Haggis, Tarantino and Rodriguez, Ridley Scott and Coen brothers over the past year) Year and a half, and then there's Karen Moncrief who did The Dead Girl which I'm really happy with. Very good small film. They're all very, very different, but the majority of those people that you just mentioned, there's an incredible lack of ego… It seems that when you work with great filmmakers, there's an incredible lack of ego. It's more of a collaborative experience, as opposed to guys who are a little less confident in the experience [where] there seems to be a lot of yelling and a lot of ego. I didn't find that with the filmmakers you just mentioned. They were very mellow, very into the story and just limitless energy and creativity. I learned a lot as an actor looking at directors – how you can make something work and not have a s***load of strife…

Josh: (on the Coen brothers) Every time I hear the word "brilliant" or "genius" I feel them hit me in the back of the head, because they don't see themselves like that. They see themselves as just manifesting stories that they're interested in at that moment. They're very technically proficient. They understand film, they understand storytelling and they love to tell stories. These are two guys that would be perfectly satisfied sitting around a campfire telling f***ed up, bizarre twisty, turny stories.