Josh Brolin ‘wanted to be in the centre of’ the Will Smith Oscars drama

Josh Brolin has admitted that a part of him “wanted to be in the centre of” the drama that ensued at the 94th Oscars, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on live television.

The Academy Award-nominated actor spoke about the incident last month that occurred after Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, referencing her shaved head.

“I was at the Oscars and I couldn’t stop pacing,” Brolin said on the latest episode of the podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.

“Because part of me wanted to be in the centre of it,” he said of his mindset at the time. “I wanna know who the f***’s at fault.”

Shepard then shared a story about a time he witnessed an actor explode into a tirade onset, joking that he “could tell you what everyone’s childhood was” just by looking around.

Brolin responded: “I’ve always thought that like especially coming from trauma – parental trauma, childhood trauma, whatever that is – kids will do one of two things, and it’s the same energy.

“They’ll either emulate it to try and understand why it was the way it was, or they’ll do the opposite, right, and they’ll live this kind of holy existence, that’s also totally unhealthy because it’s exactly the same energy.”

The 54-year-old father of four reflected on being a parent and raising his children to “be resilient” and to prepare them for the future.

“We are all running,” he joked. “We are on stage about to get slapped all of the time.”

Brolin stars in the new Amazon Prime thriller series Outer Range, which is available to stream now.