Josh Brolin Speaks Out on New Year's Arrest: "It Was a Pretty Innocent Thing"

USMagazine, Wednesday, January 9, 2013, 3:40pm (PST)

Josh Brolin's 2013 didn't get off to the best start, but he's not going to let it ruin the rest of his year.

On Wednesday, Jan. 9, the Gangster Squad actor, 44, stopped by Good Morning America to chat with George Stephanopoulos about his new film (also starring Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, and Emma Stone). When the conversation turned to what happened the night of his Jan. 1 arrest for public intoxication in Santa Monica, Calif., Brolin addressed the incident good-naturedly.

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"New Year's -- that's what happened," the star joked of his brush with the law, which led to a four-hour stint in jail. "I'm the one guy who's out there, and they go, 'Hey, there's Josh. Let's grab him.' You know, it was New Year's. It was a pretty innocent thing. It was a fun thing."

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In fact, he said, the worst thing about it was his mugshot. "You see this shot of me like this," he explained, making an angry face. "And they don't show you the other shot where I turn and have a huge smile on my face. So you know, whatever. [The police] were very sweet to me, actually."

Brolin, who plays a cop in Gangster Squad, was taken into custody just before midnight on New Year's Day and booked into jail at around 3 a.m. He was released on $250 bail four hours later.

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This is the actor's third run-in with the law in 10 years. He was previously arrested in 2004 on a misdemeanor battery charge after an altercation with his wife, Diane Lane, and then again in 2008 after a bar fight in Louisiana. The charges in both cases were dropped. Brolin will not face any further punishment for his New Year's Day infraction, either.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Josh Brolin Speaks Out on New Year's Arrest: "It Was a Pretty Innocent Thing"