Josh Brolin recalls the time his mother nearly fed someone to a lion: 'She was absolutely f---ing nuts'

The actor remembers his beloved mother, a wildlife rehabilitator, in conversation with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson.

Josh Brolin has ferocious memories from a very wild childhood with an "animal-obsessed" mother.

Appearing on the latest episode of Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson's SiriusXM Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, the actor recounted growing up amongst lions, tigers and bears, oh my, as the son of a formidable wildlife rehabilitator. In one instance, Brolin said his mother nearly fed a man to a lion.

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"My mother had zero filter, so as crazy as she was — and she was absolutely f---ing nuts — she gave something to me that allows me to open the pores of whatever filters exist, and I'm really grateful to her for that," Brolin said, sharing that his mother was "animal obsessed" and worked for the California Department of Fish and Game.

"She was a way station for animals that had been illegally taken out of the wild [by people who try] to domesticate them," Brolin explained. "She'd find those people, have them jailed, nurse [the animals] back to health and either rerelease them or find the most habitable zoo. So we had a lot of animals growing up. Big cats, wolves, bears, all kinds of stuff."

A man named Bud who worked on the family ranch in Paso Robles, Calif., bit off more than he could chew during the week with a lion that had been staying with the Brolins. "She told him, 'Look, he's not eating. You have to go in there and show him how to eat. You have to sit next to him and show him. Put your face in the bowl and show him, he needs help,'" Brolin recalled.

"Bud goes, 'You want me to get in the thing and sit down?' I mean, he didn't know any better, poor guy, so he goes in there," Brolin said. "And she goes, 'Well, sit next to him.' And the [lion]'s just sitting there and she goes, 'Now put the bowl up to your face and then lower your head like you're eating.' And then he gets up and the lion — you know how they look up like a dog and they just go one eye, the other eye — moves forward and she goes, 'Oh good, he's moving.'"

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The lion, however, moved toward Bud's thigh, and "opens his mouth — these f---ing four, five inch long fangs — and then slowly closes the mouth around the guy's thigh," said Brolin. "You hear the rip of the jeans and Bud's going, 'His teeth are going into my leg. His teeth are going into my leg!' and my mom, when she would get nervous, she had this thing, a condition where she would laugh hysterically."

Brolin added, "She's trying to talk, but she can't because there's just wheezing with this laugh and she's got a Cool King in one hand and a Dr. Pepper in the other hand. And she's trying to say, 'Don't move, don't move,' but she can't because she's laughing so hard. The lion just kept its teeth in there for a while, looked up a couple of other times, he didn't move." Eventually, the lion "slowly lifted his mouth" and "moved back to where he was," prompting Bud to yelp, "Get me the f--- outta here."

Brolin's unconventional childhood "was a different deal, man," he later quipped. "And then you go out into life and you become an actor and it's all good."

Listen to Brolin's wild episode in full above, where he also discusses his sobriety and career.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.