John Goodman is enjoying a rare moment of calm. The 73-year-old star recently wrapped up his roles on both ABC’s The Conners and HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, and now finds himself without a new project on the horizon for the first time in years.
The actor, known for his booming voice and being a go-to for filmmakers like the Coen brothers, also finds himself far away from Hollywood, living in Charleston, South Carolina, after losing his Palisades home in the wildfires in January. “It’s been 10 years since I’ve done a play, so I have to get back into that,” says the former theater major during an upbeat Zoom with THR in late June.
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Despite an open schedule looming, there will be plenty of Goodman arriving on screens in the coming months. Earlier this year, he shot a part in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s upcoming Tom Cruise movie, and he is in full promotional mode for Paramount’s animated film Smurfs, which hits theaters July 18 and sees him voicing patriarch Papa Smurf alongside Rihanna’s Smurfette. The actor has quite the legacy of voice work, notably bringing to life the lovably frightening Sulley in Pixar’s Monsters Inc. franchise.
But of course, there has been no shortage of standout live-action performances from the actor, including big-screen collaborations with Steven Spielberg and Coen brothers favorites like The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, not to mention a run in the 2010s that gave Goodman the rare distinction of appearing in back-to-back best picture winners (The Artist and Argo).
In a chat with THR, Goodman looks back at his relationship with Roseanne Barr, bombing at his Saturday Night Live audition and the time Spielberg announced Goodman was going to star in Flintstones, without asking him first.
In the past few months, you’ve said goodbye to both The Conners and The Righteous Gemstones. How does it feel to no longer play Dan Conner after all these years?
I didn’t think [the Roseanne reboot] was going to go beyond the initial five or six episodes. I thought it’d be a one-off thing, and then we got picked up, and Roseanne got fired. I thought that was it, and as soon as they dismissed the cast, I picked up Righteous Gemstones. Then we got to do the show again as The Conners. I didn’t know how long it would last, but I sure enjoyed it while I was there.
The Conners finale ends with Dan alone on the couch, saying good night directly to the camera.
I wanted to do it, and they let me, and they kept it. I thought it was just us saying, “Good night, folks. Thank you.”
Dan visits Roseanne’s grave in the episode. Have you connected with Roseanne about the end of the show?
No. I’d rather doubt if she wants to talk to me. We haven’t talked for about seven or eight years.
Did that aspect of The Conners make it a tough show to navigate?
No. We got a good cast, and everybody stands out.
You and Roseanne had electric chemistry from the start of the show in the late 1980s. What do you remember from those early days?
We hit it off from jump street. She made me laugh, and I made her laugh, and wow, it was so much fun. We’d get so many viewers for the show back then — 20, 30 million people. Things are so different now, but it was a special time.
For Gemstones, what was the most uncomfortable situation that Danny McBride put you in as the televangelist family’s patriarch, Eli?
I read the final season, and there was one particular scene that I said, “I can’t do this.” It involved the soixante-neuf [French for “69”] position with my girlfriend. I said, “I’m not going to do it.” [But]they set the sexual position up in a way that it was just funny. I was only uncomfortable for an hour or so, and I’m no good naked.
Your career isn’t slowing down. You recently shot Alejandro Iñárritu’s new comedy with Tom Cruise that’s out next year.
There are a lot of funny moments in it. Tom is a force of nature, and it’s fun to just hang on and see what he’s going to do. He’s a 63-year-old professional athlete and artist. He’s got the drive and the energy, and I wish I had half of it.
Did you know him prior to this project?
No. We’d met before, but it was like 35 years ago at Bruce Willis’ house in Malibu. I had no idea he would remember that, but he did. He’s just easy to talk to and a great guy.
You made headlines earlier this year with your on-set hip injury. Was it for an action scene?
It was a real accident. We had been working on the scene for a week and a half. I wasn’t quite getting it right, and through a process, I finally made a breakthrough. But after that, we were blocking it, and I was wearing stocking feet, like I had been for the last week and a half. I was passing Tom, and my legs just went on the floor, and I came up parallel to the ground and landed on my hip. I tried to get back up, and when I couldn’t do that, I started fearing the worst. I didn’t know I had fractured it until we got X-rays.
So sorry to hear. How are you now?
There was a brilliant doctor on set, and he got me into the Cleveland Clinic [in London]. They operated the next morning, and so far, so good. Unfortunately, I was down for about a month there where I couldn’t do anything, and it was driving me nuts. They found other things to do, and I finally got back into it.
Is there a role from your career that makes you the proudest?
There probably is. People seem to enjoy The Big Lebowski, and since everybody else likes it so much, I’ll take that. But anything I did for Joel and Ethan [Coen]. I wish I could go back and do Barton Fink because there’s some things I would do different now, but I can’t. And the Babe Ruth movie [1992’s The Babe]. I would have worked a lot harder on that.
I went to see The Babe with my baseball team at the time, and scenes still stick with me.
Well, great. It was hard to do. I used to do this when I started Roseanne. I’d do the series, and then I’d get two films for the summer, and that actually continued for a while, until I was just trying to turn water instead of really digging into it.
Is that a tough feeling when a film doesn’t connect with the audience?
Yeah, I always blame myself: “What did I do wrong?” “What could I have done better?” After a while, you have to let it go, and I did.
It appears that Speed Racer has been embraced by new fans through social media.
Oh, good. It might have been a little ahead of its time. It didn’t feel like that when it sank, but that’s one thing about film. It’s there forever. If people dig it now, that’s just great and means the Wachowskis knew what they were doing.
What was it like as a young actor to collaborate with the Coens?
It was great because I was in their second film. They had just done Blood Simple, and I didn’t really know who they were. I went in to an audition for Raising Arizona, and we just goofed around for an hour. I got the role, and a lot of my other friends that went in just couldn’t believe it because I really didn’t have much experience. When we were shooting, I would go to the set on my day off just to goof around and watch these guys, watch how they work, feud with [cinematographer] Barry Sonnenfeld just for the hell of it. I wish I could say it was a great learning experience, but I was having too much fun.
You became a fixture on SNL in the 1990s. What do you remember about your unsuccessful audition to join the cast?
That was 1980 when the original cast left, Lorne [Michaels] left, and I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, unfortunately. I didn’t have any improv or stand-up background, and I had a terrible audition, but for some reason, I still thought I’d get cast. Nine years later, I got to host the show [for the first of 13 times]. That was always the best part of my year, going to host the show for a week.
Did you have a favorite castmember?
Oh, golly. I don’t, but Phil Hartman stands out. Jon Lovitz. I’d have to say Phil because he was always solid gold, 100 percent.
Among your notable characters was Linda Tripp. Was that tricky to navigate at a fraught time for the nation?
No, I just put a dress on. I did it because it was funny and didn’t really think too much of it. She’s a public figure, and she did what she did.
Speaking of genius filmmakers for your catalog, Steven Spielberg handpicked you as the star of 1994’s The Flintstones, which he produced.
It wasn’t something I wanted at the time. He cast me in a couple of movies, and then when we were sitting down to read [1989’s] Always for the first time, he made the announcement, which surprised me. Nobody asked me, but it worked out. It was perfect at the time, and I love Rick Moranis [who played Barney Rubble]. He’s just a lovely man and so funny and smart.