"John Goodman"

0:05Hi, I'm John Goodman, grizzled show business veteran, and you're listening to Smartless. Smart. Less.

0:17Smart. Less.

0:23Smart. Less. I was almost just a little bit late today because I may have just had one of my first sessions, definitely first half dozen. I can't count them on one hand, the amount of times I've gone on Instagram. You guys are familiar with this? Yes, I've heard of this. Oh my God, this is so good. This is my dream come true, you describing Instagram. So, yes, so I'm watching a video on it, right? It's a small. Keep going. Keep going. Funny stuff is happening. People are falling and hurting themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then my thumb accidentally hits the screen, and it disappears, goes up, and there's another one right underneath it.

1:11That's right. It's similar, but then, I don't know. So I did it again, and then it's like some sort of a sports thing, and then someone's selling me something. Anyway, I don't think it's instamatic or instantaneous. I think it's Instagram. Instagram. I think is what it is. And you don't usually go on there? Dot com, I suppose. What is it? You don't usually go on there? What is it? Can I just, is this, was that just you, was that just you describing using Instagram? Yeah, I think, so you know what I'm talking about. You've been there. Yeah, so you really don't honestly go on there? No, we're not alone.

1:45You don't usually go on there, Jason? No, but I get it now. You can sit there and I did what I thought was going to be five minutes and all of a sudden my alarm went off to get to the computer to start this. I was like, oh, fuck, good thing I set an alarm. It's the demise of our whole institution. It's everything. Now, Sean and I send each other videos that we think are funny. Yes. And it's really easy to do. Would you like in on that? And that's a funny way to communicate as well. Oh, so if I see something on Instagram that I like, I could sort of like send that to you. There's like a little thing I can click.

2:18There's like a little icon there and you can hit it. And then if we're all following each other, you can send it to one of us. and then we go like, ha-ha, that's so funny because it's true or whatever. Right. Or, yeah, or saw it. Thanks, old man. Yeah. Exactly. Wait, so now we can send you videos and you'll actually watch them? Yes, I think I will. I might not... Oh, but you know what I don't do is if you send me a video that when I click on it, it says, oh, the person whose video this is will know that you are watching it, then I don't click on those. What does that mean? Does that mean the person's a private?

2:48Nobody knows what you're looking at unless you like it. No, like when Amanda sends me something and I got a click, I have to say that it's, they're going to see that it's me. No, that's just a phone call. Oh. Yeah. I don't know. But this is, listen, this stuff, this is, and it's all here on one of these. You guys have one of these phones? This is with the pictures on the front of it? This is the beginning of the end. Because I just got rid of the one that closes, you know. It kind of looks like a Pac-Man. By the way, this is our generation equivalent of when our dads used to say, I saw this thing in the paper today.

3:28Or on the TV. Right. Or on the TV. Wait, that was a picture of Maple, and I saw her for her birthday. I saw Maple last night. Look at that. Yeah, she just turned 12. I know. I love her. Scotty and I got her some beads that she can wear on her wrist, and we got her a little leather-bound thing that she can draw on, because she's such a good drawer. She's an incredible artist And an incredible athlete She's so good She's been kicking ass They beat another big team You know that you were there at the game She told me who they beat the other night I was like no way Did I already bore you guys It was the Boston Celtics So she's in 6th grade And she plays on the boys team Because she's such badass It's the first time in the history of the school That a girl's ever played on the boys team It's so rad I know.

4:18I just, I love her. It's so wild, Jason. It's nighttime. It's 7 o 'clock. You're getting sleepy? Just about. You know, I had a long day at work, but this is the highlight of my day. Look at you two. You know? Please don't fuck it up with a shit guest, Arnett. You know what? If this is a terrible guest, let's just end it here. I can't wait. I'm so glad. I can't wait for you to eat this shit. You're eating these words. You're moments away from eating. You're going to be so embarrassed. They fucking better be good. You're going to bow down to the power of this dude. Do you want one of these first?

4:53Let's do a dad joke first, and then we're going to make him bow down. One dad joke. Go ahead, Sean. No, it's been too long already. I can't find my Gone in 60 Seconds DVD. It was here a minute ago. Okay. All right. So here we go. We've wasted this person's time, and he deserves so much more respect than that. Well, we'll see. And Jason, I am so excited because this is a guy who's been doing it for a long time, at the highest level. He's been nominated for, I think he's won an Emmy, nominated for seven times, Golden Globe, nominated four times. He's been just nominated and won everything. Let me just apologize now.

5:27I'll just start with an apology. No, no, no, no, no, no, because you're going to eat shit. But more than that, because I don't even want to get into his credits because they're all the greatest, funniest, amazing movies. Not just funny, but also dramatic, but like really, just for me, such a huge influence on my life. And you guys know because I have on the show used him consistently as the gold standard. I talk about people being okay, being in bad movies, but always being good. And he is always my example, as you guys know, of the guy who's never turned in a bad performance ever. But he's been in a lot of bad movies.

6:02We got it. And one of the things that I love about him most that he and I have in common is the line when he said, you guys lost to a bunch of fucking nerds. Guys, it's the all-time champ for me. It's John Goodman. Oh! I'm so sorry, Mr. Goodman. Hiya, fellas. Oh, no. Oh, my God. I can't follow that. Johnny Goodman. Well done, Will. Mr. John Goodman. By the way, every word he just said is true. Every single thing you've ever done is phenomenal. I agree. Every performance. There's not a dud in the... It's true. Yeah. And always associated with good people. He does reference you quite a bit as the bar to jump over.

6:42Yeah. It is true. John, at risk of embarrassing you further, what a pleasure to meet you and thank you for coming and doing this and joining us. My pleasure, thank you. It's America's favorite podcast. Thank you for welcoming me into your pod. This is cool. Well, I do use that, you often, and I'm sorry, again, at risk of embarrassing you, as the sort of the gold standard of someone who's always good and never turns into a bad performance. And I've been such a fan of yours for such a long time and you've done so many different things. And you've crossed, you've done comedy in, you know, you've done sitcoms, multiple really fantastic sitcoms, like the old school standard, like, multicams, like with an audience that is just, and to do that, pull it off well.

7:28Sorry, Sean. To pull it off well. It's the best job in the world. It's the best job in the world. But then you've had an incredible career in film, but you started in theater, is where I'm driving at. Oh, here comes Sean. Here comes man. This is where Will and I just sit back. So I want to hear about how, what that start was like for you, Mr. Grooming, because I don't know the story and how you got in, what your journey was. I had nowhere else to go. Excellent. Next question. No, I sabotaged my own education. The only time I got lit up was doing plays, and I decided to make that my major. since I was inches from being thrown out of school.

8:14Really? And everything took off after that. And as soon as I found out how wonderful it can be, then I started to want to learn history, English, whatever I needed to pull out of my bag of tricks when performing a role. Oh, wow, so that you could stay in school and stay a part of the theater department. Yeah. Oh, wow. So where was that? Where was that? So you were in school? Were you in Missouri? Is that right? It was called Southwest Missouri State University. Now it's called Missouri State University. But then you moved to New York. Is that true? Is that how that was? That is true. I took the Amtrak from St.

8:58Louis to New York in August of 1975. Holy shit. And did you have a destiny? Other than the city, were you like, I'm going to go do this? Or were you just like, I'm rolling the dice here? I was a frightened hick. The main thing I wanted to do was take classes with Uta Hagen and get into the actor's studio and learn some more. And did you get in there? I did not. I left about a month and a half later doing a dinner theater, non-equity dinner theater version of 1776. What dinner theater? The La Comedia Dinner Playhouse in Springboro, Ohio. I worked at Peasant Run Dinner Theater in St. Charles, Illinois.

9:47Oh, okay. Yeah, which I just found out Ben Stiller's parents did summer stock there. Oh, right, yeah. Summer chicken stock, I guess, because it's dinner theater. There we go. Hey, guys. So dinner theater is what it sounds like, correct? You sit there, you're at your tables, and they serve you the whole thing while the play's going on. How dare they make noise? Well, I was just going to say. You got the glasses clanking and the forks going. People getting lit. Yeah, getting lit and whistling the waiter over because the shit's not right. And they put the tables right up to the edge of the stage.

10:25They sure do. I was playing Tommy Gilles in The Music Man, and I was doing something and fell right on top of one of the tables and I had to keep going. It was so ridiculous. Just swear to God. Just living your dream with a bunch of pasta sauce in your pants, huh? My buddy Hackett, Mom. I mean, and was there ever a time where you're on stage and you're like, oh man, that smells pretty good down there. Well, I couldn't get hired for their next shows, but my girlfriend did. So I went down there just to get out of New York and work as a waiter in the dinner theater. Wow. For the summer. But I cut the grass.

11:02I did all kinds of odd jobs and made enough money to pay off my student loans that summer. Wow. Sorry, Sean. So New York was a total wipeout? And so you— Not at all. I just—I left. It was a horrible winter. Yeah. And I was broke, and I couldn't get arrested as a waiter or anything else. I got one night's work as a bouncer in a club called the Adam's Apple, and they had this German head bouncer who was telling us how to rip guys' mouths open when you got their head down on the curve, and then you stomp the back of their head and their teeth come out. Jesus Christ. Sure. Check, please. Yeah, I had to show up the next time.

11:50So then where did you go at that? That's the only job I had in the city. So then it does sound like New York wasn't really bearing a lot of fruit. Well, it was also, at the time, it was Ford to City drop dead. They were defaulting on their loans. The city was just going to hell. The subways were terrifying. You know, the graffiti, all the stuff. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I was a kid from the suburbs. Yeah. But I was determined to live there because I dug it. Right. So you left for a little bit, went to Ohio, and then you came back to New York? Yeah, I came back, and then I got my card about like a month after that.

12:33Your equity card or SAG card? Yeah, my equity card doing a bus and truck of the robber bridegroom. Oh, my God. That is so... And so how old were you? You were about 20? What, 20? Yeah, 23, 24. Any other options available to you at that moment, either practically or just sort of emotionally? Like, were you attracted to anything else? Could you have taken a fork in the road and been something else at that moment? No. I had, the way I look back on it now, it unfolds itself like it was a calling. Yeah. I mean, I used to get kicked out of, when I'd get kicked out of a class, they'd send me to the library, and I would sit there and read plays.

13:19and I'm like 14, 15 years old. I have no idea why. Was anybody in your family doing that? No. My brother was a fan of theater. He's a bit older than me. And we'd go into Clayton, Missouri and pick up the New York Times every Sunday, literally, weighed a ton back then. And I would go to the Arts and Leisures and basically to look at the Hirschfeld cartoons. and then I'd just start following what shows were up. I had no idea why. You just enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. Why were you getting kicked out of class? Were you just running your mouth and you wanted to perform and get attention? I had to have attention.

14:01Yeah, exactly. Yeah, learning was learning bad, attention good. Yeah, I had the same problem. So then, John, so then New York, you stuck it out there and things really started to pick up traction or was the big break out in Los Angeles or somewhere in between? I had a series of little breaks. When I got back from the tour, I had one time, I had a bunch of pictures, you know, resumes, stapled them all together. And in desperation, I was sending them out to theaters. One guy at Great Advertising picked up my picture, called me in, I got the gig. and he set me up with commercial agents. And then I couldn't not get them for some reason.

14:48I just, I've been goofing off. Yeah, start making money on those. I've been goofing on them my whole life. Well, it's also kind of like, I speak on behalf of the four of us, if you can't do anything else, you have to make this work. Yeah. You know what I mean? You got to pay the bills at least. Yeah. By that time, I was hanging out with a lot of like real, real actors at a place up on the West Side and I got to hate myself for doing commercials. I was all screwed up and I was really getting into drinking at the time. And I resented doing commercials because other guys were doing what I thought was real work.

15:25Right. So I didn't care. I think that's why I got so many of them. Right, right, right. And I got a lot of them. And in defense of commercials, I do like commercials. Stanley Kubrick said they're the only form of the medium where you can actually acquire perfection because they're just 30 seconds, and they're very intricately made nowadays, especially... The lighting alone, man, would take forever to set up, and it had to be just right and the product just right. Mm-hmm. And we will be right back. John, you had what Jason... You were getting so many... What Jason likes to call you had at that time, it seems to me, you had a sexy indifference.

16:09You didn't care. You didn't go in there. You didn't want it too bad. And then you just kept getting him. And I know that that feeling, especially when you're younger, I remember thinking like, man, I'm not going to read. And my first agent being like, it's pilot season. You're going to read for some sitcoms. I'm like, sitcoms? How dare you? Are you out of your mind? I'm sorry. I'm an artist. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, I'm like so broken. I'm like, fuck, let me. I'll read for anything, please. You know what I mean? right what though roseanne was so like um so theater it was a lot of sitcoms don't feel like theater and a lot of them do which is what they should feel like and roseanne to me anytime i watched it it was like oh i'm i'm in new york watching a play every single time yeah it was uh it was different for the time because the antidote to a lot of things like dallas and dynasty and all these rich folk things.

17:05And I think we hit a nerve. I know my nerves were beat. Does it go that far back? When was the year of the pilot? 1987, I think, the pilot. Holy shit. I think I graduated or tried to graduate high school that year. I wanted to get to Roseanne because I really think, I mean, when you guys were doing it at its best, it was just unrivaled. I watched it every week. I was such a massive fan of what you guys did, all the work, the writing, everything about it, I thought was so good. How did that come into your orbit, John, at the time? Where were you at when that came around and you read that? I was out here for something.

17:41In L.A.? Yeah. It was either a movie or a commercial. And I got hip and rented a Corvette. I thought I was hot shit. I had a couple of bucks, and I remember going to the audition in that Corvette. and I walked in. I didn't know much about her. I'd seen her in some Pizza Hut commercials. I'd seen a couple of clips and she was really good, like on the Carson show. And I walked in and it was very friendly and I read and I just, I knew I had the gig. Yeah. Did you want that gig? Yeah. Where were you in your career at that point? I was living out of suitcases all the time because I was just starting to get films.

18:32Yeah. Like starting in 1985, I was a book on a lot of movies. That was after Revenge of the Nerds. Yeah, that was shot in 83. Yeah. When did you start your incredible collaboration with the Coen brothers? Was that during the run of Roseanne or was it after? No, it was before. It was in 1985. Oh, wow. I just got a lead in a film that David Byrne directed. Really? Yeah. It was called True Stories. It's really interesting looking. Oh, yeah. Fuck, I want to see that. And I was just really getting, you know, I'd show up. I'd go to dailies because I wanted to. What, when you were working with the Collins or with David Byrne?

19:18No, it was before that with David Byrne. And I was really getting into films. I wasn't as scared as I was. Yeah. And I got called, I was in New York on a week off or something. Anyway, I was in New York. They called me in for Raising Arizona. And we just sat down and goofed around for about an hour. Really? That was the audition. And then I read and left. I bet you felt like you got an audition. No, I didn't know, but I'd never had an audition. But you'd sit in an office for an hour, like you gotta feel like you got something there. We never had, I never had a more fun audition before or since.

19:53We just sat and goofed around. Yeah, I was going to say we were on the same level humor-wise, but those guys are geniuses. Yeah, they are. No kidding. Yeah. But I can't imagine, well, yes, I can't imagine. I was going to say that, did they let you contribute once you got in there and really started, I mean, that character is so specific, John. I mean, what an incredible job you did with that character. I have to assume that you augmented that dialogue a little bit or no? They're pretty specific, right? I wouldn't know how to augment any better than they wrote it. We had rehearsal time on Lebowski.

20:36Yeah. So by the time we shot, we were in pretty good shape with the dialogue. And that's why a lot of people ask me if it was improvised. It's just so conversational. Because we were facile with it. Yeah. What was that process like making that? I mean, the big Lebowski obviously is held up as one of the all-time great. One of my faves. It was just lovely. Man, it's just a great time, great hang. Do you remember reading that script the first time? Yeah. And did you know Steve and Jeff beforehand, or was the chemistry just great luck? Great luck. Yeah. Isn't that wild? Kismet, man. Yeah, and everybody hit it off.

21:16So you read that, they send you that script, and you're like, what? you're like, holy shit. Did they write it for you? I'll bet they did. Oh, Lebowski, yeah. Yeah. That and Barton Fink. Yeah. And the last one I did for him. Which was the last one? Inside Llewyn Davis. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Beautiful movie. A little bit more of a serious turn. Yeah. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah. Talk about that. I mean, think about the breadth of characters that you played with them at the helm as writer-directors and all with such different tones too. What is that shift like, that dynamic, working with them on films that have such a hugely, vastly different tone to them?

22:00Yeah, they're such film fans and magpies for popular culture that just throw in and everything and it works. They've got great ears for people's dialogue. for Human Speech. Will worked with Barry Sonnenfeld. I was about to bring up Barry. I love Barry. I'm friends with, yeah, we've had him on this show and I've been friends with Barry for a number of years and I've worked with him a couple of times and he's, you obviously worked with him on a bunch of great films, Jay, you mentioned. I mean, and also very different. Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing were both Barry films. Again, so totally different from the script and the way they looked.

22:42Yeah. And fantastic. He talked about his first, what was his first? Oh, Blood Simple. Yeah, Blood Simple. Blood Simple was the first, yeah. And he claims that they hired him because he had a camera. Yeah, I believe that. But back then they were broke, and they would just know what they wanted, and they'd invent ways to do it. Like, you know, these guys from the 20s, they just, if they had a problem, they'd solve it and strap a camera on a board and run with it. And just, did you see that progression? Have you seen that evolution? Because you've been with them for so long, and they might say the same about you, the evolution of them as filmmakers from Raising Arizona to Lew and Dave, I mean, it must be pretty significant.

23:31Yeah, more of a shortcut than anything else. The more experience they get, the easier it gets. The less they need to say, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. moving forward in your career in your life do you still have the fire in your belly that you had when you were a kid to just kind of pursue keep going challenging yourself it's much different now yeah in what way because i i feel like i'm still learning i bet the last couple years have been goofy for me because i've been uh trying to be good and it it doesn't work that way uh you know like weight planning things way too much and uh at the root of that was the fear of losing trust in myself uh so i overcompensated by working way too hard and i've just kind of come out of that in the last year or so uh and it's man there's there's so much to learn yeah how did you how did you manage to come out of that uh practically having a nervous breakdown no it it was bad uh with everything and it just finally yeah it just it just purged out of me when I went to the therapist one day, and then for the rest of the day, it was horrible.

24:43Nothing worked. I woke up the next day, and I'm... Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. There's a cherub that danced around my head. But it just felt a lot better. It's just you've got to be relaxed when you do stuff and open and listen. Do you find that? I'm finding that the older I get, the smarter I get, the smarter we all get, But with the added intelligence or observational skills comes the burden of trying to manage all of the new stuff that you're absorbing and learning. Yeah, there's something brilliant about staying ignorant. Yeah, it just keeps complicating stuff and making things more dynamic and more fun.

25:26But it's more of a challenge and you've got to keep up. You have to be ready to listen to yourself. You have to be relaxed. Hard. For me, that was the key. I already know this stuff. And that's the one thing I didn't trust myself about. I didn't make it to Stella Adler. I didn't make it to Uta Hagen. I got into the studio, but I've never been there. And I just didn't have a, I felt I didn't have a base for everything. And it finally dawned on me, I know this stuff. Man, I've been doing this for 50 years. It's like, you know it. And it's there if you listen for it, if you let it come to you, it's boom.

26:10Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did it start to feel like maybe you weren't doing anything? And then you realized, well, that's because I'm just natural at it and I do know all this stuff. And I've just found sometimes if I'm so comfortable in a character, I can sometimes feel like, oh, I'm just kind of phoning this in. I'm just walking this through. And then you feel like, oh, then maybe I should play this scene a little. I should act a little harder, you know. And then it feels like, well, now I'm really working today. But then you might watch playback or just even hear your own voice and be like, no, God, this isn't working.

26:51This feels like shit. and then you go back to just doing it normally and it's like, no, that's great, that's fine. I know this stuff. And you just happen to be natural at it. I wonder if that's how like athletes feel when they just, they're just playing. They're just in it, you know? That's what it is, just play. Yeah. And listening. Do you find as you're changing as a person that it changes the kinds of roles that you look to do since what we do is kind of an exercise in personal exploration we happen to get paid for? I don't know. I've been doing the same role for the last, same two roles. No, you haven't.