John Goodman Breaks Down His Career, From 'The Big Lebowski' to 'The Righteous Gemstones'

I remember when I saw Godfather II

trying to call up Al Pacino after we came home.

Well, New York information didn't have that number,

but I got to meet him.

And I got to work with him.

One of my heroes.

One of the great things

about the business is you get to meet your heroes.

And so far I have not been disappointed.

[gentle music]

Hi, my name is John Goodman

and this is a timeline of my career.

[gentle music]

When did it end?

Let me know,

so I can start hanging out at home again.

Oh, that's just for the first six months.

And it goes down to 50 after that.

I, I can't do that.

Can't do what?

I didn't get serious about it until I was in college.

It was the only thing I'd ever done that I was really

interested in.

1975,

I decided to

take a shot at it

and go to New York.

I said, well, you know what?

The worst that can happen is I can die.

But the second worst thing is

I'll just come home in a year

with my tail between my legs,

but I will have tried it

but I had to go because I knew if I didn't

try to be an actor,

I would hate myself for the rest of my life.

And I wound up with both of them.

A lot of it was dinner theater,

children's theater kept me afloat for a while.

Regional theater.

Off Broadway I was doing a play in '82,

for a couple years we'd take it around

to different theaters

directed by Dann Florek with J.T. Walsh,

and Martin Bregman

came and saw the show at the Manhattan theater club

and hired J.T.,

Dann Florek and myself to be in a movie

he was producing called Eddie Macon's Run,

which was with John Dukes of Hazzard Schneider

and Kirk Douglas,

who I never saw,

but there I was in Laredo, Texas, 1983, I think.

I can't do that.

That's good.

Welcome home son.

Where's he been?

Phoenix.

I went to New York to audition for

Joel and Ethan,

and I never saw Blood Simple their first film.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into

but we were locked into the casting room for about an hour

just laughing, having the best time goofing around.

And that would've been good enough.

I mean, if I hadn't got the film,

I had a good time with those guys.

They made me laugh a lot.

The writing was so damn good.

It was so much fun that I'd show up at work.

Even when I wasn't shooting

just to see what they were up to.

They really fascinated me.

They didn't have a lot of money to work with.

So they'd invent shots,

invent how to do things.

And it was, oh,

it was just a wonderful place.

Just being there and being a part of something.

I got the idea that it doesn't really matter about reviews

because I had a good time and I thought I did a good job.

I pleased those guys.

And I really looked up to them

because they were so funny and so smart.

They're separated.

Dan?

Yes.

How come that sink ain't fixed yet?

Oh, I'm gonna get right on it.

Oh, check this out!

Roseanne I knew from doing Pizza Hut commercials,

I believe, at the time.

So that's the only time I'd ever heard or seen of her.

I read a script.

I liked it.

I grew up a Midwesterner with not a lot of dough.

I felt like I knew the guys that I was portraying

but I walked into the audition,

Roseanne and I just hit it off.

I left the audition, knowing that I had the job,

which rarely happens, but it just fits so well.

And I'd been living out of a suitcase for

three or four years,

going from job to job in hotel rooms.

Well, this would be nice maybe to, you know,

be a able to stay in one place for six months.

After the pilot, if it gets picked up,

just stay in one place for a little while.

It just felt right.

We'd make each other laugh.

My main objective was to try to get Roseanne

to wet her pants,

which she did if she laughed very hard.

So we'd all kind of team in on that.

It was a learning experience too.

We had an audience

and the first couple times the audience was in,

I was playing directly to the audience,

and ignoring the cameras in front of me.

So it was a little big,

but you know, I finally figured it out.

Something about him being your boyfriend.

He is not my boyfriend.

You always strike out the one you love,

Mrs Wenstadt.

It was stylistically different being on a sitcom.

It's formulaic.

I tried to fight against that as much as I could.

And within the style,

just figure out kind of different ways to do things.

Things that would interest me.

Because it, you know,

it was a little repetitious,

but there was a time when

I was trying to see how big I could do things

and still ground them in reality.

Like everything else I'd done up until then

I used it as a learning experience.

One of these days I'll get it right.

Yeah that's what you get for trying to pull yourself

up out of generational poverty.

We're rooting for you.

But we'll save you a spot.

[audience laughing]

The only thing I wanted to do

was to see everybody again,

that was strange evolution.

Sarah Gilbert,

by that time was producing a daytime talk show

called The Talk

and I was on there and she asked me

if I'd ever be interested in doing a revival.

I said, anytime.

A lot of the memories that came back were good.

I'd filtered out all the other stuff.

It just kind of evolved from there.

She started calling people and see if they were interested.

And it...

went well

for about eight shows.

I just wanted to do the show again.

Kidding.

What is it?

It's hard to say,

would anybody object if I tore this floor out?

I would.

The fact that I was hanging out

at Steven Spielberg's company,

Amblin,

rubbing elbows with these guys.

It just felt like the most natural thing in the world.

I go, well, I guess I'm finally where I belong.

Yeah, I got a little too comfortable.

Jeff Katzenberg was a producer.

I chatted with him and I decided to go ahead

and do the film.

And I couldn't come up with a character to save my life.

Time was running short.

It was time to start shooting.

I just remembered a high school biology teacher

that I had.

I always thought he was pretty funny.

So that's where I base the character on.

Doubtful Henry.

There was a case in Florida

where one of my colleagues bumped into a nest of

black widows sustained over a dozen bites and lived.

I let myself become overwhelmed by when I became famous.

When people started knowing who I was.

There was an initial rush.

I thought, Hey, this is pretty cool.

And then it just, I turned it sour.

I could have handled it better.

It just bothered me.

I mean, there's worse things in the world,

but I really let it get to me.

And I shouldn't have,

I was ill-equipped at the time to handle success.

I'll show you the life of the mind!

I'll show you the life of the mind!

I'll show you the life of the mind!

I will show you the life of the mind!

The hallway was lit up.

It was very safe.

I had all kinds of super goo,

fireproof goo,

rubbed all over me.

My wife, nine months pregnant,

showed up one day

and this is what I was doing.

She really didn't take kindly to it.

Turturro's wife was pregnant

and my wife was pregnant

at the same time.

My wife gave birth

after the movie had wrapped.

But to me it was one of those challenges.

I was macho boy,

a stunt boy.

I could do whatever they throw at me.

And it got a little warm,

but yeah,

it was a lot of flame

and I got to shoot a guy so.

Yeah,

I'm damn sorry if I bothered you,

the damn walls here.

Well, I just apologize like hell.

My name's Charlie Meadows.

I guess we're neighbors.

Barton Fink.

On Barton Fink,

we just kind of stayed away from each other,

for whatever reason,

sometimes there's stuff

that I don't understand why I did things until much later,

which, because I've got part of a character

that I'm playing.

I'm riding pretty hard

and I just follow him naturally,

and,

it's just the way it happens.

I'll show you the life of the mind!

Excuse me, mark it zero, next frame.

Bullshit Walter, mark it eight dude.

Smokey. This is not 'Nam, this is bowling.

There are rules.

First time I read the script, I was in love.

It just, it was so funny.

You can see where this script, you know,

derived from Raymond Chandler,

a ton of other influences

but it just was so goofy

and endearing

and fun.

I just loved my guy so much.

He was such a prick,

but he meant well.

The character was all on the page.

I got everything.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I didn't dig hard enough,

but it just evolved,

which is usually the best way of doing things for me,

is letting it come to me.

We had a couple of weeks of rehearsal,

which was a godsend.

I still have people ask me whether we improvised

a lot of the stuff

because it seemed that way.

But the dialogue was so great and

it took care of itself.

Here you go Larry,

you see what happens?

You see what happens, Larry.

[glass smashing]

We're in the middle of their neighborhood

and I'm yelling foulest obscenities

that Joel and Ethan can come up with

at three o'clock in the morning.

And I was just worried to death about that.

It made me really uncomfortable

until I started doing it.

And then I found out that they'd

paid people to stay away.

I had the best damn time smashing that Corvette

with a crobar.

Try it sometime.

So who, who?

Jeff Lebowski, the other Jeffrey Lebowski.

The millionaire!

That's fucking interesting man.

That's fucking interesting.

Man, If I knew what was so special about it

I'd bottle it and keep it to myself.

The fact that it was so much fun to be on that set

should have told me something

was special with it.

It felt special to me

and I didn't really care who I could or what, you know,

long as I'm having fun.

I trusted Joel and Ethan.

And it's a good place to be

when you're with people that you can,

you know, are gonna take care of it,

like Jeff Bridges.

Yeah, he's a special guy.

Bullshit, mark it eight dude!

How can I do this?

How can I be so stupid?

This could destroy the company.

The company? Who cares about the company?

What about us?

I had no idea what Monsters Inc was gonna turn into.

I had been doing animation since my wife got pregnant.

And Steven Spielberg was the first guy

I ever did anything for that was animated.

I can't remember the name

of it was dinosaurs hanging around in New York city.

And Steven would read,

would stay off of mic and read me my cues and stuff

and direct me.

And I thought,

well this is a pretty cool way of doing things.

And then I got involved on a couple other projects

and then I got to meet John Lasseter.

And that was, that's a whole other, a great family there.

Billy Crystal came up with the idea

of putting the both of us in the booth at the same time

because we've been doing it separately.

And when we came together,

the energy took off

like a rocket.

It was clever and cute.

And I couldn't believe that they'd show us

the progress they were making on the animation.

And it just,

it was stunning.

Johnny Lasseter had him put,

and Pete Docter,

the director,

they would put what they were working on,

their concepts,

because we

did Monsters Inc once.

And then they threw everything out, rewrote it.

And so we started from scratch again.

They had visuals all over the place

actually trying to keep the truth of everything

because everything's so fantastic.

You have to have a base

and it's just some guy going to work.

How are you gonna get in the embassy?

They're not in the embassy

during the take over six people escaped.

I had to meet with Ben.

I don't know if I read for it, but it was, you know

kind of an audition process.

He's a real smart guy.

I trusted him because there was this terrific script

but he was having, he was on such a rush.

I'd like to watch him

when he was behind the monitor directing

he's always kinetic,

always moving

or always real into it.

And you know, he had to lose a lot of that stuff

when he come on camera.

Hi, I only got a couple of minutes.

I'm getting a lifetime achievement award,

Mazel tov Lester.

I'd rather stay home and count the wrinkles

on my dogs' balls.

I met one of the loves of my life,

Alan Arkin,

my Scrabble buddy.

That was worth the price of admission folks.

God, I just admired him

and Al would give me bits of advice.

He's so smart and funny.

I think that's the common denominator is

the sense of humor.

Maybe not.

Chambers, John Chambers makeup.

Whatever I did came organically through the script.

I didn't know enough about John Chambers

until they actually finished the movie.

John Chambers was a makeup artist

and he did a little side work

with the company out of Washington DC.

And the oddest thing happened.

I met a good friend of his and he goes

how did you get Johnny's limp down?

I had since had two knee replacements.

It was the craziest thing.

I wasn't aware that I was limping,

but it, yeah, it felt great.

So I don't know,

picked it up out of,

it was a great coincidence.

After eating a toasted cheese sandwich

and found myself purging from every orifice.

One of them like a fire hose.

I got a call from Ethan and he'd say,

Hey, madman...

They call me madman, because of Barton Fink,

...I think we got something for you

and I looked at it

everything came organically and directly from the script.

Just read it, read it, read it, read it.

And the character became flushed out,

down to his little funny haircut.

A man named Jerry Mulligan.

He was a saxophone player,

part of the California Cool.

But he always had a little Caesar thing going

and I said so I'm gonna cop that.

And it just looked ridiculous on me,

Oscar Isaac boy,

he's so good.

And he was so much fun to lean on

because he was right there

and detailed,

and terrific.

It looked like he was just making everything look like a

you know, roll right off him.

Like it was the easiest thing in the world.

He has a grace about him.

He's a great guy.

Do you come here every Sunday after church?

For years!

What do you need from me today brother pastor?

The big thing about working with Danny McBride

is to try to not laugh during a take,

he's a powerhouse.

Jody Hill, David Gordon Green and Danny,

are part of a production team,

a stand in of their ambition

and their goals.

And just how damn funny they are.

It's great to have that much self belief

and it's even better when it's successful.

And they make me laugh.

That first year was tough for me

with the character

because he was grieving for his wife.

Oh I love you, hallelujah, Eli.

Oh, take a look at this crowd Eli.

I do believe it is the best looking bunch

of friends we've spent time with yet, yes!

I found myself in the position of being a straight man

which I often am in the series.

Play it straight because those guys are out there

and just try to root it, you know,

as much truth as I can,

not crack up on camera.

Yeah, I'm still finding stuff out.

I mean this year was a revelation to me

because there are things of characters background

that I didn't know about

but were better than anything I could have come up with.

So just ride the wave.

Yeah, those guys will never let you down,

anybody in the cast,

will never let you down.

We're all there for each other,

but they're so nuts.

It's a shared,

a shared vision

that Danny shares with everybody.

And it's nice to be a part of something

that's that sharp and goofy.

And that actually means something

after the laughs are over.

Acting, it can be looked

at as kind of a cheap cultural life

but it had meaning to me,

it made me feel like at times

like I was in the midst

of creation with other people,

passion has grown.

I'm still trying to figure out how to do things.

And the more I meddle,

the further away from it, it gets

but it I'm on the right track.

And one of these days I'll get it.