"John Goodman"

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Hi, I'm John Goodman, grizzled show business veteran, and you're listening to Smartless.

Smart.

Smart

less.

Smart

less.

I was almost still just a little bit late today because

I may have just had like one of my 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.

uh oh my god this is so so this is a dream true you describing instagram so yes so i'm uh

looking watching a video on it right a small it's a small and going keep going funny funny stuff is happening people are falling and hurting themselves yeah yeah yeah and uh and then uh i have my thumb accidentally hits the screen and it disappears goes up and there's another one right underneath it that's right um yeah that's similar but then i don't know so i did it again and then I'm like, 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.

Instagram, I suppose.

What is it?

You don't usually go.

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 so you really don't.

We're not alone.

You 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 said 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, yes.

And it's really easy to do.

And that's a great way to communicate it.

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 on there and you're gonna hit it and then if you're if we're all following each other you can send it to one of us and then we go like haha, 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.

Yeah.

Then I don't click on those.

What does that mean?

Does that mean the person's a private?

Nobody knows.

Nobody knows what you're looking at unless you like it.

No, like when Amanda sends me something and

I got to click, I have to say that it's, they're going to see that it's 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.

Excuse me.

Because I just got rid of the one that closes.

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.

Or 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 little TV.

Yeah, she just turned 12.

I know.

I love her.

Scotty and I got her some beads that she can wear in 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 incredible.

She's amazing.

She's an amazing artist.

And an incredible athlete.

Yes, amazing.

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.

No, I know.

It's crazy.

Did I already bore you guys?

It was the Boston Celtics.

Yeah, so she's in sixth grade, and she plays on the boys' team because she's such a badass.

It's the first time in the history of the school

that a girl's ever played on the pussy so rad i know i i just i love her it's so wild jason it's night time it's seven o'clock are you you're getting sleepy or um i just about uh you know had a long day of work but now but this is this is the highlight of my day look at you two you know please don't don't it up with a shit guest darnett you know what if this is a terrible get 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.

You're going to bow down to the power of this dude.

Do one of these first?

Let's do a dad joke first, and then we're going to make him bow down.

One dad joke.

Go ahead, Jason.

I can't find my gone in 60 seconds, DBD.

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.

Like every, he's been just nominated in one.

I'll apologize now.

I'll just tell you.

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

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 into bad performance ever for a while.

He's the gold standard.

And one of the things that I love about him most that

he and I have in common is that

the line when he said, you guys lost to a bunch of fucking nerds.

Guys, it's the all-time chant for me.

It's John Goodman.

Oh!

I'm so sorry, Mr.

Goodman.

Hiya, fellas.

Oh, no.

I can't follow that.

Johnny Goodman.

Well done, 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 dot of them.

It's true.

And always associated with good.

He does reference you quite a bit as the bar to jump over.

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 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 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.

Sorry, Sean, to pull it off well,

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.

This is where Will and I just sit back.

So I want to hear about how what that start was like for you, Mr.

Gooming, because I don't know the story and how you got and what that 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.

So I was inches from being thrown out of school.

Really?

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.

Oh, my God.

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 works?

That is true.

That took the Amtrak from St.

Louis to New York in August of 1975.

Holy shit.

And did you have 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 just, I'm rolling the dice here?

I was a frightened hick.

The main main thing I wanted to do was take classes with Utah 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 Lockamedia Dinner Playhouse in Springboro, Ohio.

I worked at Pheasant Run Dinner Theater in St.

Charles, Illinois.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Which I just found out Ben Stiller's parents did summer stock there.

Oh, all right, right, yeah.

Yeah.

Summer chicken stock, I guess, because it's too.

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, and the theatrics.

How dare they make noise?

Well, I was just going to say.

So you got the glasses clanking, the forks going.

People getting lit.

Yeah, getting lit and and whistling the waiter over because the shit's not right.

And they put the tables right up to the edge of the stage.

So then

I was playing Tommy Giles and the music man, and I was doing something, fell right on top of one of the tables.

And I had to keep going.

It was so ridiculous.

Just pretty good.

Just living your dream with a bunch of pasta sauce in your pants, huh?

My buddy Hackett ruled.

And was there ever a time where you're on stage and you're like, oh man, that smells pretty good down 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

for the summer.

But I cut the grass.

I

did all kinds of odd jobs and made enough money to pay off my student loans that summer.

Wow.

So,

sorry, Sean, so New York was a total wipeout.

And so you.

Not at all.

I just

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 Adams 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.

Sure.

Check, please.

Yeah, I had to show up the next time.

So, then, where did you go at that time?

That's the only job I had in the city.

So, then, so then, so what does then does sound like New York was kind of really bearing a lot of fruit?

Well, it was also at the time, it was

Ford to City dropped 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 it, you know, I was a kid from the suburbs.

Yeah.

But I was determined to live there because I dug it.

Yeah.

Right.

But did you, so you, so you left for a little bit, went to Ohio, and then you came back to Hollywood?

Yeah, I came back, and then I got my card about like a month after that.

Your equity card or a sad card?

Yeah, my equity card doing a bus and truck of the robber bridegroom.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

That is so.

And so, how old were you?

You were about 20?

What, 24?

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?

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

and i'm like you know 14 15 years old i have no idea why yeah was anybody in your family doing that like was it was that no my brother uh my brother was a fan of theater he was he's a bit older than me and we'd go into clayton missouri pick up the new york times every sunday literally it you know 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 just start following what shows were up.

I had no idea why.

You just enjoyed it.

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.

Yeah, 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 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 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...

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.

I just, I've been goofing off them.

I've been goofing on them my whole life.

Well, it's also kind of like the four, 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.

So

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.

Right.

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.

I think Stanley Kubrick said they're the only form of the medium that 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.

And we will be right back.

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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.

You didn't care.

You didn't go in there.

You didn't want it too bad.

And then you just kept getting them.

And I know that that feeling, especially when you're younger, I remember thinking like, man, I'm just, I'm not going to read for my first agent being like, it's pilot season.

You're going to read for some sitcoms.

i'm like sitcoms yeah how dare you yeah yeah are you out of your mind i'm never 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 you know 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.

point yeah it was it was different for the time because

the antidote to a lot of things like Dallas and Dynasty and all these rich folk things and I think we we hit a nerve I know my nerves were does it go that far back when when when was the what was the year 1987 I think the the pilot

I think I graduated or tried to graduate high school that year I want I want to get to 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 it 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 in L.A.?

Yeah,

it was either a movie or

a commercial.

And

I got hip at running the 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've 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.

Did you want that gig?

Where were you in your career at that time?

I was living out of suitcases all the time because I was just starting to get films.

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 Cohen 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.

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 Cohens?

Or with no, it was before that, with David Byrne.

And I was really getting into films.

I wasn't as scared as I was.

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

felt like you got it.

No, I didn't know, but I'd never had.

I've been sitting in an office for an hour, like, you gotta feel like you got something.

I've never had a more fun audition before or since.

We 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 yeah i wouldn't know how to augment any better than they wrote it wow but we we had rehearsal time on lubowski yeah so by the time we shot we were we were in pretty good shape with the dialogue and it that's why a lot of people asked me if if it was improvised it was just so conversational uh because because of the we were facile with it yeah what was that process like making that i mean the big lubowski obviously is is held up as as one of the all-time great.

One of my faves.

It's 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.

So 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 bet they did.

Oh, Lebovsky, yeah.

Yeah.

That end up Art and Fink.

Yeah.

And the last one I did for him.

Which was the last one?

Inside Louis and 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?

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 Sonenfeld.

I was about to bring up Barry.

I love Barry.

I'm friends with.

Yeah, we've had him on the show, show, and I've been friends with Barry for a number of years.

And I 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.

Yeah.

And fantastic.

He talked about his first,

what was his first

time?

Oh, wow, Blood Simple.

Yeah, Blood Simple.

Blood Simple first.

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.

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 uh lounge i mean it must be pretty significant yeah more of a shortcut than anything else

the more experience they get the the easier it's the less they need to say yeah 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 i feel like i'm still learning.

The last couple of years have been goofy for me because I've been

trying to be good, and it doesn't work that way.

You know, like way, planning things way too much.

And

at the root of that was the fear of losing trust in myself.

So I overcompensated by working way too hard.

And I've just kind of come out of that in the last year or so.

And it's,

man, there's so much to learn.

Yeah,

how did you manage to come out of that?

Frankly, having a nervous breakdown.

No, it was bad with everything.

And it just

finally, yeah,

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.

Nothing worked.

I woke up the next day and

cherubs danced around around my head, but it just felt a lot better.

You 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.

But there's something brilliant about staying ignorant.

Yeah, it just keeps complicating stuff and making things things more dynamic and more fun, but it's more of a challenge, and you 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 Odahagen.

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 and 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 yeah yeah yeah did it did it start to feel like like maybe you weren't

like 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 kind of might, you might watch playback or just even hear your own voice and be like, no, God, this, this isn't working.

This 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 as you're as you're you're changing as a person

that that it changes the kinds of roles that you look to do since what we do is kind of a an exercise in explore in personal exploration we happen to get paid for?

I don't know.

I've been doing the same role for the last 17 years.

For the last like four or five years.

Yeah.

And I haven't really had much of a chance to do everything else.

Because you've been doing the Connors.

You're talking about the Connors.

The Connors and the Righteous Gemstones.

Yeah.

It's also, John, it's also wild to hear you talk about

whatever, whether I've read about stuff that you've been struggling with and you're so nice to be open about your journey, just being more comfortable in your own skin and getting to know yourself, as Jason said, as we get older, that it's always so surprising and it's never not surprising to look at you, somebody I've always admired and is like, wow, that's such a cool career.

I'd love to have his career.

Like amazing actor, everything he does.

To hear somebody like you speak publicly about whatever your issue is, whatever you're going through.

is really kind of eye-opening because from over here, it's like, oh, he's got this career of a lifetime.

And it's always so surprising, and it shouldn't be.

And it's also so helpful to me to me because

the same goes for me as far as my admiration for you.

But it makes me feel a lot better about all the human feelings I have that are sometimes challenging.

It's like, I don't know,

you know,

it's silly that we all need a reminder that everybody's human, but it is, it's really nice to hear.

So thank you for

sharing.

My pleasure.

It's just kind of to help myself and maybe help somebody else.

But yeah,

I've been clean about 16 years now.

And

the last 16 years, I've had to grow a lot into my normal age.

And

it's been a lot, but I'm glad I did it.

Oh, that's great.

John, you know, the last time I saw you, I was going to say this when you first popped on to the show today, but the last time I saw you was Saturday Night Live Live when I hosted in 2001 at the after party, you came, everybody was partying, and you walked in and pulled your pants down and walked all the way across the entire room, and everybody was dying laughing.

I was like, is that John Goodman with his pants down?

I don't remember that.

That's longer than 16 years ago.

Yeah, and I'm cursed with a bad memory like that.

I will remember stuff like that.

But this one,

no, believe me,

300 people that were there remember it.

Oh my god, hopefully,

so you're gonna

there's gonna be a lot of stuff missing from your autobiography because of your uh

ability to recall some of the stuff.

I get a lot of problems pad it with blank pages, draw your own conclusions, and Cliffy the Clown.

We'll be right back.

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I remember seeing you on SNL.

It was, I think, Amy, my ex-wife's first year

on the show, and you hosted.

And I just stayed very far away.

I remember seeing you at the after party.

I'm thinking, oh, my God.

Yeah.

I hit it off with her from Jump.

Yeah.

It just,

she and Seth wrote a bit.

And we did it.

I thought it was a brilliant bit.

But I just, you know, I really dug her.

Yeah, she's cool.

It made me feel welcome.

Well, you, yeah, yeah.

And

you were so good.

You had such a facility for that.

You could have been an all-time great cast member for sure.

Yeah, I don't know how to do improv, but

you don't need to do it.

I auditioned for it in 1980 when everybody quit and

put the new cast on.

No.

Did you really?

Yeah.

You know

who got it?

Lori Metcalf.

Oh, wow.

But she was, I don't think she would have ever went on air.

I don't know what happened, but yeah, she was one of the people they picked.

Oh, wow.

I didn't know that.

Oh, it was horrible.

It was open calls, and they had guys walking around in Blues Brothers costumes

by the score.

It was

a hideous dream.

A desperation flop sweat.

Oh,

fuck, man.

So would that have been a job that you would have really, really loved being a part of that campaign?

That used to be my favorite thing to do every year.

I'd get so goddamn scared and just hit the door and walk onto the floor.

It was great, man.

I was a big fan of the National Lampoon when I was in college.

And when I saw a lot of the writing staff from Saturday Night Live, I was really intrigued.

And

it was a hit to me.

I remember parties used to stop

when it had come on, and people would watch television.

For sure.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

It was a big deal.

Who were your big kind of idols when you were a kid, when you want to get into acting or comedy or anything?

Who were you like?

Well,

I'm almost ashamed to say Brando.

Why?

That's great.

Yeah, no,

a lot of people my age will say that.

It just

never seen anything like them.

And I didn't really pay that much attention to movies.

I liked them.

What was the thing

that was distractingly different about him

per

the style that was around right then?

He looked like he was making it up.

Right.

It's this 19 he had in 1950, 51

looked more like a guy, incredibly good-looking guy that walked off the street.

Right.

So the style was much more sort of

broad, yeah, presentational back before that right it was a it was a much bigger thing it's it's a style he and like Montgomery Clift and all those guys right like yeah you got more naturalistic Montgomery Clift was was another icebreaker he was one of my idols too even though he's a little before my time I he was one of the guys I loved him for

pretty old well yeah

I am pretty old yeah I think people are sliding

the kids today

are kind of sliding away from that that stuff that I was raised with the

group theater, everything was based from that, and the Stanislavsky

ites, and then and then the sects that developed among the acting teachers.

It seems like people are getting away from that now.

But did you want to get into comedy where you're like, okay, I'm going to be,

I think that I have a

I'm quite adept at comedy.

Did you know that?

Was that something that you were like...

I was good at comedy

in the classroom and when I thought it was still cute to mug.

Right.

Yeah.

No,

it has to be necessarily really structured

comedy play as opposed to like improv, but there are rules there too, and it has its own structure.

Yeah.

And

it can be terribly hard, but when it's easy, man, it flies and there's nothing like it.

I have to, John, a lot of the times on this this show, at all.

Oh, I thought Sean was going to say, I have to go, guys.

I thought this was a show.

I'm going right now.

No, I have.

Wait a minute.

I'm presently going.

It's warm.

No, I have to ask if you have any tragic theater stories like mine falling on the table at the dinner table, only because I love them, because they're so shocking to me.

The worst thing that ever happened to me was in,

well, two things happened in this show.

I was doing a musical in 1985 on Broadway, and I was doing it for a while.

Which one, do you remember?

Yeah, Big River.

And I was supposed to come out and surprise my son, Huckleberry Finn.

And before

I was standing behind this flat waiting to go on, and I couldn't remember my first line.

And I panicked.

Oh, God.

And I panicked.

And it just wouldn't come.

And I was, the queue was there, and I was going to step out out and say, ladies and gentlemen, I'm so sorry.

I can't.

And the line popped into my head.

But that happened for four nights straight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wait, did the line pop in your head once you stepped onto stage or before you?

As soon as I opened my mouth.

Isn't that amazing?

Oh, God.

Isn't it amazing how that happens?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's wild.

It's right there.

But I, and I don't know why it happened.

And the second was

my son was supposed to hit me in.

Huck Finn was supposed to hit me in the jaw with a

stool, a three-legged stool.

And one night I forgot to

turn.

I forgot to put my hand up and throw my head back and I caught it and drove my jaw back into my head.

It knocked me out

and I got up and

finished the show.

No, I finished my scene and then I had to go down the street to the hospital.

No way.

You didn't have a broken jaw, did you?

No, I didn't.

No, no.

No, but

it was touch and go for about five days there when I didn't show up.

Understudy started getting stretched out.

Yeah.

Let him have it for a while.

Yeah.

Performances after.

You just took like 10 feet, a step 10 feet away.

So it's a really far away.

No, but

I understand that thing about the line.

I was doing hairspray live on NBC.

This is like

five years ago, eight years ago.

I don't remember.

And it's live in front of the whole country.

And I'm playing Mr.

Pinky or something like that.

And

it's that sensation.

And I rehearsed and rehearsed.

And it's now you now you're, I'm behind the door.

It's live in front of the country and it's a big deal.

And I opened the doors and I had the sensation.

I think it was Marty Short and Harvey Feierstein or something like that.

And I

said in my head, am I supposed to be here right now?

Oh, my God.

I think I may have entered.

too early all in the span of half of a second.

Oh, yeah, you can put a whole dictionary in that half a second.

Totally.

So I'm sitting there and I turn to him and I'm I mouthed the first line instead of singing it.

And it looks like the sound was cut out.

And so I was like, that's perfect.

A technical glitch at the top of my number.

What a fucking disaster.

It was a disaster.

It was a panic inside was so unbelievable that then I started singing the second line.

It was awesome.

It was just awful.

It was awful.

God, I can't wait.

How did it turn out?

We also had, I think, the first or second preview of the front page, did about five or six years ago.

And

there were guys that came in, sat in the front row, put their drinks on the stage and their feet up there.

And then one guy got up and started going, I love you, John Goodman.

I love you, John Goodman.

I love.

And I go, I'll just not say anything.

Please make it.

And he he got up he walked out of the theater just drunk that was a little frightening

no kidding there was two there was two girls who can't do this show called an act of god and there's these two girls that were bombed out of no i don't think so this time yeah no i saw it i saw it at the amundsen oh that's right they were bombed out of their minds and that from the second i walked out they screwed they were screaming like

oh my god, I love you.

In front of everybody.

Everybody's quiet.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Screaming.

And so I was like, they're not only drunk, I think they're on like drugs or something.

So, and I think I've told this story on the show before, but

they were so gone.

I had, in my head, while I'm talking in my head, I'm like, I think I have to stop the show.

And so

I went, I go, excuse me a second.

I walked off stage, so this is on Broadway.

told the stage manager, you got to get the two girls out of there.

They're not moving.

They're clapping and laughing at every word.

And wait, wasn't this the one-man show?

Yes, this is a one-man show.

So you walked off the stage.

Walked off the stage.

I said it to you.

Left the stage.

Yeah, left the stage empty.

The security guards came down, removed them.

The whole audience clapped.

I walked on and I said, and that's the power of God.

Because I was playing God.

And I just kept going.

But it's awful when people just don't know how to behave in the theaters.

It's the moral of the story.

It's getting worse, too.

It is getting worse.

It is getting worse.

Oh man, John Goodman, we have taken up way too much of your time, man.

Just honestly,

from afar, from very afar, just been such an admirer and just a complete fan of yours.

I am a huge fan of you guys as well.

It's great.

Yeah, okay.

I'm going to cut it short there, but thank you.

I really, really appreciate it.

I was terrified.

I was terrified at the beginning of this.

Oh, man.

Really?

You guys are so good.

Again, that just makes us feel incredible that

we're even on your radar, let alone, you know.

So, just a

ding-dongs, you know, ding-dongs of the Wi-Fi connection.

Jason's in New York with a Wi-Fi connection in a rented apartment.

He's just starting a job.

Sean's in

Park, facing away from his TV.

I can hear somebody vacuuming above me.

I'm like, this is a joke.

We're a bunch of clowns.

So thank you for doing that.

The great John Goodman.

Thank you, my friend.

What an honor.

Yeah.

Thank you for

thanks for the invite, man.

It's been wonderful.

Anytime.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Palmer.

That was fantastic.

Thank you, John, very much.

Adios.

That was John Goodman.

That's John's Goodman.

The great

standard, as I said.

And maybe the best, most classical name in the history of all names.

I wonder what is his middle name?

Is it equally classic and American, like a Frank or something like that?

John Frank Goodman.

Stephen, actually.

I think it's Steven.

Yeah, there you go.

That works.

Is it really?

John Stephen Goodman.

That was a fantastic get there, Will.

I set myself up for that and got a real beat down.

He's just.

How about he's killing it on the Connors, too?

Isn't the Connors still?

We didn't even get a chance.

I want to get to the.

So he does the Roseanne.

They do it like 12 years.

Roseanne's like 263 episodes or something, right?

And then he goes, and now they've done almost 100 episodes of the Connors.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

And in that time, he's made like 10 movies with the Cohen brothers, amongst others, you know, and he's just been in like, the guy has just done it all.

I'm not going to cry.

I'm sorry.

I just had a little bit of gas.

It's just gas.

I mean,

it was just.

Yeah, but like to

be him and to sustain all that through all, like, I don't know, whatever.

He's, it just means means you're great.

Yeah, he's just got it.

He is great.

And he has been great for his whole career and has stayed employed his whole life.

I guarantee you this.

I bet you if you go back and you find some of those early commercials, you watch them and you're like, this guy's great.

Absolutely.

By the way, I have seen those early commercials when he's really young.

Like, I think it was like a burger commercial or something.

And you're like, oh, yeah, that guy's great.

And he's great, right?

But Revenge of the Nerds was like only one of the, you know, the first four or five things he did it was like and he was like you watch that movie and you go oh you feel like that guy had been around forever exactly he feels iconic you he feels iconic and it's one of his first films and and you're like oh that's john goodman that's i don't know why i remember the one line from roseanne i don't know why i remember this they were on vacation and They got an argument and they were like in the Bahamas or something.

And Roseanne goes, you know what, Dan?

We should have gone on separate vacations.

I go to the Bahamas and you go to hell.

And I was like, oh my God.

And I was like,

I was like, I can't believe they just said that.

I was so young.

I was like, I can't believe they said that on TV.

That's a great line.

That was produced by the great Tom Werner.

I know.

And produced by the great, and the Connor is still produced by the great Tom Werner, our friend and

chairman of Liverpool Football Club.

And a pretty strong

eight handicap, maybe?

Right?

Is he?

I'm trying to think.

He's a good golfer.

He's not to be underestimated.

I wanted to say happy birthday to our buddy Billy Hogan over there at Liverpool Football Club.

I think we missed it, but did you want to sing to him right now?

Because

Sean and I'd love to sign off first, if that's okay.

Oh, before if you're going to be singing, yeah, yeah, yeah, just before you start singing.

Well, you know, you know, I always do like a classic, it's sort of like an homage to Marilyn Monroe.

I always do that real classic.

No, don't, don't, don't lift up your sweatpants for him.

So I'm trying to think up a buy.

Oh, let me see on that one.

Are we supposed to,

you know what?

Here's what I'd like.

And it was

two things.

The first one

was confirmed or re-suggested by the great Justin Thoreau earlier today.

We need to have some live

questions

from the fans, or at least read a question online.

We are going to maybe do something like that.

I would like also in that same folder some suggestions for buys from our listeners.

I'm sure they would come up with these like, why don't they ever use this for you?

First of all,

I do have a buy that I was getting to, but I want to say two things about it.

I think that you're right, JB.

I think that's a good idea.

Yeah, I don't know.

But I will also say this.

We are not taking fucking creative suggestions from the future.

From fucking Justin Thoreau.

Exactly.

No, you know what?

You're right.

So fuck you.

Keep him just.

Every time I see him, he says this same.

You know what you guys ought to do?

I'm like, oh, shut the fuck up.

Guess what?

I'll tell you how to cut your sleeves off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fuck you.

In through the nose.

Out to the mouth.

Yeah, fuck you, Thoreau.

You fucking fuck.

Bye.

On three, no, on three.

Fuck you through.

Are you ready?

One, two, three.

Fuck you, Thoreau.

Anyway, guys, I did get some new bi focals.

That's true.

I did get some.

I'm terribly sad.

Bai!

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