John Goodman has played a sitcom dad, a bowling-alley philosopher, and a Flintstone, yet he rarely talks about himself at any length. That changed this month, when the 74-year-old sat down for a long career conversation with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation in New York and spoke candidly about the fame that arrived with Roseanne, about the Coen brothers, and about two movies he now admits he probably should have turned down.
The event took place on October 5, Page Six reported, citing People, and his remarks spread this week through Entertainment Weekly and other outlets. Before he got to the regrets, though, he went back to the beginning.
What Did John Goodman Learn Before He Was Famous?
Born on June 20, 1952, in Affton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Goodman moved to New York after college in the mid-1970s. It was a lean stretch, one DYR covered when he recalled how Bruce Willis looked out for him back when both were struggling actors, and it lasted until his Broadway debut in 1985 as Pap Finn in Big River.
At the Foundation event, he credited one habit above all the others. “Read. Read widely and deeply and you will use, most of the time, whatever’s in there,” he said, according to EW. “Because something will spark your imagination and give you enough pleasure when it’s on the page to subconsciously hold on to it.”
He lit up when the talk turned to Raising Arizona, the 1987 comedy in which he played an escaped convict opposite Nicolas Cage. “It was fun on Raising Arizona ’cause there was no budget,” he said, as reported by Star. “I would watch these guys invent brilliant shots.” Joel and Ethan Coen, he added, were “so much fun to work with,” so much so that he would go to the set on his days off “just to hang with those guys.”
A year after Raising Arizona, a sitcom about a working-class family in Lanford, Illinois, changed everything.
Why Did ‘Roseanne’ Fame Frighten John Goodman?
Roseanne premiered on ABC in October 1988, with Goodman as Dan Conner, the drywall contractor and steady husband to Roseanne Barr’s Roseanne. If you spent your evenings at the Conners’ kitchen table, you know how real he made that man feel. He played Dan through 1997, returned for the 2018 revival, and stayed on with The Conners until 2025, and the role brought him seven Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe.
Off camera, though, the success hit him hard. “It changed in ’88 with Roseanne,” Goodman said, according to EW. “That’s when I was told, ‘You’d better get a publicist and get a hold of this stuff.'” He admitted, “I had a bad time dealing with how famous I’d gotten all of a sudden,” and his reaction at the time, he said, was “Well, that ain’t me.”
When he was asked about the downside of his career, he did not blame Hollywood. He blamed himself. “Fame. I wish I would’ve taken to it better,” he said. “I didn’t. I was frightened. I’m my own worst enemy, by far.” As he put it, “it took a long time to deal with it.”
Goodman has been sober since 2007, and he has spoken openly about the drinking that shadowed those years, including why staying sober meant giving up grilling. According to EW, the fame also brought a flood of film and TV offers, and not all of them were keepers.
How Did John Goodman Measure His Own Film Career?
On paper, the movie résumé is the envy of most actors. Goodman became a Coen Brothers regular in Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis, and he appeared in two Best Picture winners back to back, The Artist in 2011 and Argo in 2012. In 2007 he even won an Emmy for a guest role on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Still, he judges himself by opening weekends, and by that measure he is a tough grader. “It’s got to be a hit on the first weekend or it’s considered a dud,” he said, according to Page Six. “I think ‘Argo’ may be the only hit film I had. ‘The Artist,’ maybe. But yeah, none of my films open well.”
With time, he told the audience, he learned “you don’t have to do everything” that comes your way. Then he named the two projects he wishes he had passed on.
Which Two Movies Does Goodman Say He Shouldn’t Have Done?
The first was The Monuments Men, George Clooney’s 2014 World War II drama about soldiers rescuing art stolen by the Nazis, in which Goodman played sculptor-turned-soldier Walter Garfield alongside Clooney and Matt Damon. It was a long haul. “We were over in Germany for what, six months. In England,” he recalled to the Foundation audience. The film earned more than $155 million worldwide, but critics were cool, and it holds a 30 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The second was Blues Brothers 2000, the 1998 sequel to the 1980 John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd classic, in which Goodman stepped in as Mighty Mack McTeer alongside Aykroyd. According to Page Six, the film took in about $14 million in North America.
“The thing is, it’s one of those movies that was like the Blues Brothers 2000, I probably shouldn’t have done,” Goodman said, according to Page Six. In the same breath, he made sure nobody thought he had been miserable. “George’s movie, I had one of the best times I’ve ever had on a film,” he said, and Page Six reported that he had fun making the Blues Brothers sequel too. By Star’s account, the best part of that one was the music, because he got to work with soul greats Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd and Sam Moore. Some regrets, it turns out, come with a pretty good soundtrack.
