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The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Goodman, Jeremy Irons, and Keegan-Michael Key
00:55:02
Three actors in conversation at The New Yorker Festival.
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- [00:17]
David Remnick
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We've got a very special lineup for you today. Three of the great actors in film and television, all of them recorded live at the New Yorker Festival. Now, later in the hour, we've got Jeremy Irons and John Goodman. But let's begin with Keegan Michael Key, who's best known for his collaboration with Jordan Peele. Their sketch show, Key and Peele ran five seasons on Comedy Central and won a Peabody Award. One sketch, already a classic, starts off in the mode of gritty realism with a black man provoked and arrested by a white cop for no reason at all.
- [00:55]
Keegan-Michael Key
Look, there is no reason for you.
- [00:56]
John Goodman
To get upset, sir.
- [00:57]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
I'm not.
- [00:58]
John Goodman
I'm not. All right, that's it. Put your hands on your head.
- [01:00]
Keegan-Michael Key
Put my hands up?
- [01:01]
John Goodman
Put your hands on your head.
- [01:03]
Jordan Peele
Yes.
- [01:03]
David Remnick
The officer shoves him in the back of the car so hard that his head smacks on the door frame and he's knocked out.
- [01:08]
Keegan-Michael Key
Good. Come on, man, get in the car.
- [01:10]
John Goodman
Duck your head.
- [01:13]
David Remnick
And like a Black Lives Matter version of the wizard of Oz, he comes to in a candy colored fantasy musical.
- [01:21]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
Where are we? Just be patient and I'll show you. You suit changed. Follow me to a place I know where there ain't no pain, ain't no sorrow It's a place to be if your skin is brown. I'm talking about Negro town.
- [01:40]
John Goodman
Negro town?
- [01:41]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
What, like Atlanta?
- [01:44]
John Goodman
Almost.
- [01:45]
Keegan-Michael Key
Now be quiet while I sing.
- [01:46]
David Remnick
There's no shortage of comedians doing smart work about race in America right now. But Key and Peele, the show had a kind of range and ambition that's really hard to top. Last year they did their first film together. And in the fall, Keegan Michael Key, the tall one, spoke with my colleague Henry Finder at the New Yorker Festival.
- [02:11]
Keegan-Michael Key
Oh, man.
- [02:13]
Henry Finder
I thought instead of introducing you, I could maybe kind of pull it out of you. You're more of an expert on it than anybody else. So this is like the origin story. As I see it, you were raised in and around Detroit. You went to college there. You got a master's degree in the dramatic arts. You studied the technique of dramatic acting. Seems to me you should be playing Leonid in the Cherry Orchard. Instead, you became hilarious. Keegan, Keegan, where did things go wrong?
- [02:51]
Keegan-Michael Key
I know I've been on this 19 year odyssey, this Detour. I had every intention of being very poor and fulfilled. That was my intention, which I was just gonna do regional theater for my whole life. And I was making a film, an independent film back Home in Detroit. I went to graduate school in Pennsylvania and then came back home and I met this merry band of people and they were working at the Second City. There was a Second City improv theater at that time in Detroit. So I went and auditioned for that and it was as if I was getting another degree. It was like getting a degree and I love learning, so I was getting my master's in comedy. And so that just ended up lasting for 19 years.
- [03:32]
Henry Finder
Second City, Detroit, is that like Al Qaeda Iraq?
- [03:36]
Keegan-Michael Key
Yes, it is. It's an offshoot group. Yes, exactly. So I was there for four years, and then I ended up at the Second City in Chicago. And I was there for two years and. And then made my way out to Los angeles to do MADtv.
- [03:49]
Henry Finder
Okay, MADtv, there's a kind of a. In the garden of forking paths, which is a human life. There's SNL, there's MADtv. I mean, there's decisions that you made.
- [03:59]
Keegan-Michael Key
Right, right. I think what took place was when I was told that I was gonna make more money at MADtv, that fork got real easy. No, it was. I mean, every sketch comedian, it is. It is your dream. The brass ring is to do Saturday Night Live. But there was something. There were people working at MADTV at the time that were friends of mine, and I wanted to collaborate with them creatively. Jordan being one of them.
- [04:27]
Henry Finder
Jordan is someone that you met there or you.
- [04:29]
Keegan-Michael Key
I met Jordan in Chicago, a mutual friend of ours who ultimately ended up on our writing staff. She introduced us, she said, you guys are. You must meet, you must meet. You're both biracial, you're both from single parent homes, you're both comedians, you're going to love each other. So we met and it was comedy love at first sight. And I saw him perform and I just thought he was just amazing. And his writing, the way in which he's clever and the way in which he observes things was just, I had never seen before. And we went to a diner and we stayed that diner until about 4, 5 in the morning, talking about Monty Python. And it was just fantastic. Then, serendipitously, he ended up on MADtv. And then they hired me to be on MADtv. And then Jordan, in all of his infinite wisdom, said, now you know why we're both here. We're competing against each other. So what I think we should do is we should write all of our sketches together and then they can't pull us apart, so we'll just be the yin to each other's yang. And then it's just like it's a package deal, so. And so that's kind of how we started working with each other.
- [05:35]
Henry Finder
So at that point, you become, you know, you're at the early phases of what's going to become one of the classic comedy duos. You know, hark, back to Nichols and May. This is a P.O. you know, there are thousands of examples.
- [05:48]
John Goodman
But.
- [05:50]
Keegan-Michael Key
I'm going to cry. Nicholson, May, man, you're up there. That's the best.
- [05:54]
Henry Finder
Is that a confinement as well as a liberation? I mean, tell me about that experience, being part of that dyad.
- [06:00]
Keegan-Michael Key
I've never thought of it as a. I've never thought of it as a confinement. I think sometimes in confinement, one finds discipline. So that kind of confinement, if you will, was helpful. If anything, we were. I mean, it's an oxymoron. We were kind of liberated by the confinement.
- [06:17]
Henry Finder
Right?
- [06:17]
John Goodman
Yeah.
- [06:18]
Henry Finder
And then at this point, you were already known for, like, Coach Hines or certain characters that became indelible from the mad TV phase of your career.
- [06:27]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
Now, you listen to me. When a drama teacher had a heart attack and Principal Langstein gave media responsibility for directing this production, Oliver. I told him, I'd rather saw my own nads off with a kite string. I am a coach for Pete's Dragon, all right? What the hell do I know about musical theater except for that I hate it, but I'm out here giving 164%, and so should you. Okay? Now who the hell is playing my Oliver Twist?
- [06:59]
Keegan-Michael Key
That's me.
- [06:59]
Jordan Peele
Cut.
- [07:00]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
The ghetto creep.
- [07:03]
Henry Finder
What created the. The show? What was it in the culture that said we need to have Key and.
- [07:10]
Keegan-Michael Key
Peele on their own? I think that we both. We both strongly feel that if Barack Obama was not the president of the United States, we would not have a television show. I really believe that to be true. He helped us out. So thanks, Obama. But I think, yeah, yeah, thanks, Obama. He became such a potent part of the zeitgeist. And it was interesting to watch the leader of the free world be a person who had a similar background to me and my friend and the rest of the world was just learning it at the time. This was just our experience. But I think that had a lot to do with why Comedy Central had an interest in pursuing the show.
- [07:53]
Henry Finder
And you talked about Obama. And of course, one of the iconic characters you created was Luther the anger translator. And on an event sometimes called Nerd Prom, that is the White House correspondents Dinner, you actually did it not with Jordan Peele, but some other guy, possibly President Obama.
- [08:16]
Keegan-Michael Key
Possibly, yeah. It might have been him.
- [08:18]
Henry Finder
What was that experience like?
- [08:20]
Keegan-Michael Key
It was. It was. It was glorious. It's. It was one of the greatest moments, certainly one of the greatest moments in my entire life from an artistic standpoint. What's so interesting is that I was trying to get Jordan into the sketch. So I'm saying, jordan, maybe we should have a dueling Obama's thing. And he said, keegan.
- [08:45]
Jordan Peele
Keegan.
- [08:47]
Keegan-Michael Key
No. He's like, no, you've got the guy. I can't do it better than him. So how about you just. It's a high bar. Yeah. And so it was an interesting experience, mostly in that the rehearsal, there's something very. He's so cool. He's cooler than you think he is. He smells great. He's warmer. He's sharper, and he has an avuncular quality about him that I wasn't expecting him to have. I always thought he'd be super, super cool. And he's much warmer. He's very tactile, and I. Texture, like, touches you. Yeah. But he gets right in there and hugs. And then you're freaking out, and you're like, oh, he's hugging me. He's hugging me. No red dots, please. He's hugging me. He just gets in and he. And I mean, I remember he just came right in the door, and he's like, there he is, King. There's my boy. And he says to me, and he says. He says, no, no, listen, now we got to keep it together. We got to. Can't be laughing out there. We got to do it right. And I was like, yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.
- [09:49]
John Goodman
Absolutely.
- [09:50]
Keegan-Michael Key
So he reads the first line of his lines. I do my first line, and then he cracks up, and he's like, I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face. So it was just. We had a lovely rehearsal.
- [10:05]
Henry Finder
Was he good at taking notes?
- [10:06]
Keegan-Michael Key
Very good. Yeah, actually, he was very good at taking. Knowing where to cut things and cutting jokes. Like, you know, he wasn't cutting them on the fly, but right there, I mean, he gave a couple notes. I'm like, you should be on our writing staff. And then the actual event itself. Cause you're in a room with about 2,600 people and the lights in your eyes, and you can't see. It's a cavernous, cavernous room, and you can't really see. But I was so nervous beforehand. I made sure that I learned his lines and my lines. And then I got out there, and when we started doing it, I started to almost get thrown at how great his timing was, how great his. He can stone face a moment. And when you watched, when I watched the video later, he just seemed like a consummate professional in that regard. I was going, what can't you do? You know what I mean? It was really quite amazing.
- [11:01]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
In our fast changing world, traditions like the White House Correspondent's Dinner are important. I mean, really, what is this dinner and why am I required to come to it? Because, despite our differences, we count on the press to shed light on the most important issues of the day. And we can count on Fox News to terrify old white people with some nonsense. Sharia law is coming to Cleveland. Run for the damn hills, y'.
- [11:33]
Jeremy Irons
All.
- [11:33]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
It's ridiculous. We won't always see eye to eye.
- [11:37]
Keegan-Michael Key
It's such a tightrope that he has to walk. You know, he couldn't win. And that's why we created the character of Luther, because we were feeling a frustration as well. If he gets angry, he's the angry black man. If he doesn't say anything, he's uppity or ineffectual. It's like the guy couldn't win, you know? So that's where this kind of raging ID standing next to him of Luther was founded.
- [11:58]
Henry Finder
Is there a sense, just thinking forward, that the secret to Donald Trump's success is that he's the white Luther, that he's the anger translator for the conservative mind?
- [12:10]
Keegan-Michael Key
Yes, in a manner of speaking. Because it's funny, in interviews, people will say, as they'll say, so, what are you gonna do? You're going to be Trump's anger translator? What are you talking about? He's pure id. He's nothing but id. Yeah. And so, yeah, we would be out of a job. I mean, yeah, I think that ID makes some segment of the population. It makes you feel a sense of liberation. There's a person who's feeling a sense of liberation through him. I don't know that it's healthy, but that's what I think the phenomenon is.
- [12:45]
Henry Finder
Now, the comparison with MADTV is MADTV was done in front of a live audience, right?
- [12:51]
Keegan-Michael Key
Yeah. Sometimes on tape nights, we would tape some of the sketches in front of live audiences.
- [12:56]
Henry Finder
Is there a difference to you as a performer when you're filming for a camera crew and when you're filming for an audience?
- [13:02]
Keegan-Michael Key
Absolutely. They're two different challenges and they're both equally exciting. The challenge with being in front of an audience, of course, is that there's a fluidity and it's live and you're Getting instant feedback. And you have to manufacture that in your mind, especially comedically. You have to manufacture that in your mind when you're on camera. And, you know, it's. Or working up emotion is very interesting thing. It's like it's piecemeal. So you kind of have to. You're thinking about something and you start getting really emotional, and you're like, you.
- [13:32]
Jeremy Irons
Guys, roll, roll, roll, roll.
- [13:35]
Keegan-Michael Key
So that. Because it's a pastiche, right? A film, you're putting it together. It doesn't matter what I'm crying about. You're watching the film in a particular context, so you're going to be. You're gonna think I'm emotional for that reason. Whereas those emotions come organically when you're on stage.
- [13:51]
Henry Finder
And what kind of delay was there? I mean, with the Key and Peele seasons? I mean, there's often a real sense that it was responding to things in the culture. Negroland, for example, in the wake of cop shootings, you know, which is a hilarious and sort of heartbreaking.
- [14:08]
Keegan-Michael Key
Yeah, yeah, Negro town.
- [14:09]
Henry Finder
Yeah, yeah, Negro town. Sorry.
- [14:11]
Keegan-Michael Key
We learned as a group that we have to write things that are evergreen, which is a term that we use, meaning it's not specific to now. So we're the opposite of Saturday Night Live. Everything they do is topical, and what we do is evergreen. So what we would do is we try to make sketches and scenes about the human condition so that we. Because we would write for 13 weeks and then start shooting the sketches, so we could never be topical. But necessity is the mother of invention. So it allowed us to understand that we had to be in a place where there being a tenuous relationship between African American communities and cops. That's nothing new. There's just been an uptick of certain behavior recently. So we thought, well, we can make this scene, and it will fit into the overarching zeitgeist of what we're doing here in the United States of America. But we can't hit very particular things, right, Right now.
- [15:06]
Henry Finder
Dream roles for you.
- [15:08]
Keegan-Michael Key
Dream roles. I really. I mean, I would love to play the Moor, and I would love to play. I would love to play Hamlet.
- [15:17]
Henry Finder
Okay.
- [15:18]
Keegan-Michael Key
You just have to. Because if you do it, that's like. That's the gold medal. Just if you get through the thing, all those roles. All the roles that everybody wants to play, I want to play, so I'll. I want to do that. And then, of course, when I'm 72, I want to do Lear and hope it doesn't kill me. And who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. That would be fun.
- [15:39]
Henry Finder
Ooh, that's a tough one.
- [15:40]
Keegan-Michael Key
That's a tough one. I'd do that one. I like Alby. I would do that. And almost. I'd do a delicate balance, too. Like the tough ones, the ones where you go home and you just gotta sleep for 10 hours before you go back to the theater.
- [15:53]
Henry Finder
You know, staying in character for you in the past means staying in 23 different characters.
- [16:00]
Keegan-Michael Key
Right? Exactly. It's been very fun recently playing one character. Imagine that, just playing one guy. And in Keanu, it was very fun to play one guy, but ostensibly we didn't.
- [16:10]
Henry Finder
That one guy. Yes, but again, that was kind of a motif of your work, which is the code switching.
- [16:14]
Keegan-Michael Key
Code switch, which we got over there.
- [16:16]
Henry Finder
Which is the very first sketch in Key and Key. It's about code switching. And that is. It is deeply relatable because everyone in some form or another does.
- [16:28]
Keegan-Michael Key
Everybody does it. Everybody code switches. Yeah, everybody. We all know what code switching is. You don't. Okay. Code switching is when you make, typically, a vocal change to fit where you are in a moment. So right now, I'm speaking to you in a general American dialect. But when I go home and visit friends of mine in Detroit, I often talk like this because it makes them feel more comfortable. So I'm actually speaking a different dialect of English. I speak different dialects of English for people to make them feel comfortable. No, actually, I'm lying to you. It makes me feel comfortable because I don't want to feel like the outsider in that particular situation. So I'm code switching. Let's just go check it out. What's the worst that can happen? One beer, please. I'll take a white wine spritz.
- [17:12]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
Clark.
- [17:12]
Keegan-Michael Key
Clarks. What?
- [17:13]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
You can't talk like that.
- [17:14]
Keegan-Michael Key
You sound like John Ritter all the time.
- [17:17]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
You in the right place? Yeah, we're in the right place.
- [17:20]
John Goodman
I'm tectonic. Nice.
- [17:23]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
My name is Shark Tank. Oh.
- [17:29]
Keegan-Michael Key
Thank you all.
- [17:29]
John Goodman
Thank you all for coming.
- [17:31]
Jeremy Irons
Thank you, Keegan.
- [17:32]
Keegan-Michael Key
Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, for coming. Thank you.
- [17:37]
David Remnick
That's from the movie Keanu, starring Key and Peele, which is not about Keanu Reeves. It's about a kitten. Keegan. Michael Key spoke with the New Yorker's Henry Finder at the New Yorker Festival last fall. You're listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour. The reporter Lawrence Wright has reported on some scary people in his time, including senior officials in Scientology and members of Al Qaeda. But I'm still not sure he's ready for this guy.
- [18:07]
John Goodman
They say I'm a madman part, but I'm not mad at anyone. Honest I'm not. Most guys I just feel sorry for.
- [18:18]
Jordan Peele
But, Charlie, why me?
- [18:21]
John Goodman
Why?
- [18:21]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
Because you don't listen.
- [18:25]
David Remnick
You're listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour. In a minute, we'll be back with John Goodman. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Today, we're bringing you three events from the New Yorker Festival and Extravaganza that we throw together every year with leading lights in politics, entertainment, the arts, technology, absolutely everything. John Goodman is a guy with huge range. For a lot of us, he's still the beleaguered and lovable Dan Connor on Roseanne, a show that brought a new kind of realism to sitcoms about working class families. He was incredibly funny and sad in the legendary film the Big Lebowski as one of Jeff Bridges sidekicks, the volatile one. But he's even better playing dark, really dark, like the psychopath in last year's 10 Cloverfield Lane. Maybe it's that contrast that made Larry Wright, a staff writer at the New Yorker who's known for his coverage of terrorism. Want to talk with John Goodman?
- [19:51]
Lawrence Wright
It's such a pleasure to have this opportunity to talk to you.
- [19:55]
John Goodman
Thank you.
- [19:56]
Lawrence Wright
I was looking through your credits, and beginning with commercials, theater, television, movies, animation and video games, you've been a character actor and a leading man. This is a really singular profile because you do everything. And I couldn't think, really, of how many other actors have spanned all that. And it occurred to me that there is a memoir in here somewhere.
- [20:26]
John Goodman
Ghost written.
- [20:27]
Lawrence Wright
Yes. Okay. But there are posthumously. There are a lot of. There are some editors in the audience, including my own editor, and I thought that while we're sitting here, we would just construct this memoir. And it turned out in one of your interviews, you already postulated a wonderful title. I'm so goddamn Sorry I Did that, by John Goodman.
- [20:56]
John Goodman
Sounds great.
- [20:56]
Lawrence Wright
All right, so Chapter One. I am born.
- [21:01]
John Goodman
I am born.
- [21:02]
Lawrence Wright
Where were you born?
- [21:04]
John Goodman
St. Anthony's Hospital, Grand Chippewa, St. Louis, Missouri, June 20, 1952. Okay, 4. Something in the afternoon or. No, 10:32 in the afternoon? In the morning. And your parents were born to Virginia Goodman? Virginia Lucemore Goodman. Leslie Goodman, who was a postal worker.
- [21:31]
Lawrence Wright
And you never knew him?
- [21:32]
John Goodman
No, he died a month before my second birthday.
- [21:36]
Lawrence Wright
So tell me about your mother.
- [21:39]
John Goodman
She took in laundry, babysat children, which was what today would be referred to as a daycare center, I guess. Just did odd jobs and got a job as a Clerk in a drugstore, was a waitress, did all kinds of things.
- [21:59]
Lawrence Wright
Well, it seems pertinent because I think whenever I see you acting, there's experience there that I think can't be translated, can't be faked. You come from a background and I see that in your work. Do you feel like it lives still in you?
- [22:18]
John Goodman
It's all relevant relative to other things. I really didn't realize we were as poverty stricken as we were because I was. I want this, I want that, I want this. A bit later on I became extremely introverted and just dwelt in my imagination, in my own head, which is served me well in a career, but not so well in life.
- [22:47]
Lawrence Wright
What do you mean by that?
- [22:48]
John Goodman
Well, it's not one of the causes, but it's a symptom of alcoholism to just not really relate to people that very well. And it leads to selfishness, bad posture, I don't know. But it fueled a creativity which thankfully I found an outlet for.
- [23:12]
Lawrence Wright
Well, you know. When did you awaken to the idea that there was a world that you could be a part of?
- [23:19]
John Goodman
In college. I had dabbled in acting. For some reason I was always attracted to plays. I'd get kicked out of a class and they'd send me to the library for play. Lack of office space and I would read plays. I have no idea why. I had a taste of it in eighth grade and then later in my junior and senior year of high school and I had nothing else going for me. I was a terrible student. The theater department was a natural attraction and I felt good at it. I felt comfortable at it. I was drawn to it.
- [24:04]
Lawrence Wright
So Chapter two, the New York Years. What brought you here when you came.
- [24:11]
John Goodman
Right out of college? I thought my very last year of college, my very last semester, that I could try to make a living. And that's all I want to do, is make a living as an actor.
- [24:26]
Lawrence Wright
What was your experience when you first.
- [24:28]
John Goodman
I was scared. I was terrified. But I had to do it. Just the only main reason I came, main motivation was that I wouldn't kick myself in the ass for the rest of my life. Beat myself up for not trying. I had to take a shot. And if I failed, fine, I'll try to get on at Anheuser Busch. That was a dream job in St. Louis. That was the job to get.
- [24:55]
Lawrence Wright
So let's move on to chapter three, which is theater, Theater, theater, play, practice. Okay. Alec Baldwin, you worked with him. Yeah, in Streetcar. And he said you were the best Mitch that he had ever seen. And he wanted me to ask you about your experience on dealing with Mitch.
- [25:18]
John Goodman
I talked my way into that production because Jessica Lange was doing it, and she was a friend of mine, and I was with a very powerful agency at the time, and I think they pulled some strings. And as soon as I got into it, I said, what have I done? I'm far too fat to be playing Mitch. I chose to use an unfortunate accent, which is hard to understand, but we in New Orleans call yat yat where yat? It comes from way yat. It's a standard greeting. And I just felt it was wrong. Even though I was in it and doing it, I just. I never felt comfortable with it. That's my streetcar story.
- [26:03]
Lawrence Wright
So then I think probably the most acclaimed role that you had was in Waiting for Godot in 2009. This is one of those landmark productions in the theater. Everyone in that production was so good, yet, you know, I could see that you were heavy then. And Bill Irwin, who was also in that production, said that you were in pain a lot of the time that you were in that production.
- [26:33]
John Goodman
Yeah, my knees. Before I surgically altered my knees.
- [26:38]
Lawrence Wright
Yeah.
- [26:38]
John Goodman
Some people get Botox. I get knee surgery.
- [26:43]
Lawrence Wright
So the next chapter is Roseanne. A big moment in your life and perhaps the first real steady work that you had. But also, it made you famous.
- [26:56]
John Goodman
Yep. It was the residual fame of Roseanne was such a tabloid magnet because she'd say anything. I didn't think that they liked a heavy, outspoken Jewish woman, so they were all set for her. And so I was like, residual target of that.
- [27:23]
Lawrence Wright
What do you mean?
- [27:25]
John Goodman
If they couldn't get her, they'd try stuff on me. I walked out of a place one night with a friend of mine and his girlfriend, and he was right behind us. I was in front just talking to her, and it wound up on the COVID of the National Enquirer that I was getting a divorce and taking off with this woman who I knew enough to say hi to, just that kind of stuff. Printing rumors as fact. And for me, that was fame. And, yeah, I kind of turned into a jerk for a little while. I just. All defense at the time, it was the worst thing that happened to me was being famous.
- [28:05]
Lawrence Wright
Yeah.
- [28:06]
John Goodman
But I was doing a job that I loved. It was. It was a lot of fun for a while. Stop. We're going out to dinner.
- [28:18]
Lawrence Wright
No, I. I don't want to eat with those girls. I just want to have dinner and go to bed.
- [28:22]
John Goodman
They're not coming. I'm punishing them. Whoa. Yes. And having to eat my chili is just the beginning. Come on. We'll decide the rest of their punishment over dinner. Let's get changed.
- [28:35]
David Remnick
But they hate me, right?
- [28:37]
John Goodman
No, no, that's the beauty part. They hate me.
- [28:40]
Lawrence Wright
Oh, Dan, that's just great.
- [28:43]
John Goodman
Happy Mother's Day.
- [28:45]
Lawrence Wright
It was a difficult period of time in some ways. I mean, at one point you walked off the show.
- [28:50]
John Goodman
No, I didn't walk, walk off the show. Well, I tried to until I figured out that ABC could own my house, all of my property. That talk took some sense. But the time that I made that phone call, I was drunk. And then I did leave the show because in the last year, I just felt that it had run its course. That wasn't my call to make, but I just wanted to move on.
- [29:24]
Lawrence Wright
Let's go back to the drunk part.
- [29:27]
John Goodman
Okay.
- [29:27]
Lawrence Wright
Yeah. You were drinking a lot in that period of time.
- [29:33]
John Goodman
Yeah.
- [29:34]
Lawrence Wright
And I think what I'd like to understand is how you escaped that.
- [29:41]
John Goodman
I bottomed out. I was supposed to go to California for an award show and accept and present an award. I had been on a golf trip about a week before that in the Missouri Ozarks with some friends. And I stayed loaded until it came time for the rehearsal for the awards ceremony and I had to phone in sick. And by the time the next day rolled around, I reckoned that I need to be hospitalized. And do I want to just go to a hospital or do I want to take care of this? And I just didn't want to do this anymore. I got tired of the lying. Just feeling rotten all the time, unless I had what Tennessee Williams called the click, which lasted about an hour. And then you're just feeling rotten again. And I was getting DTs and I didn't want to live like that anymore. And I lived like that for 20 years. And I'd been drinking heavily for 30. The first five were fun. And I called my wife, which is kind of like Osama bin Laden calling Navy seals, but I was drunk enough to call her and I'd say, you know, I need some help. And they got me into a facility and I just relearned things. I don't miss that life a bit.
- [31:27]
Lawrence Wright
You once woke up while you were driving, right?
- [31:30]
John Goodman
Yeah, I was on the cross box expressway doing 60 miles an hour in a VW Beetle. Well, how did I get here? Yeah. Not pleasant.
- [31:42]
Lawrence Wright
That's terrifying.
- [31:44]
John Goodman
I'm sorry you had that story.
- [31:45]
Lawrence Wright
Yeah. So let's move on to the Hollywood chapter. I guess the movies that you're most associated with are the Coen Brothers movies, and they're so wonderful. So Ethan Cohen once said about you, he's normal but crazy like everyone else, only more vividly. How'd you get hooked up with the Cohens?
- [32:15]
John Goodman
I was doing, let's see, Big River. And then I left Big river to do a David Byrne film, of all things. And in the middle of the Big Easy, a film called the Big Easy, I was in New York and got sent over to an office to meet Joel and Ethan Coen.
- [32:36]
Lawrence Wright
Did you know who they were?
- [32:37]
John Goodman
No, I didn't know anything. They had one film which I hadn't seen, Blood simple, which is great. It's a great film which they made for nothing. And I went in there and just started goofing around with them. They were funny, Midwestern guys. They had said at one point that we're all provincials and you just had the best time not auditioning. Like, yeah, okay. I read the thing, and it was for Raising Arizona. And I think the reason that they cast me was because I had a pudgy baby face. And the theme of the film was babies. There were a lot of baby movies made in the mid-80s. This was the most twisted. Yeah, I think we don't always smell this way, Ms. McDonough. I was just explaining to your better half here that when we were tunneling out, we happened to hit the main sewer line. Dumb luck, that. And we followed that. You mean you busted out of jail? No, ma'. Am. We released ourselves on our own recognizance. What evil here is trying to say is that we felt the institution no longer had anything to offer us. My Lord, he's cute.
- [33:51]
Keegan-Michael Key
He's a little outlaw.
- [33:52]
John Goodman
You can see that High.
- [33:53]
Narrator/Producer
Now, listen, you folks can't stay here.
- [33:57]
John Goodman
Ma'.
- [33:57]
David Remnick
Am.
- [33:58]
John Goodman
You just can't stay. Now, I appreciate you being friends of high and all, but this is a decent family now.
- [34:03]
Narrator/Producer
I mean, we got a toddler here.
- [34:09]
John Goodman
Say, who wears the pants around here? Hi.
- [34:14]
Lawrence Wright
And after that, you didn't audition? They were writing the parts for you?
- [34:17]
John Goodman
Yeah, they started writing parts for me until they. I guess they hit a wall with it because they wrote another part for me. It's too much like John Goodman's stuff and our other movies. So they gave it to somebody else.
- [34:32]
Lawrence Wright
Perhaps your most famous role is in the Big Lebowski, where you play Walter Sobchak. Tell me how you approached that role.
- [34:46]
John Goodman
Thank you to all my reactionary fans. It was all on the page, which I found. The only Coen Brothers film I went into with a plan was Raising Arizona. I wanted to play a guy that was a criminal genius with a two digit iq. Everything was right on the page. And I find that I'm in better hands if I trust material like that. And I don't think too much or bring too much to it. Excuse me, sir, could you please keep your voices down? This is a family restaurant. Oh, please, dear. For your information, the Supreme Court has.
- [35:30]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
Roundly rejected prior restraint.
- [35:32]
John Goodman
It's not a First Amendment thing. If you don't calm down, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Lady, I got buddies who died face down in the muck so that you.
- [35:41]
Character Actor (Various Roles)
And I could enjoy this family restaurant.
- [35:43]
Keegan-Michael Key
I'm out of here.
- [35:44]
John Goodman
Hey, dude, don't go away, man. Come on. This affects all of us, man. Our basic freedoms. I'm staying. I'm finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee.
- [36:10]
Lawrence Wright
Big Dan Teague and oh, Brother, Where Art Thou this year? The Cyclops and the Ulysses of drama that underlies all this. And you really do get to Club George Clooney. This is probably one of the great moments in cinematic history.
- [36:25]
John Goodman
Yeah. It kills me. I don't think I know what you mean. Big Dan, George. I knew George was in the first year of Roseanne, and he had great hair and a good attitude, and we all. Boy, he made me laugh. He was so funny.
- [36:48]
Lawrence Wright
And it's interesting the trajectory that his career has had.
- [36:52]
John Goodman
Is he working?
- [36:54]
Lawrence Wright
Maybe. He might be a good kid. I don't think he works as much as you do.
- [36:59]
John Goodman
He doesn't have to.
- [37:03]
Lawrence Wright
And then Roland Turner in the Inside Llewyn Davis, where you play.
- [37:11]
John Goodman
Roland Turner?
- [37:12]
Lawrence Wright
Yeah.
- [37:12]
John Goodman
No, he's a jazz musician. And after we wrapped, after the film came out, Joel and Ethan were discussing what instrument I played. I think Joel thought I was a trumpet player. Ethan thought I played sax, and I thought I played piano. Who cares?
- [37:33]
Lawrence Wright
Do you play any of those instruments?
- [37:35]
John Goodman
No. I was accused of playing harmonica for a while. Yeah. When I was in high school, I got into blues. Nobody has a blues like a suburban white kid. I suffered. Baby.
- [37:54]
Lawrence Wright
You have so many movies that are out now or just coming out. And recently, 10 Cloverfield Lane. Tell me a little bit about that experience.
- [38:04]
John Goodman
Well, it was great because I got to shoot at home. Yeah. New Orleans for a while was a hotbed of film due to some liberal tax credits, which we no longer have.
- [38:18]
Lawrence Wright
Now, you mentioned New Orleans, and that brings us to another chapter in your memoir here. Part of the attraction to New Orleans was music.
- [38:29]
John Goodman
Yes. It's everywhere. No matter what part of town, you're either Somebody has a radio on or they're playing live music.
- [38:38]
Lawrence Wright
It allows you to keep an arm's distance from a lot of the craziness in the business.
- [38:43]
John Goodman
Yeah, that's we primarily why we moved there. I wanted to get out of town, out of Los Angeles. The business was all consuming. The news was all about entertainment, and I was getting fed up and I wanted to get out. And since my wife is from Bogalusa, Louisiana, which is a Stone Shore from New Orleans, I decided to move there so she could be near her family when I was. I knew I'd be gone a lot.
- [39:21]
Lawrence Wright
So we come to the epilogue.
- [39:27]
J
And.
- [39:27]
Lawrence Wright
You'Ve been, it's not quite that far, but you've been very reflective about your feelings about your immaturity and your alcoholism, your weight, all those things. It seems to me the reason that I think that this is a worthy memoir is that you've come to, I think, a really good place in your life. It seems like you have overcome all of those things and it's been a struggle out of poverty, out of alcoholism, out of, you know, obscurity. How did you get to where you are now?
- [40:07]
John Goodman
I stopped whining. It was actually a benefit of being an alcoholic. I don't know why I am, but I'm grateful for what I've learned in the process of becoming sober, which is a day to day process. Alcoholism is a disease, inherited, defective gene. I don't know why, but it is. And the acceptance of that and not wanting to go back into drinking again. I learned more about myself, I guess, but more about acceptance and love and maybe not being as angry as I had been in the past, which I find makes me less funny.
- [40:54]
Lawrence Wright
Oh, really?
- [40:55]
John Goodman
Yeah. There was a nice benefit to being that angry, which was. But I don't feel like I have to be funny all the time. The class clown, I think he's put him to rest. But alcoholics who strive to be sober I think become better people. I don't know if that's the case or not, but I'm working on it. And it's something I never did before was the consideration and acceptance of other people.
- [41:28]
Lawrence Wright
I'm so goddamn sorry I did that. By John Goodman.
- [41:32]
John Goodman
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- [41:41]
David Remnick
John Goodman. He talked with Lawrence Wright, a staff writer, at the New Yorker Festival. Next week on the show, I'll talk with Stephen Hayes, who's taken over one of the leading journals of conservatism right at the moment, that the meaning of conservatism is really up for grabs. And the New Yorker's theater critic Hilton Als talks with a unique voice in comedy, Lily Tomlinson. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Today, one more conversation from this special edition of the New Yorker Radio Hour in which we're talking to three great actors recorded at the New Yorker Festival. Last but certainly not least, here's Jeremy Irons talking with New Yorker staff writer Rebecca Mead.
- [43:00]
Jeremy Irons
Here we go. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about where you're from. You're sort of the picture, I think, for Americans of like the urbane English gentleman. And yet, because I'm also English, I know that you grew up in a place that's a total cultural backwater. I mean, it's literally an island off the coast of a total cultural backwater.
- [43:26]
John Goodman
Where'd you think that.
- [43:27]
Jeremy Irons
Yes, well, yes, and the south coast thereof, which is also where I'm from. So. So tell us, where are you from? I'm from Dorset. Weymouth.
- [43:34]
Jordan Peele
I went to school in Sherborne, which is just a little bit north.
- [43:37]
Jeremy Irons
Yes, I know. Yes, it's close. We could just chat about very posh stuff.
- [43:42]
Jordan Peele
Why didn't we ever meet? Well, you probably weren't born when I was there.
- [43:48]
Jeremy Irons
I wish I had been, that's all I can say.
- [43:56]
Jordan Peele
Moving swiftly on.
- [44:00]
Jeremy Irons
So what was the Isle of Wight when you were there?
- [44:03]
Jordan Peele
It was idyllic, really. It was idyllic. I would go to my preschool on a steam train. I walk down the hill to the harbor, walk just round the edge of the harbor, get on this steam train which would go up the embankment to the school every day. And often we were the only people on it. So sometimes he'd sort of let me pretend to drive it. And for a long time I wanted to be an engine driver after that. It was an idyllic childhood and I stayed there till we were, I suppose, I think I was about 14 and my dad was. Got another job. We worked in the aircraft industry. So we moved to north of London to Hertfordshire and left the Isle of Wight. And middle class people in England would send their children to private school, which we call public school. Why? It was a sort of hangover, sort of class thing really, from the days of the Empire where your children were probably all going to go and have to work out in the colonies. So you wanted to get them to be self sufficient and stand up on their own two feet as soon as possible and get used to living without much familial comfort. Or even physical comfort, actually. I seem to remember. Of course, by the time I came along, we had no empire, but we still had the system of schooling.
- [45:27]
Jeremy Irons
So you were being trained to run a non existent empire. Right?
- [45:31]
Jordan Peele
Yeah, which I'm still prepared to do. But I don't think it's much sign of it at the moment.
- [45:39]
Jeremy Irons
Well, we could have a clip. We could have a clip of the man who Knew infinity, which is sort of relevant here. So can we have a little clip?
- [45:48]
Jordan Peele
Listen, I'm hard on you for your own benefit, so that you can be published.
- [45:52]
J
But, sir, you can publish the notebooks. And my prime number theorem. You've had them since I arrived.
- [45:56]
Jordan Peele
There's nothing I'd like more. But if I was to publish them in their present state, I'd be sent to the lunatic asylum.
- [46:01]
J
You don't understand these. I don't think about this the same way you do. These steps you want. What you want, I do not know how to do.
- [46:08]
Jordan Peele
Well, you can just begin by trying your best and see if you don't surprise yourself.
- [46:13]
J
Sir, do you know something I don't?
- [46:15]
Jordan Peele
Apparently not. Oh, no. God. And I don't see exactly either eye. So if I prepare for rain, then it won't. So far, so good. I am Hardy and I'm spending the afternoon in the Wren Library. Now we're sure to have sunshine. You see, I'm what you call an atheist.
- [46:35]
J
No, sir, you believe in God. You just don't think he likes you.
- [46:40]
Jordan Peele
Oh, really? Listen, I wasn't gonna give you this just yet, but I took the liberty of doing some of your proofs myself. Just to show you what together we can achieve. See, you've been published.
- [47:11]
J
Mr. Hardy.
- [47:11]
Jordan Peele
Thank you.
- [47:18]
Jeremy Irons
I. I sort of have an. I have an image of the people making this movie sort of sitting around saying, who can we get who will look really good walking across a quadrangle? Well, it's a court, because it's Cambridge, but who'll look really good in that setting? Oh, I know who Jeremy is.
- [47:32]
Jordan Peele
I don't recommend films often. It's really awfully good. It's got a wonderful heart to it. It's a most extraordinary and unlikely story. It's advertised as being about mathematics. Well, Ramanujan, the Indian played by Dev Patel, was pretty well uneducated, certainly not university educated in India, and through one way or another came to the attention of. Of G.H. hardy, who was a great mathematician at Cambridge at the time. The film is about the relationship between these two disparate men.
- [48:07]
Jeremy Irons
And it's also about the xenophobia and racism with which he is met in.
- [48:14]
Jordan Peele
A place like Cambridge, which is so. Was so racist at the time. I mean, you know, the Indians were wogs and they were. You know, look at Reed Kipling's poetry. That's what the Indians were to the English. We, you know, saw. Anyone with dark skin certainly shouldn't have a place at university, but with that sort of wonderful English precise charm, so that it wasn't actually spoken out, but it was there in bucket loads. And so Ramanujan had to fight against that as well.
- [48:46]
Jeremy Irons
And do you think that that kind of British racism is as pervasive as it was then? Do we still.
- [48:54]
Jordan Peele
I think it's still there. You only have to read the newspapers just to know that. I mean, there are awful people in the world. Not many, thank the Lord, but they make an awful lot of noise and their attitudes tend to shine out of the dailies.
- [49:09]
Jeremy Irons
Let's have the Klaus von Bulow. Let's have the Reversal of Fortune.
- [49:14]
Jordan Peele
I did not notice if my wife was. I did not notice if the light was on under the bathroom door. Had it been on, I wouldn't have given it a thought. I did my exercises shard, and then I called Deborah Knowles. Well, I mean, it's. It's stable and it's profitable. Can anyone really believe if I was trying to murder my wife, that I would spend an hour going over a tedious set of figures?
- [49:47]
Jeremy Irons
Nasty piece of work. Did you ever meet him?
- [49:52]
Jordan Peele
Yeah. Before or after I met him after. I didn't want to meet him before because it's very. You know, if you're playing someone, what your preparation is, is to get into that person, to be that person. And I didn't want to be confused by meeting someone else who thought they were Cloud Saint Bueller.
- [50:12]
Jeremy Irons
You first appeared on the scene with Brideshead as this sort of very winning, sympathetic character, but you've played throughout so much of your life a lot of nasty pieces of work like this one here. Is it your choice or is that what you get brought, get offered? How does it happen?
- [50:36]
Jordan Peele
It's very difficult. Is it the chicken or is it the egg? It's the. It's hard to tell.
- [50:41]
Jeremy Irons
Are you evil or are you just asked to play evil? That's basically what I'm asking.
- [50:48]
Jordan Peele
I think I've got a good amount of evil hidden away in me, like everybody else. I mean, I always think that we're like grand pianos, you know, and we choose in our lives to play certain sort of chords. But all the other strings are there if you want to examine them. I mean, the murderer lurks within all of us.
- [51:06]
Jeremy Irons
I read somewhere that there was a study a few years ago in Britain of the ideal male voice. And it was. The winning voice was you tied with Alan Rickman. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. So when you heard that. Well, yes, of course. Or what was your reaction to having the ideal male voice?
- [51:33]
Jordan Peele
I was surprised and delighted and slightly cynical, which is how most things hit me. John Hurt, you know John?
- [51:44]
Jeremy Irons
Don't know John, but I'll call him John just like that.
- [51:46]
Jordan Peele
But you know him as an actor.
- [51:48]
Jeremy Irons
Of course. Yeah, yeah.
- [51:49]
Jordan Peele
Well, John Hurt and I were neighbors when. When I was around 30, I suppose, and we were having coffee in my house one morning and he said. He said, have you noticed how many rather good young actors seemed to be appearing and they were. Actually, it was a really good crop. And I said, we were, you know, 30, beginning to feel maybe we were last year's tomatoes. And I said, yeah, I had noticed, John. He said. He said, do you know what I do when I meet an actor who I think's rather good and might be a problem in the casting state? I said, no. He said. I say to him, you've got a wonderful voice. Have you ever listened to it and the actors for good? So when I see that I have a. Whatever sort of voice, I just throw it out the window.
- [52:55]
John Goodman
Forget it.
- [52:59]
Jeremy Irons
Speaking of the late, great Alan Rickman, you impersonated him for a Harry Potter spoof, correct?
- [53:08]
Jordan Peele
Not very well, but I'm not a very good impersonator.
- [53:10]
Jeremy Irons
Quite good. But it did make me think you are the only British actor I can think of who's not in Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Is that a sore point?
- [53:23]
Jordan Peele
Well, it's not, really, no. I. I've done other things.
- [53:30]
Jeremy Irons
But how did. I mean, what did.
- [53:33]
Jordan Peele
I don't know.
- [53:33]
Jeremy Irons
You just.
- [53:34]
Jordan Peele
I don't know.
- [53:34]
Jeremy Irons
That never happened.
- [53:35]
John Goodman
Just never.
- [53:36]
Jordan Peele
The call never came.
- [53:37]
Lawrence Wright
No.
- [53:38]
Jordan Peele
Well, I was too old for the chap with the glasses. I know.
- [53:45]
Jeremy Irons
But they're lost. They're lost.
- [53:48]
Jordan Peele
There you go.
- [53:48]
Jeremy Irons
Thank you so much.
- [53:50]
Jordan Peele
Pleasure. You've been a great audience. Thank you.
- [53:52]
Jeremy Irons
To everybody else.
- [53:59]
David Remnick
Jeremy Irons, the star. Okay, not of Harry Potter maybe, but of more great movies than I can begin to name. Here he spoke with Rebecca Mead. Next week, Lily Tomlin talks with Hilton Als. And I'll look at old guard conservative politics in the era of Trump, the conservative populist. And we'll see where cartoonist Emily Flake finds her inspiration. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining me today. See you next time.
- [54:25]
Narrator/Producer
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rev. Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Michael Rayfield, Maithili Rao and Steven Valentino, with help from Rhonda Sherman, Alexis Kohlberg, Sarah Edwards, David Ohana and Becky Cooper. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.