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John Goodman Q&A

1 month ago 13th Oct 09:07

John Goodman is a Golden Globe and Emmy winning American actor whose career has spanned thirty years appearing in The Big Easy, Arachnophobia and the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink.

For Speed Racer he works with another set of brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski as Pops Racer, Speed's father.

Why were you keen to do Speed Racer?

I was just hoping to buy my daughter’s love. (laughs)

Was Susan Sarandon very maternal to the younger actors on the set of Speed Racer?

Her trailer was Ground Central where we all hung out and it helped everyone because we all bonded very quickly.

Could you identify with your character’s relationships with his sons in Speed Racer?

He was very inflexible because I guess at the time he had just turned down a major corporation and was trying to start out on his own. He had a lot of things to worry bout and he really needed the help of Rex at the time.

There was nothing more horrible that could happen to a person than the death of a child and I think that has made him a bit more flexible and he has learned from his wife. She knows he is a bit of a hard head and won’t show emotion. But if you don’t adapt you’ll die.

You have said that one of your favourite projects was The Big Lebowski. Is that still true 10 years on?

It was a unique experience. When I walk down the street or stop when I am driving I get it quoted to me quite often. So it was great fun.

Now you have worked with two sets of brothers,the Coen Brothers and the Wachowski Brothers. How were they to work with?

And I’ve worked with Warner Bros (jokes). There is not much difference. They are great story tellers the approach is a bit different in that Larry and Andy [Wachowski] are giving notes at the end of a scene and we would do the scene again and maybe Andy would come up with something different but it’s all building and all positive. Both sets of brothers are very, very funny.

You are friends with one of the geniuses of rock music Mac Rebennack?

He is a genius, he is a human juke box. He is Dr John, the New Orleans musician and music is everything, even in acting you measure our cadences that you are given on the page and the tempo of a scene. It is very important.

So why have you not done more music in your movies?

I don’t sing much any more. I had some trouble with my vocal chords and I don’t have much of a range, quite frankly.

You worked with the French director Bertrand Tavernier?

It was wonderful. I worked with him last year on In The Electric Mist and he is a great cat! I miss him and I don’t know what happened to our film. I worked with Tommy Lee Jones on the film and I thought the world of Bertrand.