{"id":36711,"date":"2025-04-20T22:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T22:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/36711\/"},"modified":"2025-04-20T22:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T22:20:15","slug":"the-roles-john-goodman-tried-to-sabotage-himself-out-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/36711\/","title":{"rendered":"The roles John Goodman tried to sabotage himself out of"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Sun 20 April 2025 16:45, UK <\/p>\n

The most difficult thing about succeeding as an actor is making it in the first place, with the early years of most careers made up of unsuccessful auditions, constant rejections, and thankless bit parts. It took John Goodman<\/a> a while to get there, which he eventually managed despite his best attempts at self-sabotage.<\/p>\n

Growing up as a devotee of Marlon Brando, who he thinks changed the world<\/a>, Goodman presumably hoped to follow a similar trajectory when he relocated to New York after finishing his education with barely a penny to his name and big dreams of seeing his name in lights.<\/p>\n

For a long time, it didn\u2019t go according to plan. He scraped by in off-Broadway plays and dinner theatre, punctuated by the odd TV advertisement or voiceover gig. Goodman graduated from college in 1975 but didn\u2019t make his screen debut until 1983, illustrating how long he was toiling on the bottom rung of the ladder.<\/p>\n

Even when he first crossed paths with soon-to-be regular collaborators Joel and Ethan Coen in 1987\u2019s Raising Arizona, he was hardly a well-known actor. However, that would change the following year when he landed a starring role in Roseanne, the sitcom that beamed him into tens of millions of homes each week, earning him seven Primetime Emmy nominations and three Golden Globe nods.<\/p>\n

Since then, Goodman has become one of Hollywood\u2019s favourite character actors<\/a>, and he has a habit of stealing whatever scenes he\u2019s in. He also has a reputation for being an all-around nice guy and a dedicated professional, which wasn\u2019t the case when he was trying to make a name for himself and seemed hellbent on pressing the self-destruct button on the audition circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did children\u2019s theatre and a few plays, but mostly I hung out at Cafe Central with buddies like Bruce Willis and Dennis Quaid,\u201d he explained to the Los Angeles Times<\/a>. \u201cWe were all broke and looking for work. I didn\u2019t start making money for a couple of years until I got into commercials, which I hated. I was afraid I\u2019d get trapped by them.\u201d<\/p>\n

By his own admission, Goodman didn\u2019t have two cents to rub together until he started booking commercials, even if he tried his hardest not to be hired. \u201cI adopted an attitude for auditions,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI\u2019d show up hungover, I was drinking a lot in those days. Snotty and arrogant, but I\u2019d always get the job. It seemed to fascinate those guys that I didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously, it\u2019s incredibly counterintuitive for an actor desperate for a job to go out of their way to ensure they don\u2019t get one, not that it worked. Goodman\u2019s brashness was supposed to stop him from tackling adverts, and in the end, it helped pay the bills better than anything else he could rustle up at the time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

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