The actor John Goodman calls “one of my heroes”
Regardless of genre, though perhaps best known for his legendary comic roles, John Goodman has always delivered a performance that sticks in the memory for a long time. Whether through his Coen brothers collaborations like The Big Lebowski and Barton Fink or in 10 Cloverfield Lane, Goodman has simply embodied his characters, bringing them to life and beyond the screen.
The sheer stature of the Texas-born actor helps Goodman to possess a dominating presence on screen, but it’s his ability as an actor – one with unrivalled timing, hilarious facial expressions and commitment to making good on scenes either emotional or comedic – that has afforded him the position as a true Hollywood icon.
It’s easy to see why so many cinema fans adore the work that Goodman has produced, whether in his early days in True Stories or later on in The Righteous Gemstones, so far-reaching is his impact. But Goodman himself is no stranger to holding actors in high regard and once spoke of his acting hero when looking back on his own career.
“I remember when I saw The Godfather II, trying to call up Al Pacino after we came home,” Goodman told Vanity Fair. “Well, New York information didn’t have that number, but I got to meet him. And I got to work with him. One of my heroes. That’s one of the great things about the business: you get to meet your heroes, and so far, I have not been disappointed.”
It’s fair to say that Pacino is simply one of the greatest American actors of all time and is pretty much universally admired. The genuine titan of cinema has performed in some of the most celebrated movies of all time, and his filmography reads out as proof of his excellence, having portrayed some of cinema’s most notorious roles.
His patient, then explosive effort as Michael Corleone in The Godfather has gone down in history as one of the best performances ever made, perhaps matched by Pacino’s further efforts in Scarface, Serpico and Heat. So it’s more than understandable why Goodman holds the actor in such high esteem, as so many do so across the world.
And fortunately, Goodman was able to work with his hero in the 1989 Harold Becker movie Sea of Love. The crime thriller, also starring Ellen Barkin, sees Pacino play a detective in the hunt for a serial killer who finds their victims in a newspaper’s singles column. Goodman featured next to his idol as his detective partner in the movie based on Richard Price’s 1978 novel Ladies’ Man.
