The director Jeff Goldblum called spectacular: “I had a grand old time”
His career may have kicked off half a century ago, but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Jeff Goldblum is currently more popular now than he’s ever been, and a large part of his resurgent appeal is entirely down to his eccentricities.
The actor’s unique cadence, stream-of-consciousness style, and aloof presence have endeared him to multiple generations, and that bespoke form of intellectually genteel buffoonery has become a key part of his on-screen arsenal. He’s a fantastic actor at his best, of course, and he’s also worked with many of the biggest and brightest directors in the business.
Regardless of whether it was a tiny role, a minor part, a supporting gig, or leading man status, Goldblum has found himself under the direction of Michael Winner, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, David Cronenberg, Steven Spielberg, and Barry Levinson to name a few, even if there was an air of inevitability over the star being welcomed into Wes Anderson’s inner sanctum.
After all, Goldblum’s idiosyncrasies seem tailor-made for the auteur’s carefully curated aesthetic, which made them the ideal bedfellows for an ongoing collaboration that’s so far yielded The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, and Asteroid City.
However, it was another filmmaker who made their name in the world of offbeat comedy that Goldblum described as “spectacular” in an interview with The Guardian, even if their first-time creative partnership came as part of a blockbuster comic book adaptation that admittedly didn’t require much more of him as a performer than playing himself, except in space.
Goldblum made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as The Grandmaster in Taika Waititi’s zany Thor: Ragnarok, where he was encouraged to go off-book. “There was a nice script, and we did all those lines,” he said. “But on set, he kept saying, ‘Here are ten other ideas. Keep the camera rolling and say this and say this’. I had several ideas and started to make things up.”
Understandably, then, Goldblum being given the leeway to inject his own sensibilities into such an outlandish character allowed him to have “a grand old time,” especially when Waititi encouraged the part-time jazz musician to play the piano. “He said, ‘What if your Grandmaster character in this fantasy room of his palace has a band and a keyboard?'” the actor continued. “So I played a little bit in the movie.”
At first glance, the filmmaker responsible for cult rom-com Eagle vs Shark, coming-of-age comedy Boy, vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, and adventure romp Hunt for the Wilderpeople didn’t stand out as the most obvious candidate to take the reins on a mega-budget superhero flick, but that was the point. Ragnarok is undoubtedly one of the MCU’s high points, and Goldblum was clearly having a blast sinking his teeth into the silliness.
