How a typically “self-critical” John Goodman won over David Byrne: “He was so into it”
You might think that being a movie actor would require a decent level of confidence, not just in your own abilities but in the knowledge that when the director shouts action, you can turn the magic on and not worry about the millions resting on your performance, but in actuality, for many, including John Goodman, it is not a foregone conclusion.
Some of Hollywood’s biggest names have spoken openly about their battles with imposter syndrome, or about how critical they can be with their own performances; Adam Driver, for instance, hates seeing clips of himself on screen, even walking out on occasion. Javier Bardem doesn’t enjoy watching himself back, and Jesse Eisenberg finds the process incredibly anxiety-inducing.
These are all Oscar-nominated actors at the top of their game, and Goodman certainly falls in that category. A Coen brothers favourite, he has gone from playing the lovable doofus dad in Roseanne to a masterful character actor in dramas and thrillers, but that doesn’t make him any less self-critical.
That uncertainty was on display when Goodman was involved in the musical comedy True Stories back in 1986, which was a David Byrne-directed movie using Talking Heads music as a backdrop. Byrne himself acts a central figure in the collection of stories as he meets all kinds of different characters in a fictional Texan town, including Goodman who plays a country and western singing technician at a local computer manufacturing plant.
Goodman, who at that point was yet to play Dan O’Connor in the sitcom that would make him a household name, had some movie experience but was still a year away from making his first film with the Coens, 1987’s Raising Arizona. Nevertheless, he impressed Byrne in making the movie, with the film’s co-producer Karen Murphy recalling, “None of us really knew John Goodman. Every single time John was on camera, he was so into it. He was self-critical, as many good actors are, but he just did it in a way that I think David never imagined that this character, who really carries; he’s kind of the central character in some ways.”
True Stories was not an expensive film to make, but still pulled in $2.5million at the box office, likely due to Talking Heads’ popularity at the time and the fact that Byrne had two years earlier made one of the best concert movies of all time in Stop Making Sense.
Goodman continued his ascent after the film’s release, making several more movies and appearing in TV shows until he landed the part in Roseanne that would change his life completely. With breaks aside, he starred in that show for an amazing 30 years and more than 200 episodes, also appearing in over 100 more of the spin-off, The Conners.
Byrne, meanwhile, released a Talking Heads album to go along with True Stories, as well as an instrumental album called Sounds from True Stories. Perhaps the most notable legacy that the movie left is the fact that Oxford legends Radiohead are named after the song ‘Radio Head’ from the soundtrack album.
It also looks like Goodman is likely to have another hit on his hands later this year with the Tom Cruise-starring black comedy Digger, directed by Oscars favourite Alejandro González Iñárritu.
