The movie John Goodman “whored out big time” to make: “The paycheque was too good”
They call it the movie business for a reason, with very few actors being able to resist the lure of a fat paycheque. John Goodman might be one of his generation’s most esteemed character actors, but that doesn’t mean he won’t chase the money and sink well beneath his station to enhance his bank balance.
As a working actor who’d never dream of calling himself a star or a leading man, Goodman goes where the parts are. He isn’t the type of name who commands millions of dollars per picture, and with almost 200 credits in film, television, and theatre under his belt, he hasn’t played all of those roles for their artistic merits.
It would be fair to say that he didn’t voice Papa Smurf to stretch himself as a thespian, he wasn’t in Kong: Skull Island to flex his dramatic muscles, he didn’t step into the recording booth for two of Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels to broaden his performative horizons, and the only reason he was in The Flintstones was because Steven Spielberg didn’t give him a choice, but at least he managed to avoid the sequel.
Goodman has been in countless films that you’ve never seen, and he doesn’t care, as long as he gets paid. When reflecting on the finest work produced by the Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy-winning Coen brothers regular, who appeared in ‘Best Picture’ winners like Argo and The Artist, only the most ardent and dedicated of his fans will even know that Spring Break ’83 even exists.
Completing production in 2009, writer and co-director Mars Callahan’s comedy was helmed alongside Scott Spiegel, following four high school friends who were bullied by their peers as they seek revenge during the titular college festivities. It was ultimately never released, and when it was brought up to Goodman by The Huffington Post, he didn’t care after revealing what convinced him to sign on.
“This was something that was shooting up in Baton Rouge, and the paycheque was too good to turn down,” he explained. “So, yeah, I flopped over on my back and I whored out, man. I put on the cheap cologne and I whored out big time.” In a sign of the film’s undoubted ambition, he’d been cast as a guy called Dick Bender, and he couldn’t even recall what his scenes entailed.
“I don’t remember,” he admitted. “He was a rich guy who was yelling into a cell phone most of the time.” Honesty is usually the best policy, and with Spring Break ’83 having remained lodged in the depths of cinematic purgatory ever since it wrapped, bar some footage being screened at the Sundance Film Festival, it’s not as if Goodman saying he only did it for the money will come back and bite him on the arse.
It was a cursed affair from start to finish, with the production being shut down due to financial issues, and a planned 2012 release never materialised. Still, Goodman got his money, so he doesn’t give a shit what happens after the cheque clears.
