The only one of his performances that John Goodman doesn’t hate: “You can just enjoy it”
Actors are regularly their own harshest critics, with John Goodman just one of many who can’t stand the sight of himself onscreen. Even though he’s been stealing scenes for decades, the veteran character man only sees the flaws whenever he revisits his work.
Not every performer is in the same boat, with Samuel L Jackson famously calling bullshit on anyone who claims they don’t enjoy watching themselves at least a little bit, but Goodman has always preferred pointing out his mistakes to celebrating his achievements in film and television.
When he worked with Martin Scorsese on Bringing Out the Dead, Goodman realised a long-held dream. However, he’s adamant that he blew what was looking increasingly like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Even when he’s working with his favourite collaborators, Goodman tends to lean toward the negative.
Most audiences would agree there’s nothing wrong with his turn in the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink, but try telling that to the guy who played Charlie Meadows. The Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy winner is convinced he dropped the ball, and it’s one of two performances he desperately wishes he could do over.
The other was his titular outing in the baseball biopic, Babe, and while it’s not one of his top-tier turns, it shouldn’t have haunted him for more than 30 years like it does. Goodman is so self-critical that he even felt “ashamed” of his success, with his award-winning stint on Roseanne plunging him into an abyss of highly-paid misery.
Fortunately, there are always exceptions to rules, and there’s one role Goodman can’t criticise. Ask him about 99% of his filmography, and he won’t waste a second in picking it apart and spotlighting what he did wrong, but the iconic Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski is as close to flawless as he can be.
“When I look at myself on film, I just see shit I could have done,” he admitted to Esquire. “I’m incapable of watching myself objectively. Unless it’s The Big Lebowski, the writing is so goddamned good, you can just enjoy it, go along for the ride like everybody else.”
Considering he’s amassed over 150 credits across film, television, theatre, animation, and video games dating back to the 1970s, it would be a tragedy if Goodman couldn’t think of a single performance he thinks he completely nailed. From the perspective of those who’ve been watching him for years, he’s done it countless times, but as far as he’s concerned, there’s only The Big Lebowski.
It’s undoubtedly one of, if not his most memorable, characters, with the Coens’ classic caper continuing to win over new devotees with each generation. Goodman is an acerbic, belligerent, and blackly hilarious force of nature in every scene he appears in, and if he somehow managed to find anything wrong with how he played Walter, then he’d be a glutton for punishment.
Actors can be a prickly bunch, but despite spending his career tearing himself down, Goodman can’t argue with facts: Walter is the perfect character for an actor ideally suited to playing it.
