The role John Goodman admitted he was wrong to resent: “I’m ashamed of it”
Actors often have a strange relationship with the role that made them a star, especially if that role became so synonymous with them in the eyes of audiences that they struggled to escape it. After all, very few actors want to play the same part for their entire career, as they are all creative artists who contain multitudes, and love being given the opportunity to try something new.
John Goodman is no different, and he has admitted he once resented the part that brought him to the dance.
Indeed, before landing the long-running role of Dan Conner on the immensely popular sitcom Roseanne in 1988, Goodman was a young movie actor climbing his way up the ladder of success. Small parts in movies like Revenge of the Nerds, The Big Easy, and Sweet Dreams helped him establish a foothold in the industry before his first collaboration with the Coen brothers in 1987’s Raising Arizona began a fruitful creative partnership that has lasted for decades.
However, at this point, Goodman was far from what anyone could consider a movie star, so he wasn’t inclined to turn down the steady pay cheque that came with a primetime sitcom. Playing Conner, an often-unemployed blue-collar construction worker, made Goodman a TV superstar. Over the course of nine seasons, viewers became extremely attached to Conner, a regular Joe with a good heart who struggled with his weight. In truth, Roseanne spoke to most Americans much more than an idealised sitcom ever could, as the working-class family at the centre of it actually felt like a true reflection of much of the country.
The role that almost broke John Goodman
However, unfortunately for Goodman, he never saw himself as a sitcom star, and even though the show made him rich and famous, he has admitted to looking down on the material from time to time. Hell, he even tried to quit the show during season seven, but was not-so-politely told by the network that it would ruin him if he walked.
“They suggested that if I did so, they wouldn’t mind taking my house from me,” he confessed to The New Republic in 2014. “‘Thank you very much,’ I said, and I stuck around.”
Unsavoury flashpoints like this aside, Goodman was unhappy for a large portion of his time on Roseanne, and it took him a long time to realise how foolish his outlook was. “I resented it at the time,” he admitted to The New York Times in 2009. “It’s one of those arrogant things that happen to you when you don’t realise the breaks you’re catching. I don’t feel this way anymore, but for a couple of years, I put myself above the material. I hate saying it, but it’s true, and I’m ashamed of it.”
While some people may think less of Goodman for being ungrateful for the kind of success 99% of other actors would kill for, the feelings he experienced while playing Conner aren’t unusual. Plenty of stars have admitted to disliking the roles that made them famous or at least having love-hate relationships with them.
If you want evidence of this, just ask Robert Pattinson about Edward Cullen in Twilight, Kate Winslet about Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic, or Harrison Ford about Han Solo in Star Wars. It’s all about a star’s self-perception of their career and the kinds of roles they want to play, versus the reality of what audiences and industry insiders want to see them do. Sometimes those things don’t line up, and it can be frustrating.
Thankfully, Goodman’s negativity toward playing Conner dissipated over the years, and he later returned to the role for another seven seasons in The Conners, which ran from 2018 to 2025. This time, he recognised how lucky he’d always been to play such a beloved role for so long, and was much more thankful for it than he had been in the original run.
