The roles John Goodman desperately wishes he could play again: “There’s a lot of things that bothered me”
Despite his reputation as one of the industry’s most reliable character actors who seems completely incapable of giving a performance that’s anything less than rock solid, John Goodman still harbours a couple of major regrets from his long and illustrious career.
The most pronounced was his one and only collaboration with Martin Scorsese on Bringing Out the Dead, with Goodman admitting that a combination of personal and family problems ensured he was never in the right mindset during production, robbing him of the opportunity to make the most of being directed by one of the all-time greats.
With a Primetime Emmy win from 11 nominations and a Golden Globe victory from five nods spread out over a period of over 30 years, it’s right there in his accolades that Goodman has been knocking out awards-worthy performances for decades, even if he remains one of the best actors of his era that’s never come close to being shortlisted for an Academy Award.
He’s one of the Coen brothers’ lucky charms and most frequently cast stars, and he’s partnered up with some of the industry’s biggest names on either side of the camera, so there isn’t much in Goodman’s rearview mirror that he’ll look back on with wistful regret and daydream about doing over. Of course, there are always exceptions to prove these rules, and he’s got a couple of them.
In Arthur Hiller’s 1992 sports biopic The Babe, Goodman took on the daunting challenge of embodying baseball’s most famous player ever, Babe Ruth. The leading man put in plenty of effort to try and do justice to one of America’s foremost sporting icons, but with the benefit of hindsight, he was left to rue his performance as a disappointment.
“The Babe just deserved a better shot,” he explained to Insider. “I wish I would have had six months for research. I spent every day throwing left-handed, but then I learned he pitched sidearm, so I could have done that all over. But there’s a lot of things about my performance that bothered me.”
It was always going to be a daunting task to bring someone as woven into the cultural consciousness as Ruth to the screen and do him justice, and Goodman’s lack of belief in his own central turn wasn’t helped by the movie itself being greeted largely with a shrug of indifference by critics and audiences.
However, the second part he’d love to give a do-over is much more surprising: “I’d love another shot at Barton Fink, too,” he confessed. One of the Coens’ finest detours into their signature style of jet-black and surreally farcical comedy, Goodman is on top form as the mysterious Charlie Meadows opposite John Turturro’s title character. Then again, he’d be the first to disagree.
“A couple of things make me cringe,” he said of his performance. More specifically, “There’s a couple of scenes with John that I would have changed. I think I’m a better actor now. I’d just do them differently.” It’s easy enough to give Goodman the benefit of the doubt on The Babe when it’s not that great, but Barton Fink? There’s no shortage of viewers who’d vehemently disagree when it’s one of his most memorable performances.
