John Goodman

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

With his 6 foot frame and over 300 pound girth, regardless of whether his roles are tender or fierce, John Goodman has made a career out of being the heavy. He's shown this with excellent flair in many of his roles, whether it's as loving husband Dan Connor in the beloved TV sitcom Roseanne, as the titular character in King Ralph, as Fred Flinstone in The Flinstones movie, or as Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski.

Now, at age 55, Goodman has graced the movie-going world of this indelible talent once again in what may be his oddest role to date. This is as father Pops Racer in The Wachowski Brothers' long-awaited film adaptation of the classic late 1960's Japanese TV anime Speed Racer.

When first asked about how he was cast as Pops, John explained that that for him being jumping on board as the character was a literal no-brainer.

'I watched the cartoon when I was a kid,' he says, 'There's not going to be very much verisimilitude. We both have mustaches. We both tower over our children. I did, when I got to go in, watch a mess of them because also, there is a feeling.'

'Speed Racer was different than any other cartoon and it was Japanese and it was one of the first nationwide anime in America,' Goodman continues, 'Second, we are creating our own reality, which is an alternate universe, an alternate world. Things aren't what they seem and we are live-action pop anime. We are the world.'

His portrayal of the uber-macho, grizzled Pops in the film is incredibly pitch-perfect. Goodman notes that he managed to get the mannerisms of the character done perfectly by The Wachowskis pushing it out of him.

'Larry and Andy would make me grunt on every take, whether I wanted to or not,' John claims, 'Whether I had anything to do with grunting or not, I'd sit down in a chair and go (grunts). We just did a bunch of pick-up grunts, so you got it, you nailed it. Now that was the sole purpose of this character. He was a life support system for grunting.'

In explaining his experience working for The Wachowskis, working for brothers was nothing new for the actor.

'The Smith Brothers, we invented the cough drop,' Goodman explained, 'The Everly Brothers, then we had The Coen Brothers. Whether there was any 'good cop, bad cop', Andy was the bad cop. No, speaking for the Coens, if they had any differences, they hashed them out over the creative process when they were writing, because they're both brilliant writers.'

'They complement each other and feel each other on, as are the Wachowskis', he adds, 'Their notes were mostly the same. In a rodeo this size, you got to have a good sense of parameters or otherwise, we'd still be over there and it would be a disaster.'

The actor also notes of the incredible action sequences in the film.

'Those are actually some big-time 'rassling moves,' Goodman says, 'We have some 'car fu' moves. We have a lot of 'car fu' moves in this movie.'

We asked John whether he had any difficulties in working with an incredibly powerful supporting cast, which includes Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox, and Christina Ricci.

'Oh, hell, no,' he replies, 'We had such a good time. We all hadn't seen each other for a while when we got here and we were all in Susan's room, like we were all in her trailer during the shooting of the film. She and Kick Gurry, who plays Sparky, really kept his ground. He knew what was going on everywhere, where we were going to jump. He was like Radar in M.A.S.H. So he really kept the spirits high a lot of times. He was good at keeping everybody grounded.'

'When Susan did her 'Dance of 1000 Veils', it was groov-a-rooney,' John continues, We all went to Susan's trailer and hung out and she was I don't want to say 'earth mother', but I will. Rain is going to be huge. Benno [F'rmann] John was also quick to point out his own unique take of the story's highly unusual family dynamic.

''Sonny found Sparky on the street and Pops took him in and made a lawyer out of him and now he's constantly leery of to the feeling,' he claims, 'Seriously, though there would be no family and no racing team without Mom Racer. Because Pops has probably gone broke a few times by following his passion, but she lets him get away with murder.'

However, the oddest part of the family experience on set for Goodman was working with the real life chimpanzee that would play the unusual family pet Chim-Chim.

'There are days where he starts going (makes monkey grunts), so don't look at him or make eye contact,' he recalls, 'And everybody probably went and Christina Ricci just happened to be there.'

'He started rocking and we just started laughing our asses off, because he's flailing around and he's getting a little too Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man,' John continues, 'I was crying, I was laughing so hard, and poor Christina was sitting there, trying not to make any sudden moves. She was like (in faint voice), 'Please'help'me!''