John Goodman: "Regrets are a waste of energy"

Forty years into his career and having conquered his demons, John Goodman is feeling energised. "I've surpassed all my dreams," he says with one of those trademark huge grins of his, "and the best part of it is within the last few years I've fallen in love with acting again."

With his heavy drinking days now far behind him, this most amiable and unguarded of interviewees admits: "I got jaded and dulled a little bit. I always liked doing it but now I really, really love it." 

Professionally the man best known for playing Dan Conner on Roseanne and for his darkly comic turns in many Coen Brothers films is in a very good place. Now 71, he's got regular gigs on the Roseanne reboot (renamed The Conners after Roseanne herself got into hot water for an ill-advised Twitter rant) and the crime comedy The Righteous Gemstones, plus he voices cuddly Sulley on the Monsters at Work series on Disney+. 

Goodman hasn't been on stage for a while, not since he trod the West End boards in 2015 in American Buffalo and appeared on Broadway in The Front Page the following year. "But when I get the time I'd like to start a theatre career again. It's very rewarding. The best experience I ever had was when I did American Buffalo in London." 

As for whether he's now got this acting thing down pat, what with everything from movies like The Flintstones to Argo and such TV shows as Sesame Street to The West Wing on his packed CV, he grins again. "Absolutely not. But I'm learning how to relax more into it and to realise that it's not life or death. It just makes it easier if I'm more relaxed and more susceptible to inspiration." 

He has regrets, both personally and professionally, but he chooses neither to detail or dwell on them. "I have many regrets but it's worthless to think that way. I used to live on regrets as motivation but they're stupid and a waste of energy." 

We're chatting at the 2023 Monte-Carlo Television Festival, where Goodman is serving as jury president. He's been meeting fans, all of whom have one thing in common. "They seem to like the guy from The Big Lebowski the most," he says of his turn as Jeff Bridges' bowling buddy in the Coens' classic. "I'm not going to argue with them. I'm very happy that it makes people so happy. They watch it over and over and they know the lines better than I do." 

Looking smart but relaxed in a navy jacket, yellow tie and khaki trousers, he's a shadow of his former self. After quitting alcohol and taking up diet and exercise, he's shed 200 pounds and is much healthier for it. "But I've been working non-stop for the last six years and I've had to neglect little medical things that pile up," he sighs about the unavoidable ravages of time. "This summer I've been bouncing from doctor to dentist to doctor, trying to repair things that have needed repair for a while." 

Goodman's drinking days actually amounted to 30 years, during which he's confessed to often being so drunk at work he's amazed he never got fired. It must have taken incredible strength to give up alcohol for good in 2007? He nods his head. "It was a matter of surrendering [to sobriety]. I was sober for a couple of weeks and after that I knew that I would never go back. It frightens me and I know I can only speak for one day at a time but I know I'm not going to drink today. And I gained so much by giving it up. I regained my life." 

John Stephen Goodman was born and raised in small-town Missouri. His father died of a heart attack when John was two years old. "So I grew up without a father and there was always a feeling of being different. I was a loner and I used to escape by watching television, at least when our television set wasn't broken." He smiles at the memory. "You had to keep banging it to get it to work." 

He played football in high school and earned a football scholarship to Missouri State University but a ligament injury soon put paid to a sports career. So he switched to the drama programme and, with his sights on the stage, set off for New York in 1975. "I didn't think there was any possible way that I'd succeed but I knew that if I didn't give it a go I would hate myself for the rest of my life. I didn't expect to stay long but I knew I had to try." 

John exceeded his own low expectations, performing off-Broadway and in dinner theatre productions before graduating to Broadway itself and breaking into movies in the long-forgotten 1983 thriller Eddie Macon's Run, where he was 19th on the cast list. Other films with bigger roles followed, including his first for the Coens with Raising Arizona, before he landed the life-changing role of Dan Conner on Roseanne. 

He was torn about auditioning for it, saying now: "I had started building a nice film career by then but I said to myself, 'Well, if I get this I can stop living out of a suitcase for a while.' I didn't know how long it was going to last but we all got on like gangbusters. It was just a great place to work." 

The show debuted in 1988 and ended up lasting for ten seasons, followed by a reboot in 2018 that eventually saw the Roseanne character being killed off after Barr's Twitter outburst and the show being renamed. I wonder if Goodman wants to comment on that and he deadpans: "I better not." 

Plans to head from Monte-Carlo to Los Angeles to shoot the sixth season of The Connors have since been put on hold because of the Screen Actors Guild strike, as has a return to South Carolina for season four of The Righteous Gemstones. Married to Annabeth Hartzog (with whom he has a daughter, Molly) since 1989, he says of the latter: "It's a great city. My wife loves it. The dogs love it. And the crew and the other actors are just a wonderful company." 

Hopefully there'll be more Coens films too. "I love working with them," says the man who last collaborated with the brothers on 2013's Inside Llewyn Davis. "When I auditioned for Raising Arizona I didn't know anything about them. Like me, they were just a couple of Midwestern wise guys who lived in New York and they turned out to be geniuses. It's so easy for me to play the characters they come up with because it's all there on the page. I don't have to do a lick of work." 

Playing Sulley in the Monsters, Inc. franchise is rewarding but harder work than you might imagine. He's only doing the voice. "But I still have to throw my whole body into it, so it's tiring." He laughs. "And they're never satisfied. You just have to keep doing things over and over, and after a while you kind of lose your mind but I always enjoyed radio when I was a kid and I've always liked to use my voice." 

Goodman also channels some of his younger self into the big blue beast. "I was a pretty big kid and I could look scary, and when I do my relaxed face it looks like I'm angry." He demonstrates, then serves up another grin. 

Given his usually packed work schedule, what does he do to relax? "You know, I'd never read any Charles Dickens before so I picked up Bleak House and now I'm finishing Little Dorrit. He's such an incredible writer but I've got to leave them alone for a while because I turn the pages too fast." 

As for what else he enjoys during his downtime, he adds: "I like being with my wife at home in New Orleans doing nothing in particular, just not having to answer any phones or doorbells. That doesn't happen much but I relish it when it does." 

Workwise he's happy to consider whatever comes his way. "I'm really not that ambitious and other people have better imaginations than I do, so I rely on them to come up with the characters for me." 

And does he prefer playing nice guys or bad ones? "I honestly don't care," Goodman deadpans. "I'm just happy when anybody wants me for anything."