SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The line between Jeff Goldblum and the characters he plays is always a little fuzzy. That's the case with Ian Malcolm in "Jurassic Park" and with the Grandmaster in "Thor: Ragnarok." There's this playful deviousness and, I will say, a lot of purring that seems both a part of the character and Goldblum himself is poking through the performance. And the same is true for his most recent role, Zeus in the Netflix series "Kaos." Goldblum says the show brings the gods down to Earth and makes them feel flawed and uncertain, just like us. Jeff Goldblum recently joined Rachel Martin for NPR's Wild Card, the show where guests choose the questions they answer at random from a deck of cards. Here's Rachel.
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RACHEL MARTIN: OK. Here are the first three cards - one, two or three? You choose. You choose.
JEFF GOLDBLUM: I'll go with one.
MARTIN: One - what's a part of the culture you grew up in that you knew you didn't want to take with you?
GOLDBLUM: Wow. That's such an interesting question. You know, when you're growing up as a kid, as a boy - and I grew up in Pittsburgh, and, you know, it can be tough, the - just the culture of bullying and rough stuff and coarseness and ignorance of one kind or another. And I certainly can say that I realized even back then that I longed for - had an appetite for something finer. And, you know, then the coarse world of whoever is toughest wins, and whoever's got the biggest muscle wins, might is right - I didn't want to take that. I knew there was something else besides that, and I hungered for it. And it led me in part to acting and this world I've now pursued.
MARTIN: Were you bullied explicitly, or you just noticed it from the sidelines?
GOLDBLUM: I both noticed it - noticed it happening to others and, yes, myself, here and there, othered and bullied. Yep, I had to start to go, oh, I better get a little tough or get some kind of way of, you know, defending myself. And...
MARTIN: Were you good at sports? That feels like a place...
GOLDBLUM: You know...
MARTIN: ...Where you need to be good at sports.
GOLDBLUM: I was rather good at - yeah.
MARTIN: Oh.
GOLDBLUM: I - believe it or not - yeah - I was not the total nerd that you may think (laughter), although I liked mime, and I practiced my piano and reading...
MARTIN: You liked mime (laughter).
GOLDBLUM: ...And all of that and did well in school and stuff. But I was also quite sportif, if I may. I excelled at all kind of stuff, and I still will play anything any time (laughter).
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MARTIN: I'm going to put three more cards up.
GOLDBLUM: OK.
MARTIN: One, two, three.
GOLDBLUM: (Singing) Three.
Hey. Well, one - we did one. We didn't sing a song about one.
(Singing) One is the loneliest number.
Two - ooh, what's two? Oh, (singing) just the two of us - we can make it...
MARTIN: Oh, good call.
JEFF GOLDBLUM AND RACHEL MARTIN: (Singing)...If we try...
GOLDBLUM: (Singing) Just the two of us.
MARTIN: (Singing) Just the two of...
GOLDBLUM: Listen to your R&B licks - very good.
MARTIN: (Singing) You and I.
GOLDBLUM: A three - ooh. Oh, how about, (singing) we three, we're not alone (vocalizing). (Singing) My echo, my shadow and me.
Yep.
MARTIN: Oh. Oh.
GOLDBLUM: And then if we went on to four, we would get the Miles Davis song. (Singing) Of the wonderful things that you get out of life, there are four.
OK, that's enough of that. Go ahead.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
GOLDBLUM: Three - so three (laughter).
MARTIN: What have you learned to be careful about?
GOLDBLUM: My health - you know, it's no joke. I lost a brother when he was 23. And, you know, you have to really - yeah, you can't take it for granted. We're fragile. I mean, we're resilient and tough but also fragile. And things are coming and going. And now, especially, I've got kids. I want more now to live as long and healthily as I can. So...
MARTIN: Yeah.
GOLDBLUM: ...I try to go to bed on time and do other - several other things that, as far as I'm - is in my control, I can be careful about my well-being.
MARTIN: You brother didn't die of an accident, right? He had a - was it kidney disease?
GOLDBLUM: It wasn't a - yeah, that's right. It wasn't an accident, but he was traveling around North Africa. He was 23, and he wanted to be a journalist. He was fantastic, and I miss him. He was - we were close. And - but he was kind of going around and living in a cave kind of and living on the beach or something for a couple of days, his friend said, and he got something. He was already, he knew susceptible to this one little anomaly he had in his system. So he had to already be careful. So he wasn't a little bit. He was a couple of days away from a hospital or a day away - too long. And he got this thing. And had he been near a hospital, he could have been saved. But he quickly fell into kidney failure, and that's what happened. And...
MARTIN: Oh.
GOLDBLUM: So yeah...
MARTIN: Sorry.
GOLDBLUM: I'm careful.
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MARTIN: Last three cards - we're in the last three cards.
GOLDBLUM: OK, three.
MARTIN: Has your idea of what it means to be a good person changed over time?
GOLDBLUM: Well, I suppose that it's become clearer and more important. Well, although, sure - I mean, look. My parents were kind of, you know, hey - you should be good. So early on, being good - a good boy - meant, you know, being polite, which was probably good, nothing wrong with that - and, you know, all of that and making A's in school. I then went on to realize later after I - maybe they meant this, but I didn't get it from them until later that I thought being a good student meant not just getting the grade or impressing anybody else, but really delving into what you were curious about, connecting with yourself and then delving as deeply as you might, not just to get the grade. So that's good. But more I got clearer about how what I did could impact others and help others and contribution - the idea of contribution. And I love that.
I'm not going to bore you. It goes on for a little bit, but there's a George Bernard Shaw quote that I like a lot called - this is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose considered by yourself as mighty, the being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community. And while I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. I cherish life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch that I've got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it off to future generations.
That's the whole quote. I've memorized it, but that's...
MARTIN: Wow.
GOLDBLUM: Yeah, that's pretty good. And that's not bad to...
MARTIN: That's good.
GOLDBLUM: ...Keep in your pocket or up your sleeve and to live by till the end of your days when you can't do it any better and better and better and better and better.
MARTIN: Jeff Goldblum - you can catch him in the new Netflix series "Kaos." Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
GOLDBLUM: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Rachel. Thank you.
DETROW: You can hear more of that conversation with two of my favorite people to listen to by following the Wild Card podcast. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
