Born in Pennsylvania in 1952, Jeff Goldblum is an actor and musician who has starred in some of the most acclaimed and highest-grossing movies of all time: Jurassic Park, Independence Day, The Fly, The Tall Guy, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and Wicked. He is also known for TV roles such as Zeus in Netflix’s Kaos, and his work in theatre. Beyond acting, Goldblum has been performing jazz with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra since the 1990s. His latest album,Still Blooming, came out in April. Jeff has two sons with his wife, Emilie Livingston, a former Olympic rhythmic gymnast.
Here I am in my house inWhitaker, Pennsylvania. My mom needlepointed the Grecian bench I’m sitting on. Little did I know I was going to be Zeus some day. I started playing the piano when I was nine but I was not good. Not disciplined. My teacher would come once a week, and I’d be miserable, and he’d be miserable: “So you didn’t really practise?” he’d say, and I’d reply: “No, I didn’t.” That went on until he gave me a jazz arrangement. Finally, here was something that made me think: “I like that! I want to sit and play until I know it by heart.” That’s where it all began.
At this age – before the complications of puberty, before you become more developed and multifaceted – I was full of life and joie de vivre. A funny kid. I remember shopping in a department store with my mother and wanting to make her laugh by playing around with the hangers and the clothes. I would spend a lot of time going into the woods with my best friend, Bobby, and digging holes in the forest or playing back at his house. His mom once said to my mom: “Gee, Jeffrey is just so calm to be around, and I enjoyed having him over.”
I was also a good student. In the fourth grade I got all As and my teacher wrote in my report: “Jeff is a joy.” This is all very self-serving and I’m sure I was a hellcat in lots of ways, but maybe I was kind of sweet, too.
My creativity was very encouraged by my parents. As well as the piano lessons, they took my siblings and me to the cinema, and to the theatre at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. I was so lucky, and those experiences really made me what I am. Now I have two boys, and, along with Emily, who also loves the arts, I am trying to get them to follow that curiosity.
My brother Rick was fantastic. He was four years older and I looked up to him enormously – he opened many doors for me in all sorts of ways. Rick was an interesting dude – he was mysterious and wanted to be Hemingway or James Bond. He was a great audience, too: I would do routines and try to make him laugh. He turned me on to Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, the Beatles and counterculture. He died [of kidney failure] when he was travelling in Morocco. I was 19. He was 23. At the time, I had just moved out of my parents’ house and I was in a big hit – performing The Two Gentlemen of Verona eight times a week on Broadway. When the news came in, it was terrible. Monumental. Full of so much sadness and trauma. But his life also gave me the opportunity for so much education and spiritual enhancement.
Puberty brought its own challenges and new types of anxiety. Adolescence welcomes private introversions – inhibitions that weren’t there when I was playing around in the department store. It did, however, supply the heat and energy for what I have developed in these last several decades as an actor. I started getting turned on by the theatre. I loved the idea of show-and-tell in front of an audience. But to do it myself? I was terrified. Especially at first. Soon I realised it was also exhilarating. If you live this so-called creative life you have to get comfortable swimming in the waters of not knowing. You eventually become familiar with the fear and it becomes part of the ingredients – the tension that’s interesting in the performance itself. I still like to discover something new, even if it is disorienting and daunting. Whether it’s showing up on a movie set to do Wicked, or playing with my jazz band at the Palladium – I know part of my system will be alerted and I’ll be prepared. When I meet the moment, I am free.
My teacher at Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York, Sanford Meisner, told me it takes 20 years of continual work before you can call yourself an actor. He was a serious person, and made acting seem like a noble and worthwhile devotion for one’s life. At the start of my career I kept getting miraculous opportunities with terrific directors and terrific actors. I yearned for this life – so when it actually started happening I thought: “Well, I’ll be darned.” My first film was Death Wish with Michael Winner, who yelled at me: “Start acting now!” It kind of scared me, but in retrospect was not a bad piece of advice.
So followed lots of little parts, which were not exactly right, but, hey, I was getting jobs. One turning point was Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Philip Kaufman. A wonderful director, and he became like family. The way he saw me allowed me to appreciate myself in a way that felt new and landmark. Then came The Big Chill in 1983 and The Fly in 1986, both creatively important. Jurassic Park in 1993 – working with Mr Spielberg and that cast, and the way it rang the bell for a big audience was fun. Wes Anderson was a very important teacher and cohort, too. Most recently I’ve done Kaos, Thor and the two Wicked movies. They were all very nutritious, nourishing roles. Really, my career has been just thrilling.
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I’ve never considered giving up my loyalty to my original idea, which was to be an actor. But, in any one project, you keep asking: “Can I do it? Oh boy, that’s no good. Let me try something else.” Then you do, and it works, and it’s just like that daunting feeling I described as a teenager all over again. Pretending can sometimes feel childish or trivial, and often you wonder if you’re making any difference to anybody – after all, my dad was a doctor. But I have been exposed to and enlivened by the idea that actors want to make a difference, and that all our activities hopefully move the needle towards something uplifting.
I am 72 now and I’m sure I’ll crumble at any minute. But I better keep myself right so I can be a good dad, a good husband and a good citizen of the world. I try to go to bed on time and eat the right things. I am injury-free, thank goodness. I have good genetics, which is lucky. My body is my instrument, so I’ve got to keep it in shape.
I cherish life and I want to do right by this gift – because that’s what it is. Acting is an unbelievably lucky gift. I can’t let myself down, or anyone else I am sharing this short trip with. Like Tom Hanks’s character says at the end of Saving Private Ryan: “Earn this … earn it.” I will earn this very special gift, and not let it down.