The World According to Jeff Goldblum
November 9, 2017 10:18 AM   Subscribe

Jeff Goldblum: The Oral History | Nick Offerman: "If Jeff says 'Thank you. Have a nice day,; there’s a natural timbre that he can’t even control that vibrates the pelvic bone of whomever he’s making eye contact with." posted by I_Love_Bananas (64 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
He's so so so good in the new Thor movie. They really just let him Goldblum it up all over the place.
posted by joelhunt at 10:33 AM on November 9, 2017 [9 favorites]


Am I the only one put off by all the references to him touching women he barely knows?

When he talks to you, he loves to touch your hand or rub your back.

Part of it is his graceful arms as he reaches to stroke your cheek or hug you—almost like a snake charmer.

I mean, clearly everyone interviewed thinks he's great .... except Laura Dern.

Please don't let him actually be creepy. Please?
posted by anastasiav at 10:39 AM on November 9, 2017 [31 favorites]


Add to this to the love letter to JG...

From a sitting position he can do full splits against the wall (at least in 1992)

Don't ask me how I know this :)
posted by goalyeehah at 10:40 AM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


Is there a reason everyone is suddenly creaming over Goldblum? Big movie coming out or something?
posted by thelonius at 10:44 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I mean, clearly everyone interviewed thinks he's great .... except Laura Dern.

Did I miss something?

Laura Dern (‘Jurassic Park,’ 1993): Everyone from my grandma to Steven Spielberg to the psychic who said that there was a ghost living in his dining table would say the same thing: He makes you so damn happy to be alive.


Did you maybe mean Debra Winger?

Debra Winger (‘Thank God It’s Friday,’ 1978): I’m not susceptible to his gamma rays. But he probably wasn’t interested in me, either.
posted by cooker girl at 10:46 AM on November 9, 2017 [7 favorites]


Yes, I did.
posted by anastasiav at 10:47 AM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Is there a reason everyone is suddenly creaming over Goldblum? Big movie coming out or something?

I hear they're planning a big-budget remake of Into the Night, with all of the original cast members.

Which I'm totally behind because it would mean bringing back David Bowie somehow.
posted by Naberius at 10:49 AM on November 9, 2017 [11 favorites]


Michael Richards kinda upstages him in Transylvania 6-5000.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:49 AM on November 9, 2017 [6 favorites]


Yeah, but...
posted by Naberius at 10:50 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Is there a reason everyone is suddenly creaming over Goldblum? Big movie coming out or something?

"Meme Magic".

But, he is in the new Thor movie, but it's mostly that THE INTERNET decided that JG is a super cool dude.

Also, he plays jazz at The Rockwell here in Los Angeles all the time, so people around here feel like they can just go hang out with Jeff Goldblum if they want to make the trek to Los Feliz.
posted by sideshow at 10:51 AM on November 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


I've known of Jeff Goldblum since I was a teen and saw him in Earth Girls are Easy, and I thought he was reasonably good-looking, smart, funny, weirdly charismatic and all, but these pictures! Wow. This is some great styling, or something, because he's been looking just, like, chiseled, sleek, and gorgeous these days.

I do hope he's not a creep in real life.
posted by droplet at 10:54 AM on November 9, 2017 [11 favorites]


Man, it figures that James Watson would call Jeff Goldblum out for being socially awkward and not good enough at tennis.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:54 AM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Is there a reason everyone is suddenly creaming over Goldblum? Big movie coming out or something?

"Meme Magic".

But, he is in the new Thor movie, but it's mostly that THE INTERNET decided that JG is a super cool dude.


“Well, there it is.”
posted by Fizz at 10:55 AM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


anastasiav, I totally see what you mean about the touching and whatnot, but it seems as if there's an equal amount of references towards his how much of a "gentleman" (for lack of a better word) he is. Never untoward, very non-threatening, etc. Perhaps we can infer from this that his touching practice is usually carried out under implied or spoken terms of consent?

More worrying to me is the inclusion of Woody Allen in this piece. Count me in as another person who feels as if the world would end if even Goldblum was revealed to be a major-league (or minor-league, for that matter) creep.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 10:56 AM on November 9, 2017 [8 favorites]


Never untoward, very non-threatening, etc. Perhaps we can infer from this that his touching practice is usually carried out under implied or spoken terms of consent?

It just seems like a weird way to lead the piece, here in the wasteland that is 2017.
posted by anastasiav at 11:00 AM on November 9, 2017 [9 favorites]


weird way to lead the piece

Perhaps they're leaving themselves an out for when the allegations roll in later.
posted by turkeybrain at 11:14 AM on November 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Jeff Goldblum: I just like people. They always seem to be nice.

This sentence is endearing and if he genuinely means it, it fills me with envy because he's found a world of people I thought didn't exist anymore. What a life to live where everyone seems to be nice.
posted by teleri025 at 11:20 AM on November 9, 2017 [23 favorites]


Have told this story before, probably, am telling it again -

Years ago I was working with a play that we staged at a performance space on Bleecker Street. It was one of two venues in the building - they had a bigger, off-Broadway space on the main floor, and we were in the smaller space in the basement. The dressing rooms for both venues were in the basement, however, and shared one common foyer with a set of stairs leading upstairs to their theater and a door on the other side through to ours. So throughout our final two weeks of rehearsals and throughout the production run, our cast would run into theirs in the foyer and get into a nodding acquaintanceship with them.

That is, we got into a nodding acquaintance with some of them. The play running upstairs from us was The Exonerated, which is a series of monologues about people who were wrongly convicted and on death row, but were saved at the last minute. The show was staged with the cast seated in chairs and reading from scripts on music stands before them. This meant that you didn't need much rehearsal to be in it, and so the production had the gimmick of having a handful of their ten-person cast be replaced weekly by a revolving door of celebrities; I remember Frank Mccourt and Fisher Stevens, amongst others. This also meant, too, that I had to be on the lookout for distracted celebrities occasionally getting lost trying to find their way out, and accidentally blundering through the dressing room the wrong way and ending up in our theater.

We were in one of our runthroughs during our first week of rehearsal in the space when I saw the door to the dressing rooms open; I didn't pay attention to who was coming through it, I just hurried over, all business, trying to run interference so they wouldn't distrupt the rehearsal. I was already asking "can I help you?" as I approached, and only then did I look the intruders in the face. They were a tech guy I saw now and then from the space - and Jeff Goldblum.

"OHMIGOD THAT'S JEFF GOLDBLUM!" said my fangirl brain. But the stage manager brain took over and said 'SHUT UP and do your job and be PROFESSIONAL, DAMMIT!" So when the tech guy asked if I could help Jeff find his way to the exit, I said yes, absolutely, why sure. Gave him a big smile and said right this way, sir.

I had to lead him clear to the other side of our space - past the stage where the cast was in the middle of a bizarre dance sequence. Jeff looked at it curiously a couple times as we passed, and I thought I should say something, but all I could think to say was "....we open next week."

"...oh."

I shut up again, until we got to the stairs out. "Okay - it's just up these stairs, and then turn left. You'll be in a hallway that will take you to the main entrance."

"So up these stairs and then left?"

"Yes sir, that's it!" I chirped. He thanked me and left up the stairs, and I just blinked a couple times and went back to watching the rehearsal.

To this day, though, a part of me still kicks myself for not having turned to him and asked, "Incidentally, sir, I must know - what was that watermelon doing there?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:22 AM on November 9, 2017 [30 favorites]


Parker Posey (‘Fay Grim,’ 2007): I met Jeff Goldblum at one of Carrie Fisher’s parties in the ’90s. My friend said he was talking to me like he wanted to open me up for Christmas. Later, I ran into him while working on Josie and the Pussycats—he had a suite with a piano in it, and Rosario Dawson had never seen Waiting for Guffman, so Jeff had us over. We lounged on his bed and watched it, and he played piano for us afterward.

I now have an answer to the question that starts, "If you had a time machine ..."
posted by DrAstroZoom at 11:27 AM on November 9, 2017 [10 favorites]


Related: the Jeff Goldblum of happiness
posted by rmless at 11:33 AM on November 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I will always love this Jeff Goldblum
posted by kokaku at 11:40 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I have never read the story of a staged proposal that appeals to me, but having a limo arrive with Jeff Goldblum in it to read a poem that you've written, that I like.
posted by rewil at 11:45 AM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


Paul Rudd (self-described “Goldblum admirer”): There’s a twinkle in Jeff’s eye and something in the way that he just delivers whatever it is that he’s saying that make you want to enjoy the joke as much as he seems to be enjoying it himself. He’s so engaged and alive in the moment. You look at him, and he seems incredibly healthy.

Which pretty much describes Paul Rudd.
posted by headnsouth at 11:45 AM on November 9, 2017 [15 favorites]


So Bill Murray is over, then, as part of the deal?
posted by thelonius at 11:48 AM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


I think it's time to make this painting my screen saver again.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:57 AM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


And of course here's hoping the resurrected Sex and the City 3 happens.
posted by rewil at 11:58 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Holy shit, this description of his voice:
Taika Waititi (director, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’): It’s the sound of the Pegasus in the last moments before it takes flight, just as the hooves are lightly caressing some soft, wet moss and slowly lifting off the turf.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2017 [25 favorites]


I haven't eaten cereal for breakfast in a decade or more, but I'm seriously tempted to try the orange juice thing.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:16 PM on November 9, 2017


His sons' names are Charlie Ocean and River Joe!
posted by queensissy at 12:17 PM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Please don't let him actually be creepy. Please?

My first thought was, is he asking these people if they want to be touched? Because if he's not, there's a pretty high probability of creepy factor there.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:19 PM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


$2500 pajamas? Seriously?
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 12:20 PM on November 9, 2017


There is mention in the Debra Winger line of Thank God It's Friday, which is actually quite good and is like if Robert Altman made a movie about disco.
posted by larrybob at 12:22 PM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


So Bill Murray is over, then, as part of the deal?

God, I hope so. I'm hoping that since Louis CK finally got his, people will open their eyes to Murray as well.
posted by Windigo at 12:29 PM on November 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm hoping that since Louis CK finally got his, people will open their eyes to Murray as well.

oh no
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:39 PM on November 9, 2017 [14 favorites]


I'm immune to the charms of Jeff Goldblum as meme/thirst trap, but from reading this article I learned he's from Pittsburgh. Can we get him and Joe Mangianello in one of Rick Sebak's Nebby documentaries?

Yes, I have a sad obsession :hangs head in shame:

posted by pxe2000 at 12:43 PM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


What a life to live where everyone seems to be nice.

If you're a charismatic, drop-dead gorgeous celebrity, I bet people are nice to you on the whole.
posted by Dysk at 1:01 PM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


oh no

spousal abuse. Also just well known as kind of a misanthropic jerk.
posted by anastasiav at 1:26 PM on November 9, 2017


"Goldblum" is totally a verb, just like "Shatner" and "Malkovich."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:33 PM on November 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


(Spousal abuse and misanthropy is about Bill Murray, not Jeff Goldblum)
posted by Autumnheart at 1:40 PM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]



Never untoward, very non-threatening, etc. Perhaps we can infer from this that his touching practice is usually carried out under implied or spoken terms of consent?

It just seems like a weird way to lead the piece, here in the wasteland that is 2017.


Isn't that the case with all these GQ fashion profile things? If they did Fred Rogers they've probably have a bunch of pull quotes from people about how he was all hands, and then there would be those $2,500 cardigans.
posted by lagomorphius at 1:46 PM on November 9, 2017


I go all the way back to 1980's TV's "Tenspeed and Brownshoe", where Goldblum became, for me, the Patron Saint of Nerdiness (with more than a little help from Ben Vereen and Stephen J. Cannell), and didn't realize until years later that he did "Body Snatchers" before it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM on November 9, 2017 [8 favorites]


Please don't let him actually be creepy. Please?

I enjoy Jeff Goldblum's performances and have since the eighties, and I too hope he's not a creep, but more just because I'd like to see less creeps in every walk of life than because it's Jeff Goldblum we're talking about. I sincerely wish people would stop placing so much value and interest in celebrities as somehow more important than the work they do. Goldblum's a fine, odd, actor who's helped make the works he's been in enjoyable. But that's all I want to invest in him. I don't know him, and like any celebrity I have no expectation his public persona has much at all to do with his private life. It may, it may not. That's a matter of concern for those who know him personally.

If he is a decent guy, then allowing him the freedom of a private life without being constantly scrutinized outside his films is a kindness, if he isn't a decent guy than not investing in fantasies of his "specialness" makes the response to that possibility less damaging and easier to deal with emotionally and legally should that need arise. Buying into celebrity aura, treating them as special or different is itself harmful. We've elected two celebrities as presidents here in the US, and I needn't mention how that's worked out, but people still keep suggesting more should run because fame is so stupidly important it distorts all else surrounding it. It warps perception in ways that allow abuse to flourish, provides undue power and wealth and blinds people to actions they would deem unacceptable from us lesser folk.

Please stop with the celebrity love, the "national treasure" stuff. Talent can be enjoyed and given proper respect without making it akin to worship. Jeff Goldblum is good at his job. That should be enough to celebrate. The rest is, well, pretty creepy really.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:01 PM on November 9, 2017 [15 favorites]


If they did Fred Rogers they've probably have a bunch of pull quotes from people about how he was all hands, and then there would be those $2,500 cardigans.

Esquire managed not to.
posted by Lexica at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I find that sometimes people feel the need to call men gentleman because there's something sorta creepy going on.
posted by lilies.lilies at 2:20 PM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


Pleasedon'tbeanasshole. Pleasedon'tbeanasshole. Pleasedon'tbeanasshole. Pleasedon'tbeanasshole.
posted by Splunge at 4:08 PM on November 9, 2017


I forgot my mantra.
posted by NedKoppel at 4:26 PM on November 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


More worrying to me is the inclusion of Woody Allen in this piece.

Most worrying to me is the inclusion of Woody Allen in this piece twice -- Allen the writer/director, and Goldblum's "Instagram-famous" poodle, named Woody Allen.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:48 PM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


This commenter says that Jeff asks before touching, but anecdata, you know?
posted by ApathyGirl at 5:49 PM on November 9, 2017


Gosh, even back in the 90s? 00s? I think there used to be pretty frequent references in magazine articles and whatnot to Goldblum being known as "a real ladies' man," "oh, he loves women," and like constantly charming, or trying to charm, his way into various knickers, etc. Reminiscent of how people used to talk about Leonard Cohen, I guess -- not so much predatory as just being a giant one-track-mind type aggressive horndog.

Not that there's anything wrong with that . . . except that sometimes it can be a set of euphemisms for problematic behavior.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:55 PM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


ApathyGirl, your link goes to a Brett Ratner story.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:31 PM on November 9, 2017


On my desktop browser, it just took a little while to resolve to the following comment underneath a Ratner story:

When I lived in LA, I would go to the Chateau Marmont pretty frequently. Brett Ratner was a like a toxic little bridge troll you had to sneak past because he always held down a table right by the door, snatching at women as they crept by. He’s a mega, mega, MEGA creeper and should absolutely be exposed.

Off the top of my head, some more serial gropers: Matthew Perry, Zach Braff, Jack Nicholson, Russel Brand, James Duval, Jeff Goldblum (though to be fair, he always asked for consent before he groped but still)...there’s so, so many. And so many musicians! and producers! and writers!

On the one hand, it’s been really satisfying to see guys who I had direct experience with (ahem, Andy Dick, utterly disgusting man), finally get taken to task for their insane entitlement to women’s bodies. On the other, I’m worried about what happens next because this behavior, at least in my experience, is universal and I think people are going to start burning out on the shock and outrage.

Oh my god, just writing this makes me remember so many other creepos. Anyone have access to that secret document?


I hope it's OK for me to have reproduced here? It seems pertinent, if only anecdata
posted by Philby at 10:43 PM on November 9, 2017


pxe2000: "Yes, I have a sad obsession :hangs head in shame:"

It's okay, saying "You know, they're from Pittsburgh!" about celebrities born here is pretty much mandatory.

Like Michael Keaton!
posted by Chrysostom at 11:52 PM on November 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


Oops, got it, thanks.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:41 AM on November 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh, speaking of Ratner.... Does everyone know his business partner was Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin?
posted by Room 641-A at 12:46 AM on November 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


It's okay, saying "You know, they're from Pittsburgh!" about celebrities born here is pretty much mandatory.

I was born in Canada and grew up in Pittsburgh. I basically spend half my life saying, "You know, they're from Pittsburgh/Canada." It's a requirement in both cases.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:40 AM on November 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


While I do not personally know Rick Sebak in any real sense, I occasionally bump into him at a food truck or in an elevator for work-adjacent reasons. I have never yet worked up the bravery to say anything more than "hi" or "oh my god what are you eating it looks amazing", but if I ever manage to strike up a proper acquaintance I will try to find a way to suggest a Nebby episode about Pittsburgh-Born Treasure Jeff Goldblum.
posted by Stacey at 6:22 AM on November 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


I like it when he watches me poop.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:21 AM on November 10, 2017


I have this Sebak t-shirt.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:46 AM on November 10, 2017


That t-shirt can be purchased here, along with a bunch of other Pittsburgh-related merchandise. (Sebak has his own category, as does Mr. Rogers.) Proceeds benefit WQED.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:19 AM on November 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


Nthing everyone else going, "please, not Goldblum, and now we're all worried." He sounds fun otherwise, but hearing this stuff right now....
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:23 PM on November 10, 2017


Mallory Ortberg's most recent Shatner Chatner has perfectly articulated the (non-)feelings about Jeff Goldblum that I didn't even know I had until this post:
Growing up, I never felt like I had to do anything about my feelings for Jeff Goldblum. "It seems weird," I thought to myself, "that sometimes I have a friend who seems convinced that Jeff Goldblum was attractive in the movie Jurassic Park, when surely they meant B.D. Wong or Laura Dern or perhaps the teenage boy dinosaur from the TV show Dinosaurs," but I thought – wrongly, I see now – that they were more to be pitied than censured. Either way, I had merely to avert my eyes during the scene where they unnecessarily removed Jeff Goldblum's shirt in order to treat his leg injury during the movie, and all was well. Life was good. Hopes were high.

How could I have anticipated the groundswell of Jeff Goldblum Attraction that was to come? Now, of course, I can see that I was wrong not to snuff it out when I still had the chance. Now I see where my Neville Chamberlain-like attitude has gotten me. Have you seen this picture of Jeff Goldblum smirking in a turtleneck, the Algorithms ask me. Have you seen this video of him, I don't fucking know, suavely interrogating a turtle while smooth jazz is piped in the background, directly from the jazzy source? I haven't, I tell the Algorithm. Well you fucking will now, the Algorithm says back. It is not merely that we as a society seem to have collectively agreed to become Attracted to Jeff Goldblum all the more as he skims lightly across his sixth mortal decade, but we seem also to have agreed – without speaking, and all at once – fashioned him into some combination of Tilda Swinton, the Dos Equis Man, and Bill Murray circa 2011, and I was not prepared for his sudden ascendence.

The problem, I am sure, is mine. How often I have stood helplessly on the shores of I'm Just Not Attracted To Jeff Goldblum Island and watched my noble friends sail away to Attracted to Jeff Goldblum Island, and I have longed to follow them, for I am a creature that can only thrive in communal solidarity and shared experience. They bid me farewell, and I offer a choked salute, and I watch them go. I enjoy his work. He does have an aesthetically pleasing face. He enacts charm well, I think. It may be that someday I will join them, and clasp their hands again, and dwell once more in community with the people I love. But that day is not today.
posted by Anita Bath at 12:44 PM on November 10, 2017 [12 favorites]


And removed his fingernails really well.
posted by Gadgetenvy at 12:54 PM on November 10, 2017


I feel like Mallory Ortberg really gets me.

I found that video where Goldblum looks at tattoos of himself a little creepy. He's overly focused on the bodies behind the tattoos, comments as much or more on them as on the tattoos, and is oddly worried about determining if the bearer of the tattoo is male or female. Looking through other links too, I don't find him charmingly flirtatious. But I'm glad he at least asks before being all handsy.
posted by eviemath at 1:01 PM on November 10, 2017


Mallory Ortberg
I claim full vindication!

.....a belief that the will follows the action, not the other way around.
That's how it works!
posted by thelonius at 1:12 PM on November 10, 2017


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