Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Jeff Goldblum invites the surprise

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Jeff Goldblum has a special brand of charisma — the kind that seeps its way into all of his roles. Whether it's in The Fly or Independence Day or Jurassic Park — or his newest show KAOS — every character feels like a version of Jeff Goldblum himself. He also brings that Goldblumian charisma to Wild Card, breaking into song as he reflects with Rachel about his life.To listen sponsor-free, access bonus episodes and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

What's a moment when a stranger made you feel loved? Hey, maybe this one, though, does it all flip? When have you had a stranger feel that they loved you? Strangers in the night. Rachel, exchanging glances wandering in the night. What happened to you on that occasion? I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard. The game where cards control the conversation.

Each week, my guest chooses questions at random from a deck of cards. Pick a card one through three. Questions about the memories, insights, and beliefs that have shaped them. I can say that generally having devoted my life to that so-called creative pursuits, you train yourself to, and the aspiration is to get a little comfy and cozy with an environment of surprise. Jeff Goldblum has a special brand of charisma, the kind that seeps its way into all his roles. Whether it's in the movie The Fly or Independence Day or Jurassic Park or his newest show called Chaos,

every character feels like a version of Jeff Goldblum himself. He doesn't need to work too hard at becoming someone else on screen because he knows that the audience really just wants him. His devilish smile, his perfectly deployed comedic asides, it feels like he's always in on the joke and he wants us to be in on it too. It's as if he is saying, Hey, I see you out there. I'm having such a good time in this moment.

doing this acting thing, and I want you to have fun with me. Come closer. Have a seat and let's see what surprises might unfold. And we do because it feels joyful there and a little dangerous, and that's an intoxicating place to be. It is my great pleasure to welcome Jeff Goldblum to Wildcard. Hello, sir. Hello, ma'am. Gee, what do I say about those kind and sophisticated words? Did you, did you, did you compose that? I composed the words. Well, you, you like, you remember the movie, remember the movie Bonnie and Clyde? I do.

Warren Beatty was Clyde, Faye Dunaway, was Bonnie Parker. And at one point, you'll see my, you'll see where I'm getting to. At one point, she writes a story about him and they print it in the paper, a poem, oh, that's it. She writes a poem kind of about him. They print it in the paper. He reads it out loud to her. after which he says to her, Bonnie Parker, you told my story.

You told my story. And he's thrilled and moved. Well, Rachel, you told my story. You told my story. And I happen to know that your story is far more interesting, nuanced, and complicated than that paragraph I just read. But nevertheless, you made it sound, no, you made me, I'm much less interesting.

You made me sound somewhat interesting. How do you feel about being a god? Not just a god. The god. The big G. I should give context. This is your new show. It's called Chaos.

And you play Zeus. That's why I like the way you say that. You know the character is Zeus and his wife played by Janet McThera in our version. Also his sister. Yes. So complicated. Complicated. And their whole family is kind of one of these.

dysfunctional groups that, you know, who are all jockeying for status and position, et cetera, et cetera. Well, and I know that your background, you specialized in religion, you know, studies. Oh, I did. Look at you doing that homework. I did. I'm fascinated by how people make sense of the world and theology. You probably are a scholar on Greek mythology.

I didn't know much about it before this and still don't know that much. I'm learning. But yes, the myth's meant to be, hey, here are the gods, and they're very much like us. They're very human under these extraordinary circumstances with radical changes of fortune and all this stuff. So the gods are maybe divine and maybe not really divine. And yeah, and my particular Zeus is a megalomaniac and vain and paranoid and going through a freak. out and he's unhinged and he's insane and he's complicated. And I always say, and I think this show addresses, what's real power? It's not being in a position authority. It's your ability to accept

nature, your alignment with nature, the real you, be authentic, be connected with yourself and other people, lift other people up, bring something positive in your interactions with people and make beautiful things. That's real power, isn't it? That's real power, isn't it? And some of these people who are sometimes attracted wind up in positions of authority are in fact weaklings. I've got a deck of cards in front of me, okay? I like that. Each one has a question on it that I would love for you to answer. Yeah.

I'm going to hold up three at a time, okay? And you're going to choose one at random. There are two rules. You get one skip. Okay? If you're just not jiving with a particular question, you can just skip it, and I'll swap in another from the deck at random. But only one. After one skip, you got to answer everything. You're on the hook.

Okay. Although you have another tool at your disposal, rule number two says you get one flip. So you can put me on the spot and ask me the question before you. You still have to answer the question. Here, repeat after me and finish this, says, Getting to know you, getting to know all about you, Rachel, getting to like you, like you, like me.

Yeah, we're on our stage. Hey, did you? I saw you every performance that you did of cats, and I loved every single. You're fantastic. Okay. So, we're breaking it up into three rounds. Memories, insights, and beliefs. Okay?

A few questions in each round. And it's a game, so there's a prize at the end. What prize? Is that a surprise? I can't tell you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Tell you, Joe.

All right, round one, memories. Here we go. Memories. the card, or there's a jazz tune that goes, I remember you. You're the one who made my dreams come true. Okay, those are the three. Okay, here are the first three cards. One, two, or three, you choose. Okay. Well, what beautiful hands you have. Look, and your fingernails are so, they're unpolished. Do you know when I was little? I thought I was going to be a hand model. That's how vain I was about my hands. You're not vain. You know yourself, as Socrates said, and it's not

too late. You could be a hand model right this second. I'll give you a doctor's note that says that. Your fingernails, your nail beds are long and vertical, just like those supermodels. They're great. Okay. I'll go with one. One. What's a part of the culture you grew up in that you knew you didn't want to take with you? Wow. That's such an interesting question. You know, a part of the culture. culture culture 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 that 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 in this world I've now pursued. So that, and then this othering business, you know, I knew I didn't want to be that. Yeah.

Were you othered or were you bullied explicitly or you just noticed it from the sideline? 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. Were you good at sports? You know, I was rather good at sports. Believe it or not, yeah. I was not the total nerd that you may think, although I liked mime and I practiced my piano and reading and did well in school and stuff.

But I was also quite sportive, if I may. I excelled at all kind of stuff like, you know, I played baseball and football. I loved it. You couldn't get me off the basketball court. I like tennis, ping pong. liked all that stuff, and I still will play anything anytime. Okay. So you had that going for you. Yeah. I'm going to put three more cards up. Okay. One, two, three.

Hey, well, one, we did one. We didn't sing a song about one. One is the loneliest number. Two. Ooh, what's two? Oh, just the two of us. We can make it. If we try, just the two. Listen to your R&B licks. Very good. Three. Oh, how about we three, we're not alone. My bottle so fa' da, da, da, da, my echo, my shadow and me. Yep. And then if we went on to four, we would get the Miles Davis song of the wonderful things that you get out of life. There are four.

Okay, that's enough of that. Go ahead. So three. Oh, I love this question. What's a moment when a stranger made you feel loved? Oh, I'm crying already. you're so sweet. Jeez.

Okay, so Miss Vellon, my fourth grade teacher, sent home my report card, and I believe I got all A's that month on the report card or quarterly, you know, but then she wrote in the special comments section, he's a joy,

exclamation point. I remember it. What else can I think of? Hey, maybe this one, though, does it all flip? When have you had a stranger feel, feel that they loved you. Strangers in the night.

Rachel, exchanging glances wandering in the night. What happened to you on that occasion? I have a story. I'm not surprised. It was during the pandemic, my family were supposed to go on a vacation on a plane. We didn't.

We decided to drive to New Hampshire. We were crawling around on some waterfalls. My eldest fell off a waterfall. Okay? Yes. Shock. It wasn't like a huge thing, like in Hawaii or something, but it was sizable, like 10 feet. And he landed on his back on a rock. No.

And it was awful. He's fine. Everyone should know he's fine. But it was harrowing. And this woman who I did not know at all just came. She was a nurse. She helped us through that. She, like, looked at my eyes and helped me, this mother who was freaking out, kind of breathe through the whole situation.

and she was just kind. She was very, very kind. And you hope that everybody does that, but there were a lot of people, frankly, in that moment who turned around and went the other way. We're like, oh, this waterfall's dangerous. Let's high tail it out of here. And so I always think about her

when I think about strangers who make you feel loved. That's a very beautiful story. And I guess, too, my answer, having heard that, is that, yes, as we know, we all could do better, and our species can and will and must do better. But it's also amazing how many people act kindly, unexpectedly, randomly, every day.

Maybe I see more than my share of it. But I think people are capable of that. And I see it too. I see, you know, certainly in health care working or amateur health care, hey, who's okay, what can I do to help? People are naturally, let's say, I think, given to that and given the opportunity and our recognition of it, yes, like in the cycle that we're in now, I think we're all going to potentially turn a page and be better and more joyful and

enthusiastic and kinder toward each other. That's what I think. After a break, Jeff Goldblum talks about how his wife has changed him. I'm nothing if not open. I guess. And you could crack me in a second, make me wide open, you know. And that's what she did. Round two. Round two when the cards are blue.

And in this round, we're focused on insights. It's more present. Okay. Three new cards. One, two, three. Let's go with one, I think. One. Yeah.

What's something you think about differently than you did 10 years ago? Oh, that's very interesting. Well, I tell you, Rachel, we have two kids. Emily and I, we've been together 13 years. Our relationship has made me, has changed, changed me, transmogrified me in every way possible. So I could go into that. But then we had two kids nine years ago and seven years ago. We have two little boys, nine and seven. Oh, golly. Oh, golly. I see things through their eyes now. I see more wonderment and wondrousness in little daily things all the time. Geez, I'm more invested in it. Did you, you didn't have kids till late in life? Exactly. Had you decided that that just wasn't going to be a part of your life?

And then Emily changed it for you? That's kind of what happened. Yeah, I mean, I'd toyed, you know, I'd fantasized about. out here vaguely casually, you know, talked a little bit about it here and there, but no, never seriously tried, pursued it or wanted it, and then was glad that I hadn't really and decided, hey, that's probably not for me. I could kind of come to that, but I'm nothing if not open, I guess. And you could crack me in a second, make me wide open, you know, And that's what she did.

She is unique. And after a couple of years of being together, she at one point, I remember, said, geez, this is so great what's been going on in the last couple of years. Mightn't it be fun? She didn't say mightn't. That's me. And my pedantic, she didn't say in the past.

She said, hey, wouldn't it be maybe fun to have a baby or something? And as soon as she said that, the way who she is and the way she said that made me go in a different way than I ever had, hey, hang on right there. I think what you just said, we should really, I have a therapist that I only see as needed these days, you know, but I think we should go see her, Luanda Katzman, and talk about every aspect of this.

Oh, interesting. Explore it. Your immediate answer was not, yes. No. But it wasn't no. No. I said, let's talk about that. But no, I knew a whole bunch of thoughts and feelings

about it and we went to the therapist and and and we talked about for the next year and that's what we did and then lawanda had never done it but she got certified online and officiated at our wedding so your therapist yep so we had a little small affair yeah instead of you know that the person who usually gets up and says well i met them once and these people belong to you know and you go yeah yeah baloney baloney um this person said at the wedding when she said well i know jeff and she had for a couple of decades And I now know Emily and da-da-da-da-da-da. It was a great, I really liked it. Yeah, it was great.

Well, I'm happy for you. Thank you so much. How'd you guys get married, by the way? Where'd you get married? Oh, you're so nice to ask. We got married in this very traditional way. My grandfather, my family's six generations from Idaho. My grandfather built a little chapel in a town called Swan Valley, and all my people get married.

there. And I felt like a wave of traditionalistness wash over me. And I was like, I want to compare you did that in that little chapel. And so we did. And it was really lovely. And I was pregnant at the time. And so our eldest was with us. And it was the best. Yeah. I'm so glad I asked. I wish I'd been there where my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. It did. I would have sung, as you can now well imagine, and you've only just begun to live. Hey, now that you said it, I'm going to tell us to share something with you. The night before our wedding, Emily, we went to dinner. She said, open this up. We'd been trying to get pregnant. She showed me a little sonogram. She said, I got that a couple of days ago. I'm pregnant.

The night before the wedding. So that wedding was particularly emotional and delicious. I was going, hey, oh, the mother, we're going to have a baby, and now I'm getting married. Isn't that something? I know. I mean, no one believes me that a similar thing happened where we were sort of trying, and we got engaged. And literally, like, well, it wasn't the day after. It was like three days later, we found out that I was pregnant. That you got engaged, three days after you got engaged, you found out that you were pregnant.

Yeah. Wow. That's fantastic. Idaho. All worked out. There's so much that you and I can talk about it on another occasion. I know. That's fantastic.

Wow. Thank you. Thank you. We're both happy. That's great. Okay. Three more cards. Okay.

Insights. One, two, three. I'd say, let's go to two. Insight. Let's go to two. What have you learned to be careful about? Hmm. 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 I try to go to bed on time and do several other things that as far as I'm in my control, I can be careful about my well-being.

What do you think of that? Because your brother didn't die of an accident, right? a, was it kidney? It wasn't, 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, 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 friends 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. So, yeah, I'm careful. I'm careful. After a break, Jeff talks about embracing the chaos,

especially with kids. I love their wild, severe. unbridled, un-exprigated life force. I love it. Now we're in round three. Okay. So let's just go deeper. Okay, deep. How deep is the ocean?

How high is the sky? How deep is your love? How deep is your love? Saturday Night Fever. I'd like to re-watch that with you. Very good. John Travolta. Okay.

So this is the next, this is now, what are the, this is not? You didn't say this is what? We're in beliefs. Beliefs. Beliefs. Wow. I believe in every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. Okay, ready?

Let's go number one. What is Emily? Does Emily play this game with you? Or she just like, oh my God, stop singing. Exactly. She says, you're a pest, you're a pest. Stop it already. No, in fact, she hums around the house.

I love her singing. I can't get enough of her singing. She knows I make music. I love to hear the kids sing. They're making their own kind of music. It's amazing. What I'm amazed at, too, is how many jokes I make and how enduring and patience she can be with even the same variation of a joke, which if I do it for the thousands of times, she still plays along with. Oh, what a doll.

That's a good sign for a long-lasting relationship. I know. Okay. Let's go with one, two, three. So one. One. Okay. So, yes.

Do you think there is order in the universe, or is it all chaos? No pun intended with their new show. I like it. Well, not a pun, but a plug. A plug, right. Yes, yes. Yes, that was a Freudian suck. No plug.

I mean slip. What did I say? I meant slip. I'm sorry. Okay, so a chaos. Well, of course, it's all, doves tales also to my area of interest as Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park movies. I was a chaotician, if you remember.

That's right. Yes. You were a chaos theorist. That's right. Or a chaotician. And I studied a little bit like the fellas who pioneered and talked to one or two of them who at the time were pioneering chaos theory. You know, I admire and, you know, expose myself to a little of, you know, physics and this and that. But I don't know that much about it.

So there is chaos theory, meaning when a butterfly flaps its way. in Peking or Tokyo, there may be a hurricane in Central Park as a result. And there's randomness in how one thing may lead to another and unintended consequences. And that may be unpredictable, finally, essentially, and inevitably, and chaotic. The universe itself, as we explore its design, may be fierce and explosive and surprising. and without predictability and therefore chaotic. We see in the daily news and in events as they unfold a seemingly, you know, hurricane of chaos. So, yes.

How do you situate yourself in that? I mean, do you like that? Do you thrive in that? Does that excite your mind, the chaos of it? Or does it unsettle it? Good. Off the top of my head, I can say that generally having devoted my life to the so-called creative pursuits, you train yourself to, and the aspiration is to get a little comfy and cozy with an environment of surprise. In fact, you like and you invite surprise. And the more it's surprising and the more spontaneous and alive I'll be if I navigate it correctly. So I like it.

Another part of me, because we're all made of every part, I guess, but another part of me likes order. I like to organize things. Emily is sometimes getting annoyed at me, less than patience. I go, let's look in that drawer again. Is there any way that we could give away anything we don't need anymore? I like to, you know, jettison anything in the household. Minimalist. I'm a minimalist.

I like that book. by that wonderful lady tidying up, you know, although now that she has kids, she says, oh boy, I forget about that. Now I realize you've got to do something else. Just get used to the mess. But so I like both both things, yes. Order and chaos. It's a balance.

I guess it's a dance and a balance. Yeah. Okay. I love that answer. Hey, good answer, good answer. It's also, it's also. I'm getting that prize. You're winning.

Yay. You're winning. I was, I did just. make me think, though, teaching your kids, it seems important to me to be able to teach my kids how to live in the chaos, how to ride the wave that you just described and to not drown, and how to not just not drown, but to actually surf, if I extend the metaphor, right, to maximize the chaos, not to get paralyzed by it. Totally, totally, totally.

I hope I'm doing that, I hope we're both doing that modeling-wise and the balance. You know, they're taking piano lessons and chess lessons and they ride horses a little bit. And they're taking surfing lessons currently right now. I think today they're at surf camp, believe it or not. On the nose. Yes, they are. And yeah, and you're right. You know, I love their wild, feral, unbridled, unexpregated life force.

I love it. And I don't want to suppress it or sabotage. it in any way. At the same time, I want to, you know, give them, expose them to, and it's a case-by-case basis, I think, given each kid, you know, in their makeup, expose them to how to be in the world in an appropriate and civil and orderly a way. You know, so it, once again, it's a little bit of a balance, you know, and an artful, artful navigation. Yeah. Last three cards. We're in the last three cards.

Okay, three. So three. The last belief card, the last card, this is the end of the game. I'm getting that prize, whatever it is. I don't care what it is. I'm getting it. Has your idea of what it means to be a good person changed over time? Well, I suppose that it's become clear 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, which is a good person, how much can you learn and use this lifetime for growth? It 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 clear 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, yeah, that's pretty good. And that's not bad to 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. Pretty good, huh? You win. What do I get? We're going to the pizza parlor right now, you and I. That's got to be the prize. We win with that quote.

I'll take pepperoni. It's really lovely. There's... And I want a bite of your mushroom. We're going to a karaoke pizza parlor. So he and I can get our... You know, I'm prepared for that. Okay, no, we're not going to a pizza parlor.

Oh, what's the prize then? Here's the prize. You get a trip in our memory time machine. Do lulu, do lulu, do lululul. You've hypnotized me already. You get to revisit... one moment from your past. A specific moment.

Okay? This is a moment you would not change anything about. You just want to linger there a little longer. Which moment do you choose? Beautiful. This is like Our Town. I think it's playing on Broadway here, not far from me. I love Our Town.

You know, and you know she dies that character. And then she comes back and goes, why wasn't I more present? Why didn't I realize that this table, this town, these people, there wasn't always going to be a last time that I saw them? Why didn't I pay more attention and appreciate it more? So I could answer your question in 10,000 ways, but let's pick just one.

Well, off the top of my head, I remember my brother that I talked about, Rick, you know, that last time, the last time we ever saw. each other. We were in New York City where my first apartment was on 57th Street. We woke up in the middle of the night or it was very late and nobody else was there and we took this frisbee and we went out and on the street played this frisbee. We were very good at that by that time. I could skip it. I still can. I can skip it one hop and it can kind of reach its target. And we did that for a while. I wouldn't mind going back and doing that one more time. But so many things I've been not as present as I could have been, you know, geez, I go, Jeff, you were here then.

You were right there then. Why didn't you look around more? Why didn't you appreciate it more? You're a wonderful questioner. Geez, we should do this for a week or so. Yeah, I'd be into that. Jeff Goldblum, it has just been such a pleasure to talk with you. This is my pleasure entirely.

I can't thank you enough. I'll see you, I'm sure, in person sometime, I look forward to it, and let's be in constant touch. Let's do it. What's a goodbye song? There's a song called Goodbye. That's a great song. Or Stevie wonders, please don't go when you go.

I'd be sand blue. That's a great song. Please don't go. That's a good song. I recorded this with our band. Every time we say goodbye, I die a little. Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little. You know that song.

Jeff Goldblum, you can catch him in the new Netflix series, Chaos. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you, Rachel, thank you. Just a quick note before we go, the George Bernard Shaw passage in Jeff's last answer doesn't appear to be an exact quote. It's actually paraphrasing a couple of different works by Shaw, but we like Jeff Spin on it. If you like that conversation,

check out our episode with Ted Danson. His thoughts about finding love in middle age with actress Mary Steenbergen are just so lovely. Next week on Wild Card, Grammy-winning musician Casey Musgraves plays the game. Hey, NPR, getting deepest hell all this morning. We're in the deepest part of the well currently. This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blanchard.

It was fact-checked by Greta Pittenger and Ida Porosad. It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wildcard's executive producer is Beth Donovan. Our theme music is by Romteen Arablewee. You can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We love it when you do. We will shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. See you then.

What a delight. That was fantastic. somebody put a micro dose of mushrooms in my water I'm sure of it we had a transcendental experience