Words BEN TIBBITS

Jon M. Chu: Jeff, can you hear me?
Jeff Goldlbum: God, yes. I adore you. Look at you. I'm looking at every bit of your production design. You've probably done this, the director that you are, but I have to [make sure the Zoom background is presentable]. I know we're not filming this today for any purpose, but you know, you have to do these things sometimes and produce these little Zoom movies. I gotta get a corner of the house that is ready to be presented.
JMC: This is how I really do it. I like to have pieces of my journey all around so that I feel like I'm doing something. Because making stuff can be lonely and it feels like you're going nowhere and you're treading water. But when I look back at my old Super 8 camera over there [points] from when I was a kid, I'm like, ‘We got somewhere, we did something.’
JG: Well, I read every page of [Chu’s autobiography Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen], which I loved. It's spectacular. So I know the whole story. I mean, you know more details than I know, but it was pretty thorough. I loved every second of it. I cried. I remember the scene where you finally come upon Steve Jobs and it's so moving. Really, what you've done is terrific.

Jeff wears shirt DIOR MEN; glasses JACQUES MARIE MAGE “JEFF” (Jeff's own, throughout); watch CARTIER TANK (Jeff's own, throughout)

JMC: You're the Man About Town. You're so prolific. You're at the centre of culture almost every decade, I’m not sure of anyone else who has been there [as long]. And you're not just the ultimate artist, you are bankable and you're cool and you see the country and all these things with your band. And you have a beautiful family. And you always look good doing it.
JG: You told my story. Wow, it's never been said more exaggeratedly or beautifully. Thank you so much.
JMC: Is this how you pictured your life when you were young? When did it shift? Did your parents have an effect on that?
JG: I grew up in Pittsburgh, of course, and my dad was a doctor. We didn't know anybody in show business. My dad’s father came over from Russia or Ukraine, was named Povartzik, changed his name to Goldblum, and had a luggage store and a candy store. As my mother used to say, they were quite poor. [My dad] wanted to make something of himself, and so he said, ‘I’m either going to be a doctor or an actor.’ One time he stuck his head in the back of an acting class and said to himself, ‘Oh, this is out of my league.’ So that's when he decided to be a doctor. My mom also came over from the same several villages or shtetls in Eastern Europe. Ashkenazi Jews, all of them. I did that show Finding Your Roots recently. And there's not a variance in the strain until me and [my wife] Emilie [Livingston]. We've diversified the seed a little bit. But I'm 100% Ashkenazi Jew.

My mom, for one reason or another, had some flair for acting and a scout, whatever that meant, from New York came to West Virginia to see her in a play. They said to her mom, my grandmother, ‘Oh, we've got to get her to New York and she's got to be an actor.’ And her mom put her foot down and said, ‘No’. And that was that. So maybe I inherited some hot potato aspiration to do something like that. When I was a kid early on, I had this burning idea. [My parents] stayed passionate about going to the theatre and showed us ballet and art and gave us piano lessons. Then I took a drama class and got the idea – ‘Yeah, I want to be an actor.’ But I didn't know what it entailed, how that could possibly work, until one thing led to another, and I wound up at the neighbourhood playhouse, studying with Sandy Meisner and miraculously fell into a job on The Two Gentlemen of Verona. I went to Broadway with it after being in Shakespeare in the Park. I was 19, and I understudied Eglamour, who was played by Alvin Lum, and went on once during that year. How about that? Anyway, things have proceeded. Now I pick the things I want to do, luckily, and look at me – I’m getting as delicious an opportunity as ever working with you.

Jeff wears jacket & trousers LOEWE

JMC: It’s been a blast. Choosing The Wizard, I was like, ‘Who is the one person who I don't know how he's going to play it, but that's what I want to see on the big screen.’ You're the only one. To have you as this iconic cinematic character and literary character, to see it come to life when you walked on set, it was amazing.
JG: Well, I'll tell you, what you've done with this movie… I'm going to start crying. I can't wait to see it. I haven't seen it totally finished.
JMC: I can't wait for you to see it all together. We've made some refinements since you last saw it. What did The Wizard of Oz mean to you before this movie? You saw it when you were young, no?
JG: I saw the ‘39 movie and it meant a lot to me. I’ve seen it a lot and I showed it to my kids recently. It's very moving to me. I love it and I love when it's referred to in other movies. Then when I saw the stage show when it first came out and saw Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth, I was inconsolable with joyful emotion and started wailing out at the end. And then we fast forward to now, and I feel so lucky to have played this part [of the Wizard].

Jeff wears jacket & trousers LOEWE

JMC: When you were tackling the Wizard, what was exciting?
JG: Well, your vision of it was an enhancement, an original and rich take on what's in the stage show. And, oh my gosh, what a genius [costume designer] Paul Tazewell is; how dignified, intelligent, sensitive and brilliant, and what care he took with all of that. When I put on the costume finally, at one point I said, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ and got choked up. But I still have questions and I can't wait to see the final cut. And the second movie, of course, [allows viewers] to see how it all comes out in the wash, because there's so much with the Wizard under the tip of the surface, with what happened, how he got here, what he’s really thinking and feeling at every moment during these couple of days where we visit him in these couple of movies. I came to think that he was well-intentioned and has a good and deep heart. His lost family and his mysterious hole, the puzzle pieces of which get filled in deliciously later, I think has him in possession of a yearning heart and a kind of love for these people even though he has hornswoggled them into thinking that he's more supernatural than he is.
JMC: That’s what I love about your take on him. We're all wicked and we're all good and every day we're an average of the choices that we make between being good or wicked. I love that you never thought of him as evil and that he was a human being in a world of Oz.
JG: I love the whole relevant issue of a kind of corrupt regime being brought down by a truth seeker and an authentic, powerful voice. It couldn't be a more relevant story for our time than that.

Jeff wears full look SAINT LAURENT

JMC: And that's why I love Ari [Ariana Grande] and Cynthia [Erivo]. They bring such truth to their goodness as well. Do you remember meeting them for the first time in the office? Or maybe you knew them before?
JG: Well, I had never met Cynthia. Only halfway through the shooting did Ariana show me pictures and remind me that she had seen me backstage at The Pillowman when she was, what, 11? But they're just so delightful and rich and profoundly beautiful as people and so perfect for these parts. And as an appreciator of musicianship and artistry, they are so amazingly gifted and great together. To see the two of them work with you was a privilege.
JMC: You got to sing with them, too.
JG: Well I did, and I know you used to have to wrangle us sometimes when we were singing other things from every show that I could think of that they knew. I should have been intimidated, but they were so cordial and inclusive with me.
JMC: You are a musician. I’m sure people know all of that since you toured the country and you have albums. What is it about music that you love? Does it feel different than acting?

Jeff wears jacket LOEWE

JG: Well they overlap certainly. Singing and music soothes the savage beast. I love instruments but when you use your voice, which is so mysterious and fantastic and can be so soulful and the deepest part of you and then communicate to and reach and hit parts of people in the storytelling, it’s like nothing else.
JMC: Do you remember at Thanksgiving when we had dinner at my house and there's a piano and I whispered to you, ‘Dare I ask Jeff Goldblum to play the piano in my house? Oh no, he just wants to eat.’ And you're like, ‘Where is it?’ and you bolted over. And all of us gathered – the cast and some of the crew – and you started playing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” and Ari and Cynthia came to sing, and nobody had their phones out, nobody was there to record it. Everyone was there to experience it in this little hallway. I'll never forget that moment.
JG: I’ll never forget it either. To hear them sing together and to do that, to be with you, with your family and with that beautiful dinner... just amazing. This was a dream come true to be part of. And, you know, why I became passionate when I was a kid about acting is because I connected with a different group of people during a camp experience in fifth grade when they had a drama program. And I did something that people thought was ‘wow.’ And my dad had already said, ‘If you find something you love to do, that might be a key to your vocational choice.’
But I kept it to myself except every morning before I went to school and would take a shower, it’d steam up and I'd write on the shower door: ‘Please God, let me be an actor.’ Then I'd wipe it off so nobody could see it. But it feels like the seeds of what were there in that experience were what I experienced doing [Wicked] with you.
JMC: I love what your dad said. I felt that when I picked up a camera for the first time. It gave me access to people. Because I'm the youngest of five, it was sort of like – nobody really listens to me. But when I had a camera in my hand, people paid attention. People were looking in the lens like it was their best friend. They would invite me into their lunches, I could go anywhere. It was like my VIP ticket. And so, in a weird way, I used it as a mask, and maybe I still do. But it gives me access and I have loved every moment of being able to see the world through someone else's eyes.

Jeff wears coat, trousers & scarf GUCCI; t-shirt CALVIN KLEIN (Jeff's own)

JG: I know what you're talking about. The arts, or whatever you call what I've devoted myself to these last several decades, have transformed my life. I would not be the same person. It's really something.
JMC: You've had such a giant journey, I can't even imagine the people you've met along the way that have affected you, even if you don't see them anymore. And this movie actually is about that; about saying goodbye ultimately to someone who changed you for good. Do you have someone that impacted you that you haven't thought about in a long time?
JG: So many people and, in a way, every person. Take out one thread and the whole tapestry would be different. My brother [Rick] died when he was 23 but he used to be the person for whom I would perform early on. He allowed me to see myself as funny, interesting, or able to play an expanded sense of myself, the likes of which were unique. I'd be a different person without him. My sister, Pam – who's still around and is doing very well, she’s a painter – I'd be a different person without her. We would have little mystical, meditative dramatical adventures when we were kids. I had great teachers too, and, like you say, I've worked with great directors – Robert Altman, Wes Anderson, Steven Spielberg, so many people.
JMC: I love how you are still soaking things in. It's not easy because this place can beat you up, and our movie actually has a piece about disillusionment of what the dream may be. When in your life were you disillusioned on this journey? How did you push through that?

Wickedis in cinemas now