Jeff Goldblum talks 'life and death' in 'Jurassic World: Dominion,' dancing for Laura Dern, and the impact of coronavirus on his Disney Plus documentary
- Insider spoke to Jeff Goldblum in a wide-ranging interview where the actor and musician spoke about the effect COVID-19 has had on his Emmy-nominated show "The World According to Jeff Goldblum."
- Goldblum said of his Disney Plus team: "They are a tippity-top, top-notch, dream, cream of the crop team of documentarians."
- Goldblum also spoke to Insider about "Jurassic World: Dominion," which he is currently shooting in the UK, and detailed the very first scene he shot for the new movie with Laura Dern and Sam Neil.
- Goldblum told Insider: "The three of us were in a tiny little space and we were being menaced by ... a surprising faction of prehistoric creatures that you've never seen before."
- Goldblum also touched upon his love for "The Mandalorian," and discussed appearing in the show, as well as the "modern interpretive dance" he did when Laura Dern won her Oscar.
Jeff Goldblum is still managing to be extremely Jeff Goldblum despite the tragedy that has devastated 2020. Even over the phone, his giddy nature is so infectious that one's own speech pattern begin to morph into Goldblum-ese while talking to the actor-musician.
Insider spoke to the "Jurassic Park" star over the phone about his Emmy-nominated Disney Plus doc "The World According to Jeff Goldblum" — a TV series featuring exactly what 2020 needs and what the actor's fans love: endless reels of unfiltered Goldblum content.
Insider also spoke about Goldblum's (second) return to the "Jurassic Park" franchise. He assures that he will have more to do this time around than he did in his brief scene in "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." Goldblum is currently in the UK shooting that movie's sequel, "Jurassic World: Dominion," and says he is enjoying his time in the UK with his family while he shoots the movie, which he says is going "spectacularly" so far.
"I'm here with my two little kids — I got a five-year-old and a three-year-old; two boys — and my wife Emilie [Livingston] is here," Goldblum told Insider. "And we're all bubbled up and having a thrilling time of it, while empathizing with the rest of the world, as we know many places and people are suffering massively so my heart goes out to them and my best wishes, of course."
Goldblum touches upon the coronavirus, and the impact it has had on "The World According to," which was shut down thanks to the crisis.
His Disney Plus docuseries has a 'tippity-top, top-notch, dream, cream of the crop team'
"The World According to Jeff Goldblum" arrived here in the UK upon Disney Plus' UK launch-date, which happened to be right after the country went into coronavirus-enforced lockdown. My family and I paced ourselves and watched an episode of the series each week while many others binged the series in one gulp.
Goldblum told Insider he is "thrilled" that his show was able to bring some joy into a pretty joyless time, but insists he was lucky to be a part of the show, which is Emmy-nominated for outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special. It would actually be one of the first Disney Plus shows to ever be awarded an Emmy should it win, not that Goldblum cares too much about such records. He's more in love with the idea of season 2, he says, which is now delayed thanks to the ongoing pandemic. Goldblum attributes any and all success to the show's team.
"They are a tippity-top, top notch, dream, cream of the crop team of documentarians," Goldblum told Insider, who said of his own contribution to the show: "I knew I had an appetite for spontaneous expressions and phraseology and encounters with people, and for non-contrivance.
"I thought: 'Hey, just catch me on film doing this stuff for real' — I shared bits of my own autobiography and associations with some of these people we were dealing with, and gave the team my footage from home movies and family albums, that kind of stuff. I opened up."
Goldblum said: "I just tried to be authentic and not try to pretend to know anything that I didn't know, and so I would just go on this adventure and try to take the audience along, hopefully, with me, and we'd learn interesting things about these objects that people love and that bring us all together. Now it seems even more important than ever that there are things that bring us together in small and large groups and close-knit."
Goldblum told Insider: "Spontaneous ecstasy was the zone that we seemed to keep dancing around and hitting.
But coronavirus has changed the plans for season two
"I can't wait to do the second season," Goldblum said. "We started with the first show of the second when we got shut down with all of this, but we're talking all the time and eager to get going again."
Goldblum told Insider that they had sorted out their entire list of subjects for season two, and had carried out all of the necessary, extensive research of them. But that list is now up in the ether thanks to coronavirus. Things will be changing.
"We're sort of allowing it to be wet clay again. We want to make sure everything we are talking about is relevant in this new world, so we've got several subjects but it's kind of trying to find its best way that we can in putting it together."
Insider teased the idea of Goldblum appearing in another Disney Plus show: 'The Mandalorian'
Another Disney plus show nominated at this year's Emmys, "The Mandalorian" featured Taika Waititi as both an actor and a director. Waititi played robot bounty hunter IG-11, and directed the show's eighth and final episode "Redemption."
Waititi directed Goldblum to critical and commercial success in 2017's "Thor: Ragnarok" — while Goldblum, at his Goldblumiest, instantly became one of the MCU's best and most beloved villains as The Grandmaster. Insider floated the idea of a possible reunion between him and Waititi through the lens of "Star Wars." Would he like to appear in "The Mandalorian?"
"I'm a fan of it! I'm a fan, of course, of Taika Waititi. I adore him, always did before I even worked with him, and maybe we'll do something again together," Goldblum said, before teasing a secret potential project in the pipeline between him and Waititi, who earlier this year won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for "Jojo Rabbit."
"We've talked about doing something else that has to be secret right now but I would do anything with him, sure. And Disney Plus are just a great bunch of people to be associated with. They are a wonderful family, how smart and sweet and kind they are."
Goldblum briefly discussed what sort of character he'd play in the "Star Wars" series — Insider suggested a quirky alien bounty hunter of sorts similar to Waititi's IG-11. Goldblum liked it.
"Oh, that's fun! Well, I did that thing with Taika for Marvel ["Ragnarok"], and I was a little bit of a mixed kind of character, a little bad in that, so I can imagine what you're talking about."
Goldblum did an interpretive dance when Laura Dern won her Oscar
While on the subject of former colleagues, Goldblum told Insider that he was overjoyed when "Jurassic Park" costar Laura Dern won her Academy Award for best supporting actress earlier this year for "Marriage Story."
"We've been in touch all this time and I did, I certainly did [offer congratulations]. Profusely! I was thrilled, I was jumping up and down," Goldblum said. "I did some sort of modern interpretive dance to espouse out some of my feelings — all of them, actually."
It's impossible to speak with Goldblum and not talk about 1993's "Jurassic Park," which I recently saw in 4DX during my trip back to the movie theaters for the first time since February (Goldblum was excited to hear this). Luckily, Goldblum was more than game to talk about his upcoming return to the franchise with Colin Trevorrow's "Jurassic World: Dominion," which he is currently shooting.
"I've been here about a month or so. There were some terrific protocols and quarantining going on," Goldblum said. "We're very safe. It's a big production. We're shooting already, it's going spectacularly, I think."
Goldblum will be playing Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician who specializes in chaos theory, for the fourth time after appearing in the first movie and its sequel, "The Lost World," as well as that brief desk-bound cameo in "Fallen Kingdom."
Goldblum's first 'Jurassic World: Dominion' scene was with Laura Dern and Sam Neil: 'We think it might be the last moments of our lives'
Goldblum detailed the very first scene that he shot upon his return to the Jurassic saga, and fans of the original 1993 movie will be giddy to hear that it was with series originals, Laura Dern and Sam Neil. Dern will be returning as Dr. Ellie Sattler for only the third time — she had a small role in "Jurassic Park III" alongside Sam Neil, who starred in that movie and will also be making his third appearance in the Jurassic franchise (as Dr. Alan Grant).
"The first thing that we shot ... it was a scene with me and Laura Dern and Sam Neil and we were — I can't tell you much — but we were all day in a very tight, enclosed space," Goldblum said.
"You'll see — it's a mystery you'll solve when you see [the movie.] The three of us were in a tiny little space and we were being menaced by — I can't even tell you — a surprising faction of prehistoric creatures that you've never seen before."
Fans of the original will be thrilled to hear that these dinosaurs will be brought to life via animatronics rather than the CGI predominantly used for the more recent movies. Goldblum said: "There are a lot of animatronic things going on, so there is going to be less CGI I think, and lots of things that we can act with and see with our own eyes
"We saw some amazing things. We were acting in a life and death situation," Goldblum said of the scene he shot with Dern and Neil. "We think it might be the last moments of our lives and we're all bonding with each other in an emotional and somewhat hilarious way."
Goldblum will be remaining in the UK at least until the end of October, when shooting for "Jurassic World: Dominion" wraps up after the coronavirus delay. During that time, "The World According to Jeff Goldblum" could win an Emmy — the virtual ceremony is on September 21. The nomination goes to the show itself, but it will undoubtedly go down as a win for Goldblum in spirit.
In the meanwhile, fans will have to wait for further news on season two of "The World According to Jeff Goldblum," although the trailer for the second season of "The Mandalorian" is rumored to drop soon ahead of its October premiere. Who knows, maybe Goldblum will turn up as an alien bounty hunter. One can hope.
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