Superfan John Goodman on Booze, ‘Roseanne,’ and ‘SNL’

Legendary film, stage, and sitcom actor John Goodman stopped by this morning to promote the new Coen brothers movie ‘Inside Llewyn Davis,’ in which he plays a heroin addict. While John wasn’t into heroin himself, he certainly partied in other ways, which he opened up to Howard about in a truly great interview…

SATURDAY NIGHT JOHN

John is hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend, which will mark his thirteenth time hosting. John has appeared in legendary sketches throughout the show’s history including Linda Tripp during the Lewinsky scandal and huge ‘da Bears’ fan Pat in “Bill Swerksi’s Superfans.”

John actually auditioned for SNL during the brief time that Jean Doumanian – not Lorne Michaels – served as Executive Producer. (You may remember that period as the part of SNL history here the only good thing was Eddie Murphy). John would hang out around 30 Rock after he was rejected “like a stalker.”

When Roseanne got hot, John was asked to host. He still gets nervous every time he appears on the show, and this week is no different. “I’m praying for one of those rare New York earthquakes.”

“I’M NOT AS FUN AS I USED TO BE”

THE ANIMAL HOUSE INFLUENCE

John originally wanted to be in radio and attended a broadcasting school.

While starting out as an actor in New York, hanging out with a young Kathleen Turner and Bruce Willis, the movie Animal House came out and presented a way of life to John found suited to him. He started drinking a lot and doing cocaine. He fell so in love with beer that it was more important to him than women. (Our own Richard Christy can relate, as we found out beer was more important to him than his faaaaavorite band Metallica).

As John put it, he’d gladly crawl over a mountain of p*ssy to get to a beer. John gained 100 lbs, drinking up to twenty beers and shoving down ice cream late at night. Thus began what was basically a solid thirty year binge. He drank through movies, plays, Roseanne, even a large part of his marriage. Thankfully, one day he realized that he needed to get help and he’s been clean ever since.”I’m not as fun as I used to be.”

John quietly checked into rehab, but toward the end of his stay, paparazzi showed up because reports said that Britney Spears was heading to John’s facility.

LIFE WITH ROSEANNE

John was tired of living out of a suitcase, so decided to read for the sitcom Roseanne when the opportunity presented itself. He and Roseanne clicked right away. He still admires “Rose,” but admitted that things go screwy when Tom Arnold showed up.

“This guy shows up sweating and ordering people around,” John explained.

Things were rough. Howard pointed out that Roseanne admitted to being in love with John, secretly. John didn’t know anything about it, but he loved Roseanne too – in a platonic way.

Though he was asked to be part of the Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne he declined because roasts make him so uncomfortable.

John didn’t warm to Tom Arnold at first, but says they have a great relationshiop now

MAKING MOVIES

John’s old friend Dan Aykroyd came to him about doing the Blues Brothers 2000 and he accepted. John wanted the whole world to know that he was in no way trying to replace John Belushi, whom he loved and once briefly met. He and Dan didn’t even take a salary for the film so they could keep the budget low.

John loves his movie the Big Lebowski so much that not only does he not care that he doesn’t see a dime from all the merchandise with his face on it – he actually will still watch the movie when it’s on TV. Stern Show writer Richard Christy trotted into the studio to ask John to do a line from his faaaaaavorite movie. John said he’d do it as long as he wasn’t asked to “yabba dabba do” from the Flintstones.

John was “steam-rolled” into doing the Flintstones, according to him. He didn’t have a good time making the movie but wishes he has. He regrets not taking that role seriously (as well as his role as Babe Ruth in The Babe). In a very honest moment he admitted that he thought the Flintstones role was beneath him and didn’t really give it his all while filming.

Gary said he heard that they wanted Jim Belushi as Fred Flintstone, but Steven Spielberg saw John and said ‘That’s my Fred Flintstone!” John laughed at that, said was true that Spielberg did yell at him that line, and wishes he had yelled “that’s my Hamlet!” instead.

JOHN GOODMAN, HOWARD STERN FAN

It turns out that John is an enormous fan of the Howard Stern Show. He dropped in many Stern Show references, from ‘Hey Richard, this is your dad,’ to ‘Oh-phelia.’

When Richard announced his excitement at seeing John’s new movie at a movie theater that serves beer, John said “we should have a talk.” Even as hard as John Goodman drank, he never drank beer through his ass.

But John seemed to be as big a fan of Richard’s as Richard was of him, and he gladly recited Richard’s requested line from the Big Lebowski: “Larry, this is what happens when you f*ck a stranger in the ass.”