Jeff Goldblum's unique career path: Embracing his true self on screen

Jeff Goldblum is more than just a movie star. He's a living, breathing pop culture icon whose quirky mannerisms and real-life personality are inextricably woven into almost every character he plays. Given the fact he's been working in movies steadily since 1974, you would think his shtick would be getting old. But audiences today actually seem to love him more than ever. It's a position most veteran actors would kill to find themselves in, and it has to make you wonder how exactly Jeff Goldblum got to be Jeff Goldblum. Life, uh, finds a way. Born October 22, 1952, Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum grew up in West Homestead, Pennsylvania. He had his first experience as a performer on stage at summer camp, and in his own words, I fell so deeply in love with it that I would write on the glass shower door every morning, please God, let me be an actor. At 17, he would strike out for New York City to train under legendary acting coach Sanford Meisner, whose students also include stars like James Gandolfini, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Stephen Colbert. Unlike many of his classmates, however, Goldblum quickly found work on the stage, and in 1971, he made his Broadway debut in a Tony Award-winning musical production of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. After finishing his second year at acting school, Goldblum was spotted in a play by the auteur film director Robert Altman and would cast him in small parts in both of his next two films, California Split and Nashville. But it would be Goldblum's agent who would send him on his first actual audition for a movie. That movie was 1974's Death Wish, and Goldblum was reading for the part of Freak No. 1, a thug who assaults an old lady. I kill rich d***s! It wasn't exactly glamorous, but he got the part, and it would mark the first time audiences ever saw him on the big screen. After that, in his own words, One thing has led to another, and I have not stopped working since. The early years of his run in Tinseltown found him playing an assortment of edgy weirdos in acclaimed films directed by the likes of Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky, as well as schlock like St. Ives and Special Delivery, and many of these were just bit parts. But Goldblum always managed to disappear into his roles and deliver memorable performances. Over the 1980s, those roles would come in more mainstream movies like The Big Chill, The Right Stuff, and Silverado, and there is undoubtedly an alternate universe where he spent the rest of his career as a reliable character actor. But all that began to change when the world saw his turn as the doomed scientist Seth Brundle in David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The Fly. I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. The Fly was Goldblum's first real starring role, and it would utilize his odd physicality and jazz-like sense of delivery to seamlessly blend humor and horror, while also making science seem sexy. His emotionally moving yet offbeat performance, which is still frequently regarded as one of the best of his career, largely took the world by surprise. But behind the scenes, it was actually something he had been building up to for almost a decade. According to the man himself, Goldblum's evolution into the actor and personality we know today really began on the set of Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He was shooting a scene in which Veronica Cartwright's character asks why people always expect aliens to come to Earth in metal ships, to which Goldblum's character responds, I've never expected metal ships. It doesn't sound like much, but Goldblum's delivery of the semi-improvised lines struck a chord with the director, whose praise then provoked something of an epiphany for the actor. According to Goldblum, I think because of Phil's special sensitivity and appreciation of me in particular, I had kind of an inner experience of, hey, I think I'm doing something here. I can contribute differently than anybody else. That something he realized he had to contribute was his own unique personality and strange sense of rhythm, a way of saying lines that makes every sentence feel like a wondrous journey with an uncertain ending. It's an informal acting method that Goldblum would eventually come to humorously call jeffing it up. And once he realized how powerful it was, Jeff Goldblum stopped disappearing into his roles and increasingly began letting his roles disappear into him. Why is there a watermelon there? Thanks largely to Goldblum's acclaimed performance, The Fly was a huge hit. But the late 80s and early 90s would find the actor starring in a string of failed comedies like Vibes and Earth Girls Are Easy, as well as obscure thrillers like Mr. Frost and Deep Cover. It was beginning to seem like The Fly would be an anomaly. But in 1993, he would be given the chance to Jeff it up as Dr. Ian Malcolm in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster masterpiece, Jurassic Park. and Jeff it up he did, his idiosyncratic delivery would turn almost every line he had into an iconic quote and turn Malcolm into the movie's breakout character. One of the biggest movies of all time, Jurassic Park, would cement Goldblum's public image as a warm, witty nerd with an enchanting presence, an unusual amount of sex appeal, and an array of entertaining tics. In other words, he was becoming famous for just being himself. And from that point on, figuring out where Jeff Goldblum ended and the characters he played began would become increasingly difficult. Many of these same qualities he demonstrated in Spielberg's film would be put to use for his 1996 role as David Levinson in the alien invasion movie Independence Day. The film would be another all-time box office champ, and the following year, Goldblum would get the chance to headline the 1997 sequel to Jurassic Park. Unlike the first film, The Lost World was built around Goldblum's character. The movie didn't do as much business as the original, and it drew mixed reactions from audiences and critics. But it is generally agreed that having Goldblum at its center was one of its greatest virtues. Mommy's very angry. After that, Goldblum would take a long hiatus from blockbusters. Nonetheless, he remained as busy as ever, lending his voice to animated fare like The Prince of Egypt, as well as Cats and Dogs, and starring in studio comedies alongside the likes of Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams. He continued to pop up in smaller, auteur-driven films, especially those of director Wes Anderson. Did he just throw my cat out the window? And while it's easy to forget because he's been in so many movies, he also worked frequently on television, including a two-season run on Law and Order Criminal Intent. Repeating the pattern from the early 80s, there's an alternate universe where Goldblum ended his career here in smaller films and on TV. But then, a funny thing happened. Lord of the Rings became a series of blockbuster movies. Christopher Nolan made Batman cooler than ever, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe took flight. In other words, nerd culture became all the rage, and a generation that grew up on movies like Jurassic Park and Independence Day started becoming nostalgic for the cool, sexy, nerdy sci-fi genre hero of their youth. That is one big pile of s***. At least someone must have thought so, because in 2016, Goldblum returned to the world of blockbusters by reprising his role as David Levinson in Independence Day: Resurgence. But whether it was due to the lackluster script or the absence of co-star Will Smith, the movie bombed. Don't worry, we're in control, guys! Falling, it's called falling! We can't imagine it bothered him for too long, though, because in 2017, Goldblum would join the MCU as the Grandmaster. The character was the principal antagonist in Thor: Ragnarok, and to bring him to life, Goldblum would take the idea of jeffing it up to new heights. In fact, it wouldn't be unfair to say his performance was a little more than a villainously heightened version of his real-life personality. And everyone absolutely loved it. Wow, I didn't hear any thunder, but out of your fingers, was that like sparkles? Along the way, Goldblum's inherent meme-ability made him a social media sensation, and the 50-year acting veteran, found himself being catapulted to new heights of fame. His brief cameo in 2018's Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom set Twitter into a frenzy, and the ensuing cultural craze was so persistent that in 2022, Disney would even try to cash in on it with a TV show called The World According to Jeff Goldblum. 2022 would also see Goldblum return to the role of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic World Dominion. The movie's story didn't resonate at all with critics or fans, but Goldblum's performance was generally praised, and the film still finished as the year's third highest-grossing movie, as did 2024's Wicked, in which Goldblum played a charmingly nefarious version of the Wizard of Oz. That's what I love best, making people happy. Once again, the actor found himself jeffing it up, and the character could easily be mistaken for the Grandmaster's cousin. But audiences still ate it up. So if you're keeping score, then you've picked up that becoming Jeff Goldblum means having an enormous amount of talent and developing it at the highest level, having the kind of determination that keeps you going through rough patches, being equally successful as a supporting character and a leading man, feeling at home in both commercial and artistic fare, having megawatts of charisma and the skill to use it in your craft, and having the rare ability to work non-stop without ever feeling overexposed. Of course, that's the easy stuff. After that, you'll have to get lucky enough to play breakout characters with personalities inseparable from your own in some of the most popular movies of all time, and then have all of society change in a way that makes the tropes you're most associated with into beloved rock star like qualities. In other words, good luck with that. See, here I am now by myself talking to myself.