The Deadbolt Interview - Back in Time with Jeff Goldblum for Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Back in Time with Jeff Goldblum for Law & Order: Criminal Intent
by Troy Rogers

Law&Order Criminal Intent Jeff Goldblum Jeff Goldblum has enjoyed a long and interesting career, playing some of the most memorable characters of the past 30 years while starring in some of the most unforgettable films of the past three decades as well. From the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and his role as Seth Brundle ("Brundlefly") in the 1986 remake of The Fly to The Big Chill to the Jurassic Park movies, and many more, Jeff Goldblum brings a credible eccentric presence to every project he's involved in. Still with his feet firmly in the film world with two upcoming projects on the go, Jeff Goldblum has stepped back into the world of television for a regular role as Detective Zach Nichols on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which airs Sundays on USA Network.

No stranger to small-screen detective investigations, having kicked off his leading-man TV career on the 1980 buddy-detective series Tenspeed and Brownshoe with song-and-dance man Ben Vereen, and most recently delving into law enforcement on the 2008 series Raines, Jeff Goldblum been a natural fit Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Not too long ago we caught up with Jeff Goldblum on a brief conference call where we were able to get a couple of minutes with the new Detective Zach Nichols. With a wide variety of outlets on the call, we only had time for one question in which we went back in time with Jeff Goldblum to find out the differences between Goldblum then and now.

THE DEADBOLT: How would the Jeff Goldblum of 20 years ago approach Zach Nichols?

JEFF GOLDBLUM: Jeff Goldblum 20 years ago ... I was playing that Tenspeed and Brownshoe, so I would have been the actor involved. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have any business with doing anything wrong that would have gotten me involved in a guy who’s investigating murders.

But I’ve always been involved with crime stories, and if I had been, for instance, 20 years ago, not inconceivably involved in a part where I might have been playing a detective like this, I would have been very interested to talk to Zach Nichols, who’s ostensibly a real and a uniquely brilliant detective for research purposes.

Here on our set, Criminal Intent, we’ve got a guy like that. So the current Jeff Goldblum can talk to this fellow, Mike Struck, who’s a brilliant real-life detective. I love hearing all his stories. And he’s on the set when we do our stories here and he tells us what’s real and if he were playing the part, and if he were in the actual situation what he’d be thinking, what he’d be doing, how he’d be doing it, and that’s thrilling and fascinating to me.

So that’s how I can imagine Jeff Goldblum of yore talking to Zach Nichols if he were real.

Other Conference Call Highlights:

Jeff Goldblum on whether he gets to use his sense of humor on the show:

"Yes, such as it is. Maybe I’m funny sometimes, maybe not so funny other times, but yes. Dick Wolf has been fantastic, kind, cordial and brilliant, I think. And they have a brilliant staff of writers and producers and they have intendingly built a part that is suited for some of the things that I like to do and can do. That’s what they’ve tried to do and after seeing the first episode that was aired, I think there’s some humor in there. Along with the solving the crime and the very passionate part of this character and serious part of the character, I think there’s some humor in it; I’m enjoying some of the funny parts of it."

Goldblum on how he would describe his character as if he was the character describing himself:

Law&Order Criminal Intent Jeff Goldblum "I’ll take a crack at it ... I am an intuitive fellow. Of course people know that both my parents were shrinks, so I was sort of raised in an atmosphere where there was that interest in the human mechanism and the human psyche and what makes people tick. And yes, I think I’m particularly creative and adventurous and improvisational and spontaneous in my inner impulses and patterns, and deeply curious and appetized in the unfathomably mysterious and delicious phenomena that is the human being and who we really are.

"Why certainly people go off the rails and commit murder here in New York City, that interests me, particularly. And oftentimes I find it’s a mistake of identity and having their ego built around mistakenly and their sense of identity built around some aspect of form, if you will, in their lives, either their careers or their reputations or their bank accounts. That mistake gets them into trouble and they wind up doing risky and awful things in order to pursue that mistaken notion and defend it and help that survive. It’s a bad, but not uncommon disease of the psyche that I find results in murder sometimes. I’m a humble student of that whole subject."

Goldblum on the cancellation of Raines leading to Law & Order: Criminal Intent:

Law&Order Criminal Intent Jeff Goldblum "Let’s see ... at this point maybe I have a philosophical approach that allows me here and there to be satisfied with whatever happens, believe it or not. Yes, I have my ups and downs and I can be disappointed in one thing or another, but generally speaking, whatever happens I will mostly [go along along with it], and you can. It’s not strange to think, to look at my life and go, 'You’re a lucky guy,' and to mostly feel incredibly grateful. So even during a period when, for instance, Raines came and Raines went, I just felt incredibly grateful. If they had told me in fact that Raines would have been a six, seven-part miniseries, I probably would have signed up and been very happy to do it like that, too. I would have been very happy.

But I’m always interested in the unexpected and know that things, especially in show business, but in life generally, are inevitably fleeting to one extent. It may be short, it may be long, but there’s no such thing as long. I think all of life is a fleeting proposition, so I’m sort of happy with whatever comes and goes in fact. And I think in loss, and in the goings, is sometimes the greatest opportunity for expansion.

"In another way it did give me - it whet my appetite for more cop parts, it’s true. And even before I did Raines, I did this show called The Pillow Man where I played a detective, a homicide detective in fact. And I had a great time doing that. It was this Mike McDonough play and I was in it with Billy Crudup and Zeljko Ivanek and we had a great time for six months at the Booth Theater in New York. After that I was still very appetized when Raines came along, and after Raines, to do this, and there was sort of some kind of appetizing continuum for me in those things."

Jeff Goldblum on his favorite role and why:

Law&Order Criminal Intent Jeff Goldblum "My favorite and why? Maybe it’s because I’m trying to get better and I feel like I am, but I currently am pretty in love with this part that I’m doing now. Then I’ve got a couple of - I like the parts at the stage when they’re at the stage of development, so I’m doing a couple more movies right after this, this summer, one called The Baster with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman, and I’m at the stage where I’m rehearsing it and trying to figure out who the character is and what the part is, and I kind of love that. And then I’m doing this movie with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton and Rachel McAdams called Morning Glory right after that, and I’m a bit in love with that. I think you have to be. That’s part of the criteria and qualification for taking a part. It has to be a passion and something you’re in love with.

"But besides that, having said all that, I did love very much Adam Resurrected that I did this last year with Paul Schrader directing that Willem Dafoe was in and it was a wonderful movie and experience for me. I loved doing that movie, Pittsburgh, that I think you can still get on NetFlix, a very handcrafted affair that I sort of cooked up over several years. Besides that, holy cats, many things that I could think of, but those are a few that come to mind."

-- Troy Rogers