Travis M. Andrews - Because Hes Jeff Goldblum: The Movies, Memes and Meaning of Hollywoods Most Enigmatic Actor

Look, this is going to be a strange book. Im sorry about that, I truly am, but theres no way around it. This isnt by design. The nature of the subject simply demands such treatment. Jeff Goldblum is a strange character with a strange story. Consider his 2009 death scare. Great place to begin, right? On the day Michael Jackson actually died, Goldblum fictitiously died. In an early Internet death hoax, reports of his falling off a cliff in New Zealand while filming an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intentyou know, the show thats very much set in New York City, a place that looks exactly like New Zealandbegan circulating online. He, obviously, did not fall off any cliffs, much less die, and Dick Wolf did not film his show in the same place as The Lord of the Rings. The actor didnt die, but for a while, many people thought he had died. (As the Guardian insightfully noted at the time, the gag underlined his cult status: Goldblum was obscure enough to make it believable, and loved enough to make it upsetting.) He thought the rumor was nasty and has discussed the mill of information-spreading that is not based on facts, saying, That can be alarming and poisonous, and we should be very vigilant about rejecting it. But at the same time, he appeared on The Colbert Report to goof on it. That contradiction might not make sense (yet) but it fully explains Goldblums approach to acting and to life, which can be (and often is) paraphrased as live truthfully under fictional circumstances. Hes unknowable, strange, and enigmatic, but in the very best way. One reporter said trying to isolate the capital-T Truth about him is like trying to nail jelly to a greased piglet. That pretty much sums it up. Only a fool would attempt such a thing, particularly as an entire book. Luckily for you, my publisher, my agent, and (maybe?) myself, Ive always been a fool. A quick survey of my family and friends will prove that. So my deepest apologies in advance, but this is going to be a weird ride. Case in point: the first chapter, which just so happens to be the chapter you are currently reading, begins with a 330-pound, 25-foot-tall, bare-chested Goldblum.

Take a gander:

The sun dipped slowly into the river Thames in the late afternoon of July 19, 2018. It was one of those perfect midsummer days, in which the sky was bluer than Frank Sinatras eyes and the air was as still as a wax museum, while the sun languidly set over the water in a glorious display. This serenity is usually what draws all the late-afternoon joggers, dog-walkers, and picnicking new lovers to Potters Fields Park. But that night, the sunset might as well have been an afternoon screening of the movie Cats, because no one bothered to so much as offer it a cursory glance.

Instead, everyones eyes were locked on an art installation recently erected in the grass, where it would remain towering over visitors for a week. The thing was massive, the size of Paul Bunyan, if Bunyan were (a) a real person and (b) slightly better dressed. More than one onlookers sexuality was called into question, as were a few relationship choices. Its frankly incredible the joggers didnt run into each other. How many glasses of wine overflowed as an idle hand kept pouring while its connected pair of distracted eyes was locked on the chiseled map that made up the statues abs?

Some young folks only slightly recognized the figure, but anyone who came of age in the 1990s knew immediately what delicious flesh they beheld: that of Dr. Ian Malcolm, i.e., Jeff Goldblums sexy, dino-doubting mathematician from Jurassic Park. Here, as in the movie, his shirt hung open as he reclined on one cocked arm like a swimsuit model from the 1960s, staring out into the great unknown, even though his leg had just been mauled by a Tyrannosaurus rex.

So, naturally, everyone did what everyone does in the face of spectacle these days: they whipped out their phones and took awkwardly framed photos of that statue while thinking of clever quips to write on Instagram and trying to find the proper hashtag.

There was a certain irony to the statue. After all, in Jurassic Park, his character famously decries the idea of bringing back dinosaurs, believing that something could go terribly wrong. And here he lay, two decades later, looking perfectly preserved, the size of a dino himself.

This monstrously large Jeff Goldblum is how I like to imagine the man himself in his true form, Helen McClory, who wrote a slim volume of flash fiction about our man called The Goldblum Variations, told CNN at the time. Or how he would have appeared in the age of megafauna.

Life doesnt have nearly enough large statues of men as sex symbols, so it redressed the balance a little, she later told me. I never got to see it in person, which is sad. I hope its touring about and I might get to, one of these days.

Unfortunately, the statue was coming down on July 26, and Goldblum was busy recording a jazz album in the United States (much more on this later, I promise). He didnt have time to saunter on down to the park to look at a gargantuan representation of his younger self, so he didnt get to see it in person.