By James Mottram
“It’s nice,” John Goodman replies when asked how he’s enjoying London, where he’s doing international press for Trumbo. “I had to do a chat show on ITV this morning for another film,” laughs the actor, who spent a number of months in the city while appearing in the West End production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo, opposite Damian Lewis and Tom Sturridge. “Next time I come to London, I want to actually get out! I love it. I wanted to stay after American Buffalo. I’d love to stay…as long as someone else is paying!”
If an American actor doing press in London for a movie about Hollywood might seem strange, then that’s perfectly fitting for the true life tale, Trumbo, a film about a time when the whole of the United States seemingly tumbled down the rabbit hole. Directed by Jay Roach (Meet The Parents, Austin Powers), and adapted from Bruce Cook’s book, Trumbo tells of prolific Hollywood screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, the most famous of the blacklisted film professionals known as The Hollywood 10. With America gripped by anti-communist fervour in the forties and fifties, the movie industry was seen as a hotbed of leftist dissent, and many found themselves on unofficial blacklists as a result of their ideologies. A longtime leftist, Trumbo was out in the cold, but continued to work – at a near non-stop rate – under various pseudonyms.
In the film, John Goodman plays Frank King, one of the three sibling founders of King Brothers Productions, a money-grabbing production house best known for their work with pioneering schlock-meister and sales gimmick master, William Castle. King hired Trumbo to do clandestine work on many King Brothers productions, including two of the company’s best: 1956’s The Brave One and 1949’s Gun Crazy. It was Hollywood players like Frank King who kept Dalton Trumbo afloat creatively, before movie star and producer, Kirk Douglas, publicly broke The Blacklist by asking Trumbo to write the screenplay for his 1960 historical epic, Spartacus. “Frank King just had nothing to lose,” Goodman says of the producer’s daring in hiring Dalton Trumbo. “He’s probably the purest capitalist in the film, meaning that he would hire anybody to do anything just so that he could grind his product out without problems. He had nothing to lose, and no problems. He just thought, ‘Give me my product and make it quick.’”
The irony of a rampaging capitalist like Frank King happily giving work to a bull-headed socialist like Dalton Trumbo is one of the many tart, pithy observations made in the film. “It was in the script all along,” Goodman replies when asked how he affected the film’s tricky tone, with its mix of comedy and drama. “It could have been handled, I think, in a ham-handed manner, just pounding out one-note accusations, and screaming, ‘J’accuse!’ Instead, it’s been handled with a deft touch, much in the spirit of Dalton Trumbo himself, who kept a wit about him, even while he was under incredible duress. This film was written in the spirit of Trumbo.”
For Goodman, Trumbo is a chance to introduce this dark period in Hollywood history to those who may never have heard about it. “It’s well known among actors of a certain age,” Goodman offers. “When I came into the business in 1975, I came to New York, and I met people who were affected by The Blacklist, and who knew other people who were even more affected by The Blacklist. There were two plays by Arthur Miller that dealt with The Blacklist: The Crucible and After The Fall. I knew those plays pretty well. And I also became acquainted with it through the works of Elia Kazan, and his writings, and Lilian Hellman as well, and her book, Scoundrel Time. I was well aware of it, but getting closer to the situation makes you wonder what you would do. I don’t know. You have to put yourself in the shoes of Edward G. Robinson,” Goodman says of the Hollywood star, who named communist-affiliated organisations but not individuals when pressed by the communist-chasing House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). “All that he had to trade on was his face…he was already using an assumed [stage] name.”
It’s a position that Goodman could well relate to, with the actor having built a large and impressive resume on his now instantly recognisable visage, which has been known to viewers since he made his first big splash as the loveable Dan Conner on the long running sitcom, Roseanne. “When it first happened to me, I reacted badly,” Goodman says of receiving his first taste of fame. “I just…overreacted. I turned inward. I got secondary focus off [star] Rosanne [Barr] because of all her capers, and the tabloid press were after her, so I was collateral damage. I didn’t like it. I missed my anonymity. But you do plan your life around it, and you try to make the best of it. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work.”
And work the ever busy John Goodman continues to do, with upcoming roles in Luc Besson’s Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets; the animation, Ratchet And Clank; and the highly anticipated 10 Cloverfield Lane. But when asked about the most gargantuan of his future projects – the big budget adventure of Kong: Skull Island – John Goodman is amusingly tight lipped. “I’m doing a monster movie,” he smiles. “That’s all I know.”
Trumbo is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital from June 16.