Jeff Goldblum Talks 'Wicked’ & Singing Obscure Show Tunes With Ariana Grande

For W’s annual The Originals portfolio, we asked stars of film, fashion, art, music, and more to share their insights on staying true to themselves. See this year’s full class of creatives here.

You portray the Greek god Zeus in the Netflix series Kaos and the Wizard of Oz in the upcoming film adaptation of Wicked. In other words, you’ve won the acting lottery, to be able to play arguably two of the most iconic roles in cinematic history.

I’m thrilled about it. This year—and the last decade—has been gratifying and delicious and dreamy. I pinch myself every day. My gratitude is bursting—busted out all over.

Both roles, in Kaos and Wicked, offer a departure from past interpretations—darker, more egotistical, paranoid…tasteless even.

Zeus and the Wizard of Oz are larger-than-life characters. But this is a scary Zeus, which is unexpected in some ways. Wicked, particularly, wants to fill in the human, logical, and accessible aspects of all those characters, including the ­Wizard, who is, yes, in a ­position of authority—abusing his authority, in some ways, and still has much to learn—but he has some good aspects. He’s a little bit of a Tesla figure: hard at work, excitedly, with inventions of all kinds. He’s full of childlike wonderment, enthusiasm, and infectious ­charisma. Now that I’m thinking about it, like Zeus, the Wizard has an unfulfilled connection with his own family life.

I am going to read to you some comments from YouTubers reacting to the trailer for Kaos: “Jeff Goldblum has major swagger overload.” “Goldblum is a God among men whose acting is already chaos personified—so yeah, this fits.” “Even if this was just a show about watching Jeff Goldblum mowing his yard, I would watch it.”

Those are very sweet—very, very sweet. But, really, it’s the cast. Janet McTeer, who plays Hera to my Zeus, is so great. We met while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve always adored David Thewlis, who plays my brother Hades. I’d never met him before. Hanging out with him, I excavated stories about ­Marlon Brando, because they became pals on that famous [documentary about the] making of The Island of Dr. Moreau. He had great stories about Brando, which I collect anytime, from anybody.

I didn’t realize you were obsessed with Brando. How long have—

What the heck? Oh, look, it’s Emilie [Goldblum’s wife, the Canadian dancer and Olympic rhythmic gymnast]! And our dog, Woody! See, Woody, there’s Alex Hawgood. And Alex, here’s Woody, a standard poodle who is 10 at this point and just got his hair done yesterday.

A well-groomed poodle is heaven.

Look how he looks at you! Woody, gaze at Alex a little bit more with those sensitive eyes!

Is Woody sensitive to the fact that you recently worked with two of America’s most acclaimed vocal powerhouses, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, for Wicked?

We sang every song that I could think of in between takes—from musicals, which they know, to jazz standards, which they also know, to really anything. We were always singing. Can you imagine me opening up my ears and hearing their voices every day of the shoot? I was just weepy with joy. They’re both prolific, as you know, and have a huge body of work. In the makeup trailer, I used to look up ­Cynthia Erivo online and just put on some things that I had never heard before and get weepy. She’s amazing. On ­YouTube, I found Ariana doing a cover of “All I Want for ­Christmas Is You,” which I played over and over again. Halfway through the shooting, Ariana says, “Look, we took a picture together.” I was like, “What were you doing at that show, The ­Pillowman, on Broadway?” And she tells me, “I came to see it with my mom. I was 12. We came two nights in a row and waited for you backstage so I could take a picture with you.” She showed me this picture of us, and I said, “Send me that immediately!”

Reunited, almost two decades later.

I kept playing the soundtrack to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Sherie Rene Scott. One day, I started to sing this song “Here I Am,” and Ariana goes, “Would ya look at that coffered ceiling / look at that chandelier.” Ariana started to sing—and she knew every lyric! She said, “I love her. I love that song.” She sang the whole song, and then she left another rendition of the entire song on my phone. I’m the luckiest boy in the world. Can you imagine? The music that comes out of Cynthia and ­Ariana—the artistry and the mastery and the humanity and the depths of their beauty—is just a gift to the world.

You forget sometimes that so many of these naturally gifted performers are also huge theater nerds.

Isn’t that interesting? I consider myself a humble student of craft, obsessive even. These days, I’m not shy about the fact that I’m curious, kind of ­vigorously curious. So I asked both of them at one point, “What happened? How did you get like this? When did you first discover that you had something big in here, something that’s connected to your brain, into your system and, in this mysterious way, in your ear? What did you study?” I asked them about all that. It’s fascinating to me.

From how they answered those questions, what can we conclude about the nature of creativity?

It’s usually a combination of being mysteriously gifted and, to one extent or another, a work ethic—the 10,000 hours that people talk about. It’s everybody’s unique combination of those things. And then, when developing your own way, you have to learn your own ballet of how you work. How much, like training a puppy, you let yourself off the leash and have fun with it. But the answer to what works, and when it does, is different every day. As you keep going, it just keeps changing.

Grooming by David Cox for R+Co at Art Department; Photo Assistant: George Wolf; Fashion Assistant: Hannah Friedman. Special thanks to Chateau Marmont.