John Goodman is an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor with a legendary track record across film and television, but he still struggles with self-doubt about his career.
Appearing on the latest episode of the SmartLess podcast, Goodman opened up to hosts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes about his life and career, revealing he “practically had a nervous breakdown” over the past year and is now coming out the other side of it.
“It’s much different now. I feel like I’m still learning,” Goodman said (per the New York Post), noting how he lacks the same motivation in acting as he did when he was younger. “The last couple of years have been goofy for me because I’ve been trying to be good — and it doesn’t work that way.”
“You know, like planning things way too much,” he added.
The Conners star, who has shed 200 pounds in the past year or more, revealed that his current issue is “the fear of losing trust in myself.”
“I overcompensated by working way too hard. I’ve just kind of come out of that in the last year or so,” he continued. “And there’s so much to learn.”
When asked how he got past that, Goodman stated, “[by] practically having a nervous breakdown.”
“It was bad with everything. It just purged out of me when I went to the therapist one day. And then for the rest of the day it was horrible. Nothing worked,” he explained.
However, the Argo actor said he eventually found internal peace and is now back in a good place.
“You’ve got to be relaxed when you do stuff. And open and listen,” he said.
For the past few years, Goodman has starred as the family patriarch Dan Conner in ABC’s Roseanne spin-off The Conners and as Dr. Elijah “Eli” Gemstone on the HBO series The Righteous Gemstones.
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When asked if he’s looking to take on different roles as he gets older, Goodman stated, “I don’t know. I’ve been doing the same two roles for the last four or five years, and I haven’t really had much of a chance to do everything else.”
Most recently, Goodman reprised his role from Kong: Skull Island as the older Bill Randa for the Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
Goodman, who has been open about his struggles and battles with sobriety in the past, said he chooses to talk about these things publicly in the hopes it can help others.
“I’ve been clean about 16 years now,” he shared. “The last 16 years I’ve had to grow a lot into my normal age, and it’s been a lot, but I’m glad I did it.”
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