Jeff Goldblum plays ruff
Actor lends his voice to Isle of Dogs.
To hear Jeff Goldblum’s jazzy piano in full swing, catch his Wednesday night gigs in L.A. with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, or simply hang around his house at ungodly hours.
The actor gets up at 5:30 a.m. daily to practice before his wife, kids and dog wake up. “I have a little guest house and some earphones, so I can play away,” Goldblum says.
To hear him as a chatty canine, though, all you have to do is hit up your local cinema for Wes Anderson’s Isle of
Dogs (in theaters Friday). In the stopmotion animated film co-starring Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton and Bill Murray, Goldblum, 65, voices Duke, a dog with a “funny appetite for gossip” who with his furry crew helps a boy find his loyal hound, Spots (Liev Schreiber).
Goldblum, who’s recording a live jazz album in May, talks with USA TODAY about his own pets and the huge reptiles of his next film, Jurassic World: Fallen
Kingdom (out June 22).
Question: At its core, Isle of Dogs is about a boy’s love for his dog. Tell me about your first.
Q: Oh, no.
Goldblum: We had a chocolate-colored poodle named Ginger. There was a kid on a bicycle one day who it nipped at a little bit, I don’t know if it did much damage to him, but there was some complaint made. We went to school one day and when we came home, our mom said the chief of police had come, there was a problem with the dog, but it was going to be OK because he had a farm in upstate Pennsylvania and it was going to live out a happier life there. Of course, now we know that’s the code word for “I think they put it to sleep.”
Goldblum: They may not have, maybe it went to some lovely farm, but we never knew. There was a trauma, especially with my sister, who has since become a religious fanatic about rescuing dogs. When my wife said five years ago, “Maybe we should have a baby” ... we thought we’d get a dog and try out some of the things. Wouldn’t you know it, we got a red-haired standard poodle we call Woody. I see my 21⁄ 2- year-old Charlie Ocean just going crazy for the dog. He has a real Isle of Dogs kind of bond, and it’s healing and delicious. Q: You’re reprising your Jurassic Park role as Dr. Ian Malcolm this summer. Is he excited about more cloned dinosaurs?
Goldblum: He’s become more passionate about it and clarified all my original points of view, which is that science is a wonderful thing, and human curiosity and accomplishment and investigation is spectacular. But those who would use it for exploitation and profit and cheesy show business and ticket sales and, heaven forbid, militaristic leverage, I will fight with every fiber of my being while also having a wry sense of humor.
Q: Where would you rather be: a trash-filled island of dogs or a jungle island of dinos?
Goldblum: Just like alien visitation, there’s no such thing as dinosaurs and we can’t do that. Although as we say in the movie, just like with nuclear power, genetic tinkering is going to become more powerful and we have to really wise up about how we use it. I would rather be on the trash-heap dog island, of course.