Goldblum goes to the dogs and refines Jurassic cloning
To hear Jeff Goldblum’s jazzy piano in full swing, catch his Wednesday night gigs in Los Angeles with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, or simply hang around his house at ungodly hours.
The wonderfully weird actor gets up at 5:30 a.m. daily to practise 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, don’t miss Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. 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 young boy find his loyal hound Spots (Liev Schreiber).
Goldblum will record a live jazz album in May and has his next film, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, out on June 22.
Q: You’re reprising your Jurassic Park role as Dr. Ian Malcolm this summer. Is he excited about more cloned dinosaurs? A: He has 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 fibre of my being, while also having a wry sense of humour.
Q: Where would you rather be: a trash-filled island of dogs or a jungle island of dinos? A: 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. I’d like to help those sweet persecuted underdogs and join the good fight.