The NBC drama Smash, returning for its second season early next year, offered a backstage look at a fictional Broadway production. Much of the show’s dramatic tension involved the musical’s writers’ effort to tell an honest story in the face of intense market pressure. Read More
Despite rave reviews for Alan Rickman and the cast of Theresa Rebeck‘s caustic comedy of literature and sex, Seminar, the Broadway show shuttered last Sunday in a whimper, not a bang. This blow came one month after an almost complete turnover in the cast, with new members Justin Long, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Jeff Goldblum taking over from Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe, and Mr. Rickman, respectively. Read More
“When it seems as if I’m sabotaging my own career,” Jeff Goldblum was saying, leaning back in his booth at Josephine Café Français in Tribeca, “you find out that it’s still very much alive and flourishing. I’m in a growth spurt. I’m actually very open to this new creativity.”
In a black leather jacket and a faded pink Thelonious Monk shirt, Mr. Goldblum looked astonishingly young for a man who will be turning 60 this year. But the bigger surprise was his candor about his career. After becoming an unlikely sex symbol in the ’80s and ’90s for movies like Jurassic Park, Independence Day and David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Mr. Goldblum had fallen into semi-obscurity in the new millennium—popping up in the occasional indie film (Igby Goes Down, The Life Aquatic) or Broadway show (Pillowman), but mostly languishing in a number of unremarkable flops. Read More
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If the theater isn’t your thing, you might want to reconsider renouncing the Great White Way (thanks, Smash, for making that term ubiquitous again) until after buying tickets for Seminar. Jeff Goldblum, who is second maybe only to Neil Patrick Harris and John Malkovich in self-satirizing, told Jimmy Kimmel last night that he will be taking over for Alan Rickman in Theresa Rebeck‘s Seminar as the grumpy teacher, Leonard. Oh man, but will he be doing it as drunk Jeff Goldblum?? Read More
