John Goodman is set to reprise his role as Dan Conner in The Conners, a Roseanne spinoff created after a racist tweet got Roseanne Barr fired. Now, in a wide-ranging interview with the Times of London, John opened up about how emotional he was when Roseanne got canceled — and how he thinks his onscreen wife is “still going through hell.”
John said he went through a period of depression after the show ended so abruptly. “I was broken-hearted, but I thought, ‘OK, it’s just show business, I’m going to let it go.’ But I went through a period, about a month, where I was very depressed,” he said. “I’m a depressive anyway, so any excuse that I can get to lower myself, I will. But that had a great deal to do with it, more than I wanted to admit.”
Roseanne Barr Reacts to ‘The Conners’
He also admitted he was surprised ABC fired Roseanne after her racist tweet. “I was surprised. I’ll put it this way, I was surprised at the response. And that’s probably all I should say about it,” he said. “I know, I know, for a fact that she’s not a racist.”
John said he hasn’t been in touch with Roseanne, and described his relationship with her in past tense. (“We were work friends,” he said.) But he did say he reached out to her to thank her for letting the spinoff happen. “She had to sign a paper saying that she relinquished all her rights to the show so that we could go on. I sent her an email and thanked her for that,” he said. “I did not hear anything back, but she was going through hell at the time. And she’s still going through hell.”
What to Know About ‘The Conners’
Now that The Conners is in the works, John thinks the cast has to work even harder to prove the show is still worth watching. And he gave a glimpse of where he thinks his character, Dan, will go next. “It’s an unknown,” he said. “I guess he’ll be mopey and sad because his wife’s dead.”
