Actor John Goodman has opened up about his mental health struggles and how this has impacted his lengthy career in film and television.
On the SmartLess podcast, Goodman’s conversation with the hosts and fellow actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes turned to the topic of mental health. While Goodman has had an incredibly successful career and has worked constantly since his breakout in the 1980s TV series Roseanne, he claimed that his intense work ethic was merely a plaster over major issues. Instead, he’s now learning to work less and not use that as a way to cover up his struggles.
“I overcompensated by working way too hard. I’ve just kind of come out of that in the last year or so,” Goodman explained to the hosts. “And there’s so much to learn.” He said that attempting to work less and tackle his issues has been his aim for the past few years, stating it’s “much different now”.
Goodman continued, “I feel like I’m still learning. 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.”
However, the process hasn’t been easy. Goodman said that the only way he was able to learn that lesson and begin to overcome this patterns was by “practically having a nervous breakdown.”
“It was bad with everything,” he said about the worst point of his mental health that spurred his work to recover. “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 added.
Goodman has taken on plenty of iconic roles in his time, notably featuring in classic films such as Blues Brothers 2000, The Flintstones and David Byrne’s True Stories. The actor is also a regular collaborator with the Coen Brothers as he starred in several of their movies, including The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? And Inside Llewyn Davis.
Even with such a successful career and a lengthy filmography to his name, Goodman’s anxieties hit him worst later in his life as he seemed to suddenly face up to a wave of self-doubt. He said that “the fear of losing trust in myself” has been his core issue lately in both his life and career.
However, no art is worth sacrificing the mental health of its maker, and no actor should worsen their mental state for the sake of a project. Goodman also knows that a good performance requires a healthy mind and a balanced emotional state. “You’ve got to be relaxed when you do stuff. And open and listen,” he said as he attempted to recoup and get back to work.
