John Goodman has played many iconic roles across his long storied career. However, there was one role he really regretted playing, and that was Fred Flinstone in the live adaptation of The Flintstones.
In fact, he refused to sign up for the sequel. Goodman reportedly went to film producer Steven Spielberg and begged for a way to get out of the sequel. Director Brian Levant said via Deadline that Goodman really didn’t want to film the sequel. He apparently hated filming the first movie and wanted out.
According to Levant, the original plan was to film two of The Flintstones back-to-back like Back to the Future. However, Goodman begged to get out of the movie. He told Spielberg, “Please don’t make me do any more of these.” Goodman didn’t want to be associated with the character for the rest of his career. Ultimately, a sequel did come minus most of the original stars, including Goodman.
Meanwhile, Goodman recently opened up about going through a nervous breakdown late in his career.
“It’s much different now. I feel like I’m still learning,” he said. “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.You know, like planning things way too much, and at the root of that was the fear of losing trust in myself.”
John Goodman Gets Honest About Struggles
Goodman said he ended up putting too much focus on work, which didn’t help his mental state. He added, “I overcompensated by working way too hard. I’ve just kind of come out of that in the last year or so. And there’s so much to learn.”
“It was bad with everything. 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. You’ve got to be relaxed when you do stuff. And open and listen,” he shared. “You have to be ready to listen to yourself. You have to be relaxed. For me, that was the key. I already know this stuff, and that’s one thing I didn’t trust myself about. I don’t know. I’ve been doing the same two roles for the last four or five years, and I haven’t really had much of a chance to do everything else.”
Goodman is still learning how to improve upon himself.
“It’s kind of to help myself and maybe to help somebody else. I’ve been clean about 16 years now,” he said. “The last 16 years I’ve had to grow a lot into my normal age, and it’s been a lot, but I’m glad I did it.” The actor previously opened up about his sobriety and weight loss efforts.
