Though Roseanne Barr and John Goodman have been friends for more than three decades, the dynamic duo couldn’t be more excited to be reuniting on-screen again in the new Roseanne reboot. “Every day, I pinch myself and wonder, is this the most fun in the world or the onset of dementia?” Roseanne, 65, joked during a recent joint interview with John, also 65, for AARP The Magazine.
Roseanne previously aired on ABC for nine seasons from 1988 to 1997 and now, the Conner family is returning to TV with an eight-episode revival set to premiere on Tuesday, March 27. John is, of course, thrilled to be back with Roseanne and the rest of the cast, but he did admit that playing Dan Conner is a bit “harder” today! “Daddy gets tired; Daddy gets a headache and can’t remember his lines sometimes… I thought for some reason I was expert on humor when I was younger. I don’t have to work so hard to be funny now,” he told AARP.
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“There’s an upside to the creaks and pains of age… It forced me to slow down, which is good. If you fight your body as it ages, you’re not gonna win… You can still be kinda hot at 65, in your own mind,” Roseanne said. John agreed that growing older hasn’t totally been a walk in the park. “I’ve got bionic parts now,” he said, referring to his set of titanium knees. “You live through enough and survive, you have to make peace with your flaws and your broken pieces.”
But the pair agreed aging definitely also has its perks. “I’ve carved a lot of the chaos out of my life. Now it’s more relaxed,” Roseanne said to which Dan added, “I started looking back fondly and realized how lucky I had been — and I really feel that now.”
When they’re not acting, both Roseanne and John enjoy spending time away from Hollywood with their respective families. Roseanne is a mother-of-five and a grandmother while John is a dad to one adult daughter, Molly Goodman. “I swear and stuff — everything their parents don’t want me to do, I like to do. We get in the pool and have squirt gun fights… My grandkids know how to grow their own food, too, and that’s what I wanted them to know more than anything — how not to be dependent. I thought I made all the statements I wanted to make as a comic… as a grandparent, I realize there’s way more to say, like watching how your kids raise their kids,” Roseanne said of being a grandma.
roseanne barr john goodman aarp the magazine
Robert Trachtenberg for _AARP The Magazine_
“That’s a big part of the reboot, and it’s a big part of my life, too,” she continued. “They’re just so dependent on technology, and it’s all different. They talk a whole different language, y’know?” John similarly added, “I have a daughter that I worried about for a while. She grew up with an alcoholic father until she was in high school. But things are great now. They’re probably a lot better than I thought they would turn out. When you’re younger, you don’t know yourself that well. I’ve maybe not learned a lot, but I’ve learned to appreciate things that I should have before.”
