Actor discusses the tumultuous summer of 2018 with The Times of London.
Actor John Goodman, in his first major interview since ABC’s cancellation of “Roseanne” in May, has come to the defense of the former show’s embattled namesake, Roseanne Barr. “I know, I know, for a fact that she’s not a racist,” Goodman told The Sunday Times for a feature story published Sunday (Aug. 26).
The interview — conducted over a cup of cappuccino at an unidentified coffee shop in New Orleans, where Goodman lives — comes three months after ABC yanked the revived “Roseanne” off the air in response to a Tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett that many declared racist and which the network deemed “abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values.”
“I was broken-hearted, but I thought, ‘OK, it’s just show business, I’m going to let it go,'” Goodman said of his reaction to the cancellation of the show. “But I went through a period, about a month, where I was very depressed. 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.”
Since then, Goodman and his fellow “Roseanne” co-stars have been at work on a spinoff series titled “The Conners.” It will debut this fall. Notably absent from the cast is Barr, who also signed away her rights to the characters as a condition for it to move forward. Goodman suggested her character will be killed off in the new series.
On Monday, Barr took to Twitter to express gratitude for her former co-star’s support, writing: “I thank John Goodman for speaking truth about me, despite facing certain peril from producers and network.”
That being said, Goodman — who doesn’t offer share his political views — made it clear he and Barr are not quite cut from the same cloth when it comes to such issues. Dismissing President Donald Trump as someone who’s “in it for himself,” Goodman said, “People are struggling, but they’re looking to the wrong people for answers. They’re distracted by race and immigration instead of standing up for themselves. I’m rather a big fan of labor unions.”
Read the full interview at The Times website (registration required).
