With over fifty years in show business, there is a high probability that you will have encountered Jeff Goldblum on screen. That could have been as Jurassic Park‘s ‘chaotician’, Ian Malcolm, or Wes Anderson‘s cat-wielding Deputy Kovacs from The Grand Budapest Hotel. Maybe it was the box office hit Wicked or the highly acclaimed Netflix show Kaos that’s caused him to reappear in front of your eyes more recently.
Not many people get to say that they’ve broken the fourth wall and experienced him in real life. I’m… also not one of those people.
Goldblum has been living in Florence for the last year with his family, and it’s where he’s dialling in from as we talk over Zoom. In a few weeks time, Goldblum and The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, the jazz band that he founded in 2018, will be performing their latest album, ‘Still Blooming’ at The London Palladium.
But we’re also logging on to talk about the Brain Dead capsule that’s been created as ‘merch’ for the album – a natural next step for a man who is as well known for his wardrobe as he is his day job. We asked him about the collab, his advice on finding your personal style and the importance of having no regret with your fashion choices.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Hi Jeff. How did Brain Dead get involved with this capsule collection?
I’ll tell you exactly as you might be interested in Kyle NG, he’s the head of Brain Dead. I met him several years ago through another friend. I was always poking my nose around clothing, and I had a friend in Los Angeles who was making boots. I started getting very interested in talking about all manner of clothes with him. He said, ‘You should meet this friend of mine [Kyle NG].’
I went to his apartment, and he gave me some pants. Anyway, fast forward to him starting Brain Dead – he’s very good with clothing. He’s very hip and sophisticated and interesting. And he’s got a team that’s good with graphics. They did this thing that you probably have seen, [pics up vinyl sleeve of the new album ‘Still Blooming’] you know, so we collaborated with their team on making that, and they’re just very good with that stuff. And then for this album – which we’re more excited about than even the other three albums, very excited about the music and how we’ve evolved and what we’re doing and how we’re going to start to play out and about – the idea came up about having some merch with Brain Dead and Decca [Records], and so we made these things that I like very much. Have you seen the items?
I haven’t seen them in real life but I’ve seen the pictures, they look great. I love the bowling shirt.
I like that bowling shirt too, but I still don’t have that in my closet. I wore a prototype for that photo shoot we did the other day, you may have seen some of those pictures. I have things like that in my closet, but you know, having my name on the back of it might make it unwearable for me in certain circumstances, but I like it anyway. And I like that canvas jacket because I like… you see this, this Miu Miu thing, [points to jacket] which I got the other day, I’m very interested in it. What do you call it? A mailman’s jacket, or…
A Harrington jacket. It looks bit like that, from what I can see.
A Britishism: a Harrington jacket. Like this, [stands up to show off jacket] It’s like a working man’s, lunch pail-style jacket. So, I like that. And so that Brain Dead piece is in that style, I like it because it has that bird on the pocket with my initials and my name on the back. I like the socks. I like a nice pair of socks. I’m a bit of a sock. I have a real interest in all these articles of clothing, and we can talk at length about all these things, but I like socks. In fact, I just got a shipment of socks that I’m obsessed with.
Where do you buy your socks?
There’s a place in Florence where I’ve gotten some, but I’m always doing research. You know the Pantherella sock? I wouldn’t know about them if it weren’t for [my stylist, Andrew Vottero]. Recently, I just have a hankering for colours. So he sent me a shipment of all the colours that he likes. Currently, I’m wearing one that is… [Jeff lifts his ankle up to camera, showing off a pair of duck egg-blue socks] I have a bunch of different ones, I change the colour every day. It really perks up my spirits.
Can you tell me a bit about the inspiration behind the illustrations?
My sister, with whom I have been close with these many decades, is a great painter and artist. She has done pictures of me here and there, and we used one of her drawings of me for inside the sleeve. That’s where that comes from, I’m always eager to use her delicious drawings.
Then the illustration is a Brain Dead thing that, along with me and Andrew, we just started to brainstorm about the theme: the flowers and [with the album name] ‘Still Blooming’. You get the idea.
Let’s talk about your style, as you’ve become a bit of a fashion icon. Were you always interested in clothes? Or is that something you developed in the last decade?
Here’s the story, in a nutshell. I was always an interesting little boy I think, and early on, I had a flair for drawing and painting. I went to special art classes, and we had this thing that we had to do while we were in class. It was called a thumbnail sketch, and a couple of weeks in a row, I would do different versions of a man’s shirt and tie combination, you know, like that. [Shows the illustration that he’s just sketched]
This was the mid-60s, long before you were born, and I saw, I think, Sammy Davis Jr, from the Rat Pack and people like that, even Frank Sinatra, wearing a Nehru jacket and a turtleneck and a medallion, and I went with my mum to the department store, and sure enough, they were selling some appropriated version of that.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 10 years old, but I remember the day we went in and I saw these John Lennon wire circular frames, and they were the only ones like that. I got them, and I was a little nervous to wear them to school, because I knew they were different and that I would be different, but I liked them. Then when I went to New York after Pittsburgh, I was set free. I like costumes. I was studying serious acting with Sandy [Sanford] Meisner. I was getting clothes and working from the inside out, but also the outside in, getting the right pair of shoes and seeing how that made you walk, and how something made you feel, and how some colour acted upon you, and the texture, what that did to you. I was interested in all that in terms of how I could be creative.
Do you have any tips for men on how to develop their personal style?
How many people are on this Earth right now? We’re lucky, we can protect ourselves from the weather and hide our private parts if we want, other people aren’t so lucky. So all of this is just entitled talk, of course; that we have some choice at all.
Having said that, it’s such a personal and case by case matter that I would say: don’t go with what you’re supposed to do. Don’t try to impress anybody. I mean, you want to live in society, and you’re trying to accomplish many things depending on your tasks and your life purpose and the many roles you play and you want to be appropriate, but there’s only one you. There’s no better version of you than you and trust you’re the authority of your own feelings. You can’t make up your own facts and reality, but you can be the authority of how you feel. So, what you like, you can start to trust more and more. That’s the beginning of opening the door to developing your creative and aesthetic.
If you could be a creative director of a fashion brand, what one would it be?
You know, I’m still learning. Mrs. Prada and all the people have been so nice to us there. I don’t know that I’d be creative director, but I’d do anything. I’d sweep up if it was to hang around those people at Prada. They’re very, very nice and very gracious and elegant and stylish and brilliant. Jonathan Anderson has been fun to hang around with recently, and he’s the tippity top of the of the cream of the crop, of course, and wherever he goes. It’s been fun to feel like I’m doing anything that those types are doing.
Do you believe in fashion faux pas?
Basically, no. It’s your taste. I mean, is there criteria for what’s right and what quality means? Maybe. And you know, if you’re Mrs. Prada and you’re talking to Jonathan Anderson, I’m sure they’d have an interesting conversation about what makes something good and worthwhile and worth investing your time and money on. But no, I don’t think you can make a mistake.
I like the space, may we say, where you feel that it’s like a good rehearsal. I heard Cate Blanchett talking recently.
I just saw her, by the way, in The Seagull, which you must go to see at the Barbican before she leaves it. I was blubbering. I went backstage to see her, eyes blubbering in tears for the second time. The first time I went back to see her was after she did A Streetcar Named Desire in Brooklyn, and I was blubbering. She must think that I’m always blubbering. I know her a little bit. We’ve been a couple of movies together. But anyway, what was I gonna say? Before I got sidetracked, I was onto something good.
She was saying that her favourite thing is the rehearsal room when she’s rehearsing a play, particularly, because you can’t make a mistake, and you’re there to make mistakes and to try things. Well, I think that’s the nice way of thinking about life and most opportunities for how you want to be.
Jeff Goldblum and The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra are playing at the London Palladium on April 24th, you can get tickets here. ‘Still Blooming’ releases on April 25th, and the capsule collection is available to buy here.
