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Sun 19 October 2025 19:45, UK
No matter how great or prolific an actor is, there’s always some role they wished they’d played or some part they wished they’d taken. As the stars we grew up with continue to age, more and more their interviews are dedicated to these kinds of regrets.
Even someone as nonchalant and eccentric as Jeff Goldblum has commiserations. Despite playing everything from aliens and a human-fly hybrid to the Wizard in Wicked, there’s still a few roles that happened to pass him by.
If you didn’t already know, the iconic actor is actually a jazz musician in his own right. With his jazz band The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, he’s played jazz clubs and even brought out three albums. It makes sense then that one of his dearest wishes for his time i the movie industry was to combine those passions and play a musician in a film.
So, it seems somewhat of a missed opportunity that he’s never really gotten to show off his musical prowess on screen. And apparently it’s a sentiment many have shared, “People have said to me, “Oh, we should do a movie about Dave Brubeck,” but biopics are tough,” he told The New York Times Magazine.
While biopics are indeed tough, and somewhat tired at this point, it would have been interesting to see Goldblum step into the shoes of Brubeck. The American pianist and composer was the originator of ‘cool jazz’, a descriptor that could be applied to Goldblum in pretty much everything he does. Alas, not only has there been no Dave Brubeck biopic, but the only time we’ve seen Goldblum perform in a movie was in Wicked.
“Early on, my manager was trying to develop a Nikola Tesla story,” he told NYT when asked if he had a dream biopic. But sadly, this second role he was dying to play never made it his way. “I’m too old now,” he lamented. It’s hard to believe, given the man’s seemingly never-ageing visage, but he is now 72, so rightly, he probably isn’t the best fit for that one.
While Goldblum extinguished any hopes of playing the inventor, Tesla lived to the grand old age of 86, so there’s a chance the former Jurassic Park man could find a role as perhaps the latter years inventor. But, the real nail in the coffin was that, in 2020, Ethan Hawke seemingly beat him to the punch as he took on the role, with some generally considered grace, though it was a little ravaged in the reviews.
Maybe, if we’d gotten a straight-up and down biopic with Goldblum as the star, it would have fared differently, but then again, we don’t need more biopics. As much as Goldblum himself wishes he’d gotten to play this part, I think it’s best that he’s been saved for much more eccentric and original parts.
But here’s hoping we one day get to see the Blum play some cool jazz in a film, now that’s something I’d watch. For now, we’ll have to make do with his band, if they ever release more music.
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