Singing and dancing his way into the history books through the 2024 movie Wicked, the effortlessly charming Jeff Goldblum gets to stretch his persona in some exciting ways. However he hasn’t always played the good guy, as anyone who saw his part in 1974’s Death Wish could tell you. Playing “Freak #1” is a notable entry on the Jurassic Park universe legend’s resume, especially since Goldblum has now admitted that he went method and stopped showering for the role.
Needless to say, his co-workers noticed, and pointed it out in prime fashion. As he was chatting with People Magazine about having “trust in the boss” on any film set, Jeff Goldblum offered an early lesson he’d learned which proved that very point. To be fair, his youthful outlook on why he did that for the role is actually not all that weird:
I didn't shower in order to play this street thug. Because I was a nice boy from Pittsburgh, I was like 19 or 20, something like that. And I was rather well-behaved. I had to be this dangerous street criminal.
To say that Mr. Goldblum’s Freak #1 is a piece of work is putting it quite mildly. Through his appearance in the first act of the Charles Bronson franchise starter, he participates in the violation of the main character’s wife and daughter. That Death Wish scene is also particularly memorable, as it has the future Dr. Malcolm saying some very NSFW things you wouldn’t normally expect to hear from the Jeff Goldblum who recently gushed about meeting Scarlett Johansson.
In fact, here's a look at what Jeff Goldblum looked like in this particularly edgy role:
Proclaiming himself as the “nice boy from Pittsburgh” he was, you can definitely see why he’d think this would help with getting into character. But as you could tell by the headline at the top, the star of The Fly was eventually given some much needed feedback, considering the environs he described in this further anecdote:
The assistant director came up to me and said, ‘Jeff, we’re in a small space here. You smell. Can you do something about that?’ Please, please go home and et cetera, et cetera. I was shamed, but it was a good lesson: In show business or any collaborative, close area, keep your hygiene up.
Just as anyone who knows Wicked primarily as a stage play would be shocked to read the difference in Gregory Maguire’s source text, anyone who’s more familiar with the best Jeff Goldblum movies would be taken aback by his role in Death Wish. Thankfully, that feedback would be more focused on the intensity of his character’s vileness, and not the odor he brought to the set.
If you’d like to see more of Jeff Goldblum behaving badly, you can always watch Kaos with your Netflix subscription. And, of course, Wicked is still defying gravity at the movies, with Wicked: Part Two bringing the story to a close on November 21, 2025.