I saw a comment on Reddit yesterday with the (slightly) facetious thought that when Jeff Goldblum plays the eccentric character “The Grandmaster” in Thor Ragnarok, he is essentially just playing Jeff Goldblum.
This is not an entirely original idea, that Jeff, in so many words, is a pretty weird guy and that he is not too different from the characters he plays.
That made me think. If Jeff was not an actor, and was just a normal guy, what 9-5 day job do you see him in?
Maybe a musician.
He’s pretty adaptable, as for making a life for himself? he’d find a way.
As quoted in this NPR article about him, and his jazz piano side career:
Also, I agree with the OP that, no matter what character he’s playing on screen Jeff Goldblum pretty much just plays Jeff Goldblum (or, at least, the public Jeff Goldblum persona) these days.
Realtor
Funny.
He’d definitely be in sales.
He’d be managing his wife Geena’s professional archery career.
Entomology?
The thing that makes me weird (yeah, the one and only thing) is that I’ve thought about this in the past. I see him as a college professor. Philosophy or Dead Language Teacher. He’s also kinda pervy with the female students but a lot of them dig it.
Yeah, he’d be that HS teacher who thought of himself as cool and with it, and the students knew him as that weird perv who teaches biology.
Hard to say. He moved to New York at 17 to become an actor, so he never really trained to do anything else. I could see him in radio. His mother was a radio broadcaster in the 60s I think.
Fashion designer.
Aerospace engineer.
I’m sure he would have tried to become a professional musician, although I don’t really know how talented he is.
If not that:
Educator
Salesman
Some kind of agent (literary/showbiz/who knows?)
He’s played piano on several shows (as well as in Earth Girls are Easy). He appears to be pretty good. and, of course, he’s comfortable as an actor, so he’d be a good entertainer. How successful he’d be, I have no idea – it’s a competitive world out there.
I’m thinking Jeff G emanates a very strong but ill-defined, bit-of-money’s-coming-in-but-do-we -really-want-to-know-where vibe, essentially like Kramer. I’m not sure which I’d prefer rooting through my cereal cupboard.
On the retail sale front, he did a fantastic turn in Portlandia selling gift wares. I could see him building on that.
Fashion designer. Check out his instagram for some…interesting fashion statements,
Yes. Well. Yes…uhm. Yes…well ex. yes ex wife…uhh.several wives ago. Yes in fact.