John Goodman

Retired movie makeup artist Robert Sidell got chills when he met actor John Goodman at the party following the Beverly Hills premiere earlier this month of Ben Affleck's acclaimed new film "Argo. " It was like seeing an old friend again. Goodman plays real-life Oscar-winning movie makeup artist John Chambers, who created the makeup for the 1968 classic "Planet of the Apes," as well as Spock's ears for the original "Star Trek" series. Chambers was one of the key players who helped CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck)

It's been a roller coaster of an awards season for the cast and crew of the political thriller "Argo. " In the weeks since director and star Ben Affleck was passed over for an Oscar nomination for best director, the film has won big at the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild Awards and now the SAG Awards. Just a few hours before stepping on stage with Affleck and fellow cast members to accept the SAG Award for best ensemble in a motion picture, "Argo's" John Goodman spoke with Times reporter Amy Kaufman on the red carpet about how Affleck has been handling the twists and turns.

It's been a roller coaster of an awards season for the cast and crew of the political thriller "Argo. " In the weeks since director and star Ben Affleck was passed over for an Oscar nomination for best director, the film has won big at the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild Awards and now the SAG Awards. Just a few hours before stepping on stage with Affleck and fellow cast members to accept the SAG Award for best ensemble in a motion picture, "Argo's" John Goodman spoke with Times reporter Amy Kaufman on the red carpet about how Affleck has been handling the twists and turns.

Click here to download TV listings for the week Dec. 23 - 29 in PDF format This week's TV Movies   SERIES 30 Rock: Liz (Tina Fey) tries to convince Tracy (Tracy Morgan) that women can be just as funny as men in this repeat episode (8 p.m. NBC). The Mindy Project: The Mindy Kaling sitcom offers four repeat episodes (8, 8:30, 9 and 9:30 p.m. Fox). Apollo Live: Bell Biv Devoe performs and the winner is revealed in the talent competition's season finale (8 p.m. BET)

Picture a Populist Democratic leader who cheats, lies, panders, philanders, plots thuggery, steals from the rich to give to the poor, champions minorities for his own cynical ends, and makes a fortune preaching something close to socialism. OK, now picture one who's not even a figment of Rush Limbaugh's imagination. John Goodman is such a juicy choice to play '20s/'30s politico Huey P.

Prime time is a cave dweller that must always be dragged kicking, screaming and rubbing its eyes into the glaring sunlight of diversity. So gay's the way now, thanks only to ABC's "Ellen," which begat NBC's "Will & Grace," whose popularity makes possible "Normal, Ohio," a new Fox comedy starring behemoth John Goodman as a self-outed homosexual whose ignorant father calls him a "big showgirl." Among other derisive epithets, that is, in a series that slings one cheap gay joke after another.

Larry Coshow insists he looks nothing like John Goodman, the actor who plays Roseanne's paunchy and good-natured husband on the television show "Roseanne." But police apparently thought so when they pulled over the 44-year-old Huntington Beach mechanic in October, 1992, near a toy store on Springdale Street.

John Goodman is discovering that the most difficult thing about success is not getting it, but learning to live with it. For one thing, it has made him wary of the press, though not without reason. TV fame has attracted ragsheet reporters to hound him (one tabloid tried to wreck his New Orleans wedding last fall by sending over a stripper), and even legitimate journalists are often more interested in Roseanne Barr's latest explosion than in the explosion of his career.

JOHN GOODMAN is on his way to dinner at a Westwood deli when he stops dead in his tracks in front of a neighborhood cigar shop. The sights and smells hold him in their grasp as he gazes in longingly from the sidewalk. An older man sitting near the entrance stares a few moments before inquiring, "Hey, aren't you John Goodman?" "Um, used to be," the actor fires back, continuing on his way but promising to return after his meal. The man smiles understandingly.

Temperatures in the Valley have fallen to the "chilling" 60s--arctic by L.A. standards. On the CBS Studio Center lot, production assistants battle pesky winds as they hurry script revisions down Gilligan's Island Road and up Mary Tyler Moore Avenue. On Stage 14, the new home of Fox's "Normal, Ohio," the AC forces the crew to congregate around the coffee machine as if it were Buddha himself.

Retired movie makeup artist Robert Sidell got chills when he met actor John Goodman at the party following the Beverly Hills premiere earlier this month of Ben Affleck's acclaimed new film "Argo. " It was like seeing an old friend again. Goodman plays real-life Oscar-winning movie makeup artist John Chambers, who created the makeup for the 1968 classic "Planet of the Apes," as well as Spock's ears for the original "Star Trek" series. Chambers was one of the key players who helped CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck)

TORONTO -- Ben Affleck's crowd-pleasing political thriller “Argo” earned a few ovations when it played at the Telluride Film Festival last week, but, really, the screening there was just a warm-up act to its Toronto gala premiere Friday night. “Any self-respecting Canadian of a particular age knows what happened,” said festival chief operating officer Michele Maheux, introducing the film and its actor-director Ben Affleck. “Now, through 'Argo,' we discover the how.” There were plenty of self-respecting Canadians of a particular vintage seated in the cavernous Roy Thomson Hall, and they cheered loudly and often throughout the movie.

“Flight,” starring Denzel Washington as a pilot who saves almost all his passengers after a nearly miraculous crash landing, will be the closing night film at the New York Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the Paramount Pictures film's supporting cast includes Melissa Leo, Kelly Reilly, John Goodman and Don Cheadle. It will screen at the New York festival on Oct. 14, and open in general release Nov. 2. “Flight” marks Zemeckis' return to directing live-action films after a number of years on animated projects like “Mars Needs Moms” and “Polar Express.”  Previously, Zemeckis had hits with films including “Cast Away,” “Forrest Gump” and “Back to the Future.”  The New York Film Festival runs Sept.

If "Drunkboat" understands anything, it's the louche intensity with which John Malkovich commands a frame, whether staring into space with a cigarette or teetering under the influence of Cutty Sark. In most other respects, though, this self-consciously mannered indie fails to ignite. Adapted by co-writer/director Bob Meyer from his own autobiographical play, the story drops Malkovich's reformed-drunk Vietnam vet Mort at the suburban house of his long-estranged widower sister (Dana Delany)

Fans of classic TV may always look into John Goodman's face and want to cry out, "Dan!" — recalling him as the gentle working-class husband he played for nine seasons on "Roseanne." Goodman's OK with that, but lately he's been working on shifting his image with other roles, working alongside Al Pacino in HBO's "You Don't Know Jack" and in a regular part on David Simon's "Treme." Plus, with "Treme," Goodman gets to work out of his own backyard, as a longtime resident of New Orleans.

There are three intertwining streams of interest in the unfortunately, if aptly, titled "You Don't Know Jack," a new HBO TV film about Jack Kevorkian, the assisted-suicide man. There is Kevorkian himself, played by Al Pacino, and the imagined private life of a figure known mostly in news bites, all around the single issue of euthanasia and his hands-on crusade to gain it legitimacy — the man behind the myth, the usual draw of the biopic....

Dorothy McGuire, Mel Ferrer and Gregory Peck founded the original La Jolla Playhouse in 1947 as a creative summer home for movie stars like themselves, as well as New York theater folks who'd come to "The Coast" for TV and picture work. Soon, all Hollywood knew about the thespian playground amid the palms. Tinseltown veterans and recent transplants alike finagled to fit in their dates down south without taking too much toll on their more lucrative gigs in Los Angeles.

A Goody: "Roseanne" actor John Goodman and his wife, Annabeth, are parents of a girl. Molly Evangeline Goodman was born Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Goodman's spokesman said. She weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces. The Goodmans--he is 37, she is 22--were married last October.

John Goodman isn't the kind of actor who revels in the media spotlight. His default conversation is self-deprecating, his words tumbling forth in a low grumble that makes him all at once difficult to hear and curmudgeonly charming. But mention one of his most beloved topics and his voice booms with clarity. "For so many reasons, it has just never been an overachiever," he says. He's speaking of New Orleans, the adopted city he's called home for more than a decade. "Or even an achiever," he adds.

John Goodman has been sued by a German production company that claims the actor backed out of an agreement to star in one of its films. Constantin Film Produktion alleges that Goodman agreed to receive $500,000 to appear in "Pope Joan," which was scheduled to begin filming in May, according to papers filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. On March 14, Goodman's representatives informed Constantin via e-mail that the actor would not be appearing in the film, the papers claimed.