ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Every week on NPR's Wild Card, Rachel Martin asks guests to choose questions to answer at random from a deck of cards. This week's guest, actor Jeff Goldblum, had a uniquely musical spin on the game.
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JEFF GOLDBLUM: Here, repeat after me, and finish this sentence - (singing) getting to know you...
RACHEL MARTIN AND JEFF GOLDBLUM: (Singing) Getting to know all about you...
GOLDBLUM: ...(Singing) Rachel.
RACHEL MARTIN: ...(Singing) Jeff.
SHAPIRO: Goldblum stars as Zeus in a new Netflix show that offers a modern spin on Greek mythology called "Kaos." Here's Rachel.
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MARTIN: OK, here are three cards. One, two or three - you choose. You choose.
GOLDBLUM: OK. Well, (singing) one is the loneliest number.
Two - ooh, what's two? Oh, (singing) just the two of us. We can make it...
MARTIN: Oh, good call.
MARTIN AND GOLDBLUM: (Singing) If we try...
GOLDBLUM: ...(Singing) Just the two of...
MARTIN: ...(Singing) Just the two of us.
GOLDBLUM: Listen to your R&B licks - very good.
MARTIN: ...(Singing) You and I.
GOLDBLUM: A three - ooh. Oh, how about, (singing) we three, we're not alone, (vocalizing). (Singing) My echo, my shadow and me.
Yep.
MARTIN: Oh. Oh.
GOLDBLUM: And then if we went on to four, we would get the Miles Davis song. (Singing) of the wonderful things that you get out of life, there are four.
OK, that's enough of that. Go ahead.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
GOLDBLUM: Three - so three (laughter).
MARTIN: Has your idea of what it means to be a good person changed over time?
GOLDBLUM: Well, I suppose that it's become clearer and more important. Well, although, sure - I mean, look, my parents were kind of - you know, hey, you should be good. So early on, being good - a good boy - meant, you know, being polite, which was probably good - nothing wrong with that - and, you know, all of that - and making A's in school.
I then went on to realize later after I - maybe they meant this, but I didn't get it from them until later - that I thought being a good student, which is a good person - how much can you learn and use this lifetime for growth? - it meant not just getting the grade or impressing anybody else but really delving into what you were curious about, connecting with yourself and then delving as deeply as you might - not just to get the grade. So that's good. But more, I got clearer about how what I did could impact others and help others and contribution - the idea of contribution. And I love that.
I'm not going to bore you. It goes on for a little bit, but there's a George Bernard Shaw quote that I like a lot called, this is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose, considered by yourself as mighty, the being a force of nature. Instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy, I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community. And while I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. I cherish life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch that I've got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it off to future generations. That's the whole quote. I've memorized it, but...
MARTIN: Wow.
GOLDBLUM: And that's not bad to...
MARTIN: That's good.
GOLDBLUM: ...Keep in your pocket or up your sleeve and to live by till the end of your days when you can't do it any better and better and better and better and better. Pretty good, huh?
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SHAPIRO: Pretty good. That was the actor Jeff Goldblum and Rachel Martin. If you want to hear a longer version of that conversation, you can follow NPR's Wild Card podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF KEHLANI SONG, "BETTER NOT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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