Jeff Goldblum Has A Strange But Fun Role In Wes Anderson's Asteroid City
This post contains spoilers for "Asteroid City."
Wes Anderson's latest feature, "Asteroid City," has a bevy of A-list actors. Some of them, like Scarlett Johansson and Jason Schwartzman, have major roles, while others like Margot Robbie and Willem Dafoe, have brief appearances that add to the rich complexity of the film.
And then there's the delightful cameo by Jeff Goldblum. While the "Jurassic Park" actor receives an opening credit nod, there's a chance you might have missed his appearance in the movie. His time on-screen can be counted in seconds, not minutes, and gives some dimension to one of the crucial characters in "Asteroid City."
The character in question is the extraterrestrial who drops in for a brief visit to the desert town, or — more specifically — the actor who plays the alien in the play within a play that Anderson has constructed. And even more specifically — the actor who plays the alien out of his full alien costuming, just waiting to go on the stage and wow the theater patrons with his thespian talents.
The alien is a metaphor
There are two storylines going on in "Asteroid City": a black-and-white track where we see the story of how the script and production of the "play" we see in the film came to be (narrated by "host" Bryan Cranston), and the "play" presented in full-color movie fashion. Goldblum's cameo comes in the black-and-white portion of the movie. The scene in question takes place backstage of the theater, where Jason Schwartzman — playing the fictional actor behind his Augie Steenbeck character — is walking by a series of set pieces. Next to one of those set pieces is Jeff Goldblum sitting in a chair in profile, wig cap on his head, as a makeup artist works on him. What is he doing there? His few words of dialogue give us an answer: "I don't play him as an alien, I play him as a metaphor."
Goldblum is playing the actor who plays the alien! And what metaphor is Goldblum's character hoping to represent? Schwartzman asks his colleague that very thing, and Goldblum's answer is telling: "I don't know yet."
There's nothing like an honest actor who is playing an alien! In the full-color track of the film, we see a twee version of the alien via stop-animation. That alien says nothing, unfortunately, so it appears that Goldblum only plays the alien in the "play within a play" portion of the movie. The cameo is a fun one, however, and one that pokes a bit of fun at the creative process of some performers.
"Asteroid City" is currently playing in a limited release and will be distributed widely in theaters on June 23, 2023.