Despite the fact that every TV network has a character that sees dead people, don’t expect Detective Raines to sit down and compare stories with Ghost Whisperer‘s Melinda Gordon and Medium‘s Allison Dubois. Jeff Goldblum’s character may be talking to the dead on a daily basis, but he doesn’t attribute it to any supernatural powers. He’s just going crazy.
On March 15, Goldblum returns to television as a regular character for the first time since Tenspeed and Brown Shoe in the 1980s. As Raines, he once again gets to play an eccentric and brilliant cop, but this time with a twist. After his partner is killed he starts to investigate his cases with the victims of the crime. The problem is they’re already dead. Can Raines be crazy and a cop? We talked to Goldblum about his latest project.
Hollywood.com: What was it about Raines that caught your attention?
Jeff Goldblum: There was something about this character who’s been effective all his life, who has these bad events happen where he loses his best friend and gets wounded himself. And with death always confronting him his mind plays tricks on him. He starts to not only lose faith in himself, but also confidence in all mental things. It’s a real inside odyssey that really intrigued me.
HW: Do you think that Raines is offbeat or out of his mind?
JG: I think that he’s been a very good cop, but he’s been unconventional in some ways; very intuitive and different. He’s having a very real episode that’s very disturbing, which is why it’s such a dilemma. You can’t carry a gun if you tell people that you’re hallucinating voices and figures and you can’t go on medication to help that and still be on the job. I think there’s another aspect to it where he’s losing his mind, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing. He’s sort of discovering new parts of his identity, which are a little more adventurous.
HW: Besides his partner, do you think that there’s anyone else he might turn to regularly in solving these cases?
JG: Well, we were always tempted [to bring people back], especially right after the pilot. I used to joke with Alexa Davalos: “If this thing gets picked up you’re going to be one of the big reasons and you don’t get to come back.” One of the big things that we want to explore is why Charlie, his partner, is still in his head because the way it works is that Raines solves the crimes, completes a mission and then the hallucination is gone. But Charlie is still there. So that’s something that we want to find the truth behind at some point.
HW: What drives Raines to keep doing the job if that’s what’s causing these hallucinations, and how much will his illness spill over into his everyday life?
JG: Well, that’s brought up in several episodes that we’ve done. I’ve said a couple of times that I love being a cop, and this work is all I have. In an episode with my wife her new husband gets killed and I’m on that case. At one point I start fantasizing/hallucinating her in another life that she might have had, hoping that we still might have a life together. I actually realize through this hallucination that maybe we weren’t supposed to be together it helps me heal.
HW: You’ve played a lot of eccentric intellectuals. Is this character similar to any of the characters you’ve played and how is he different?
JG: I don’t think of him as such an intellectual. He’s a hard boiled, cop who’s very smart and very professional, but not such a high-falootin’ thinker. I think he’s different from things that I’ve done in that he can be unexpected, but at times very quiet and deeply caring. Like some classic noir characters he’s a lone wolf and claims to have seen it all, but we find out that he cares very deeply, especially during this period of newfound vulnerability. Then, I guess, not unlike several characters he’s going through some kind of deep transformation.
HW: As a fan of film noir, did you find yourself researching this role wearing fedora hats, smoking cigarettes and taking long pauses?
JG: [Laughs] Well, sometimes on the set, I would often pretend I was smoking. I didn’t want the character to smoke, but part of the internal soul of him was a smoker. Then I read stories even as we were doing the pilot, by Robert Cray who wrote about Elvis Cole, this detective. Then I went back and saw a whole bunch of movies because now noir is a whole nation and universe with post-noir. There is noir everything and there is really no end to what you can sample from that world. I saw a lot of movies that I had never seen before. I saw Out of the Past, for instance, with Robert Mitchum. It was great. I saw Vertigo again with Jimmy Stewart and Casablanca which is pretty great. It was fun just watching all of those. And music means a lot to me too, and so while we were doing this show I would be listening to scores from noir movies. That really stirred up a lot.
HW: In preparing for this role were there any people that were beneficial in helping you find the character?
JG: Well, we had a couple of consultants, two great policemen who are currently doing this work and I went through the scripts with them. I talked at length with both of them. There is no end to what they know. It’s so admirable what they do. I try to play one believably, but I could never do what they do with all the experience that they’ve had and the lives that they’ve led.
HW: When was the last time you found yourself talking out loud to yourself and did you get busted?
JG: My mind is as crazy as anyone’s but rarely do I break out like that. But as an actor, one of my rehearsal methods will be to fantasize my partners and to go through my stuff. I was in an acting class years ago and I thought that I would do my preparation on the street and so I went out by myself and was sort of pounding myself on the chest and talking to myself and maybe singing, and a police car pulls up. I wasn’t particularly well known then, and they were like, “Look at my finger and follow with your eyes.” I said, “No, no, no. You don’t understand. I’m taking an acting class. I’m just acting.” They asked where the supposed acting class was, and I said, “Right upstairs.” They went in and interrupted another scene in the middle of class and said, “Is this guy in your class.” The teacher said yes. But that happened, I’m telling you. It’s terrible.
