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The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The Lost World appearance (5-27-98)

This transcript (the text) was contributed to goldblum.com by Kristen. Thanks Kristen!


Jay: ...Lost World: Jurassic Park, you know, sometimes these little independent films, they don't get seen, you know? So it's important that you go out and you see this movie. It just had the biggest opening in history, it just made eleven -- what was it Kevin, kajillion? It just made 11 kajillion dollars, please welcome Mr. Blockbuster himself, Jeff Goldblum!
(Jeff comes out from backstage, gives a little wave, shakes Jay's hand and gets hugged. Waves again.)
Jay: Congratulations! You are --
Jeff: Thank you very much.
Jay: You know, one blockbuster, they go 'Fluke.' Two, 'he's lucky,' but three? You're in like three of the biggest films of all the time. You're the guy, you're the man.
Jeff: Well, I'm lucky. I'm a very lucky...
Jay: Well, that's okay!
Jeff: ...guy. They're so sweet, how sweet are they? (cheers from audience) They're so sweet! Thank you, that's so sweet.
Jay: Now do you, you like to sneak into the theater don't you, see your own movies, don't you?
Jeff: Yyyyyes. I do, I do, it's a big thrill, these movies, the way people, you know, the crowd, they make a big crowd of themselves and get very excited. Yeah, I sneak into the theater and watch them watch a movie.
Jay: Now, what I first heard about it I thought, well that's kinda weird, but then I thought no, not really, cause when you're in a movie you don't get to hear any applause. You know, when you host, you can hear them yell or boo, whatever it is, depending on what... so, you know, I would see why you do that. It's fun to kind of go in and just...
Jeff: Sure.
Jay: Have you been busted? Have you been caught?
Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I try to sneak in, we went this Saturday, I went to Universal here, and I...
Jay: Now, what do you do, did you stand in line?
Jeff: No, no, people are very nice, and I say 'Psst, psst, can I, ah, I'm in the movie,' and dadadada, and they say 'Oh, look who's here, come on come on come on,' and you know, just stand in the back, and people catch me and people would say 'Oh look who it is, it's him, it's him' and, you know...
Jay: Well, do people think it's like an animatronic thing, you know, you going by? And don't they think you might be a lokkalike? Cause there's a lot of lookalikes, or people who say there somebody else, I mean, have you been carded? Like, you know, the kid tearing up tickets saying 'Hey, wait a minute, Mister!' I mean, have you ever? Nothing?
Jeff: Like the Bob Dole commercial? No, ah, no, no, I got -- I was watching a movie, and a guy was, um, it was in the middle of a big scene, and he was very excited, obviously he had to go to the bathroom, he had to do something, he was like rushing up the aisle and he came, and as he came by me, he went (leans forward, drops jaw) and he did that, and then he rushed back to his seat, and he came back with his girlfriend, I'm sure his girlfriend, and he came by and she was going "What? What? What? WHAT? What?" and he said "Look. There. THERE!" and she said "What?" and he took her head kind of roughly and he went "There! Look! See? I tell you, it's him!" Can you imagine?
Jay: Do you like to get scared? I mean, you seem to be in a lot of scary movies. Do you yourself like to get scared? Is it something you enjoy, or does it frighten you?
Jeff: I like to get scared, I like scary movies.
Jay: When's the last time you were really scared? Not in a movie, I mean a real life... you know, like a second before you were going to hit a tree or something.
Jeff: Right. Well, that would be awful.
Jay: That's scary.
Jeff: That's very scary! Um, something, oh, I know, something -- it was the longest time ago, but I, um, I was on this kinda date a long time ago, and...
Jay: I see, protect the innocent and make it a long time ago.
Jeff: No, it was a long time ago. And um, we were in the car, and we were actually looking for... I had a nice spot. Like a lovers'... a nice spot.
Jay: A big make-out thing.
Jeff: To park. Yeah, a little lovely spot, a view of the city, it offered a very nice view of the city, and had a little seat, that I know, and dadadadadada. So we pull up to this thing.
And just as we're parking -- it's at night of course, and I see this thing in the headlights of the car, this thing, kind of slowly waddling away from the car, and I said 'Ooh, look at that, it's like an opossum or something,' with a big tail, and then this thing turns around to me and with the red eyes, beady eyes, it looks at me sort of arrogantly, looks away, and continues to waddle away into the bushes. It's a rat. It's a big rat. Ew, just a horrible looking thing, it went through me, like ugh, just terrible... and I said 'Well, forget that.'
Jay: Forget that.
Jeff: Forget that, you know, this is going to be a very pleasant evening, come on, dadadadadada.
Jay: Typical guy logic, you're not thinking with your head, forget rats around here.
Jeff: Think nothing of that, ignore that, look how lovely, look at the evening, feel the breeze, and dadadadadada, mm, what a spot. Look how lovely. And we, and we sit down on this thing, and it's going very nicely and fine, and by and by we're caressing, and by and by we're embracing, and I think I'm kissing her a little bit, dadadadadada, well, at this moment, at the moment when we're embracing, and I think I had my eyes closed, I feel a heavy and furry thing on my lap. Jump up on my lap. Now, I can't -- how do I describe this next moment? I've never experienced -- I've never experienced anything like this, but out of my mouth came a sound that I did not recognize, I don't know where it came from, from the bowels of somewhere, I made this sound, and my hand, before I gave it any instruction whatsoever, reached down and found exactly where this thing was, and heaved it up in the air. And only n slow motion, when I finally saw it, I realized it was a cat. But I still had, although I thought I'd forgotten about it, somewhere in my body, 'RAT.' I was thinking 'RAT.'
Jay: Now, where was she when all this was going on?
Jeff: She was right there, none too pleased. You know, but we both settled down.
Jay: But, you know, you're into all that.
Jeff: Well, no...
Jay: But you, I mean, such weird things. Well, not weird...
Jeff: Like rats and cats?
Jay: Well, no, but I know you like to experiment with like, didn't you go to a psychic surgeon? Did I read that somewhere?
Jeff: Oh, yes.
Jay: I mean that type of thing. You like to -- I mean, you're an open person. You're a free spirit, you like to experiment.
Jeff: I certainly am. I'm open-minded if nothing else, and this was quite a while ago too, in fact, but I did, I was, ah, I went for one reason or another to this guy, who said he was a psychic surgeon, and you know what that is, these guys, supposedly there may be some real ones from the Phillipines, I don't know. They say they can operate on you, they can go into your body and do things without instruments, with just their fingers they can go inside you, pull things out, no blood, it's a very spooky thing, you know, I have my grave doubts about it. Anyway, at this time, I went and, God, it was in the waiting room, there were inflicted people, and it was kind of sad, dadadadadada. I went in the waiting room finally...
Jay: (whispers and makes a waving motion)
Jeff: (laughs) No, no. I didn't do it. No, I waited my turn, they say come on in, and I go in, I meet this guy, he says 'What's wrong?' I say, you know, 'Nothing's wrong, I'm kind of here out of curiosity, and... anyway,' I said, 'I am nearsighted, but that's because, you know, what the doctors tell us, and in the science books.' But he said 'Well, let me be the judge of that, would you like me to help?' and I said, 'Well, how would you... help?' and he said, um, 'I'll take an x-ray,' and he said 'lay down on this table.' So I lay down on this table, and he took a piece of, um, like typing paper, onion -- special type on onion skin paper on my stomach, and a bible on top of that, and he said 'I'm taking an x-ray,' and then he looked at the typing paper, and he said 'Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm,' he said 'You've got a blockage behind your eyes, that's why you're nearsighted.. Would you like me to take it out?'
I said, ah, I said 'uhhh, okay.' I don't know why, I'm very open-minded, as we've established at the beginning of this story. So I close my eyes, and he had an assistant, and he began to -- and it's a weird feeling, if you do this to your own eye, it's a weird feeling, you'll feel -- is he really behind my eye or not? And he's doing this, he pressed his fingers like this, and I thought 'Oh, my God, is he behind my eye?' Because they're supposed to do it with their atheric fingers, they're supposed to, anyway, get in behind your eye. And I feel some wet stuff on my cheek, and his assistant has a sponge and she's wiping things up, and I thought 'Oh my God, am I bleeding?' dadadada.
And he says 'Okay, okay -- I've got it! You can open your eyes.' And just as I open my eyes, he's taking this -- looks like a bloody, piece of grisly chicken liver or something, in his hand and putting it in a pan of water, I don't know, this thing. And I said 'Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Can I see that? Let me see that! You took that out from behind my eyes?' And he says 'Yes, yes, here it is,' and I said 'Oh, wow, look at that.' And he said 'Well, there you go!' I said 'How about that!' And he said 'Well, you're not going to get cured unless' He gave me a massage, and he said 'You're not going to get cured unless you come back for another couple of visits and I continue these massage treatments.' I heard that with other cases it was similar, he started charging a lot of money, so I figured this was not the thing. Although, I had been eating a lot of chicken.
Jay: So you think the chicken may have lodged behind your eye.
Jeff: I'm sure not, no. Never mind. That's a joke. I just made it up as a joke. That part's not true.
Jay: Oh, right. I love the -- you know, these are wonderful movies. I enjoyed the first one, I enjoyed the second one, you know, it's really exciting. It's well done, it's exciting, and they're fun with kids. You know, we brought a bunch of kids, and they can just scream, and you go, you know, 'Oh, take it easy,' 'AAH!' you know? Got to like be the big grown-up. Oh, it's great fun.
Jeff: I know, I know. Isn't it enjoyable? I know. If I were ten years old and I saw this movie, it would've...I remember the movies I saw when I was that age, you know, I never forget them!
Jay: I know, the Godzilla films!
Jeff: Ooh, ooh, I know!
Jay: I know, but this is so... Let's show people a clip and then we'll discuss it, you know
Jeff: All right.
Jay: What scene is this? Now you guys go back to the lost island... Jeff: We go back to the lost world of course, with prehistoric, it's from prehistoric times! Just dinosaurs there! Anyway, ah, this is a scene, I believe, with a big dinosaur chasing a lot of unhappy people!
["Don't move! Don't move!" clip]
Jay: Well, it's just great, you know? It's a lot of fun.
Jeff: Thanks.
Jay: And you know people say, oh, it's all the dinosaurs, and it's not, you know, you guys are really terrific actors, and you bring that whole sense of tension to it. It's just wonderful. It's just a wonderful wonderful masterpiece.
Jeff: Thank you. Great.
Jay: Thank you! Thank you, Jeff! We'll be right back with Muggsy Bogues right after this!

Note: Jeff was on the stage for most of the rest of the show but he didn't actually say anything except for now and then. I'm only including the bits around where he spoke up, in order that it might make some sense. During the other interviews, he was shown repeatedly, and smiled, but no talk.

[Muggsy Bogues comes out, shakes hands with Jay and Jeff...]

JAY'S LOST WORLD - REAL WORLD COMPARISONS:
"In the Lost World, Jeff Goldblum is surrounded by scary-looking bug-eyed creatures. In the real world, Jeff Goldblum is a scary-looking bug-eyed creature."
[BOOS from crowd]
Jeff: (quietly) Aw, Jay. That's not true.
Jay: I'm just jealous.

[Annie Wood comes out, shakes hands with and kisses Jay, Muggsy and Jeff]

[There is discussion between Jay and Annie about Annie's feet.]
Jay: Jeff you like her foot kinda...
Jeff: What are you talking about?
Jay: I don't know, you seemed to go into a glaze when she showed her foot.
Jeff: Noooo, no, I... I... I do like... I think hands, hands and feet I think you can tell a lot about a person...
Annie: By their feet! Well, you're not alone in that thinking, Jeff. And I love those bug eyes of yours, by the way. I think they're beautiful. They're beautiful.
Jay: There you have it, folks, I think we have a date.

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