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Late Night With David Letterman (October 7, 1998)

Late Night with David Letterman

October 7, 1998

Holy Man Appearance


[Dave had gotten a lot of complaints from animal rights groups for throwing a weasel (which was actually a ferret) in a bucket of water the night before. This will sort of show up in Jeff’s interview.]
Dave Our first guest has starred in three, listen to this it’s a very impressive record, three of the most successful films of all time, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Independence Day, his latest motion picture, entitled Holy Man, opens Friday. Here’s the always entertaining Jeff Goldblum. Jeff....
[Jeff walks out to cheers and shakes Dave’s hand, waves to the crowd, etc.]
Dave I’m so happy you’re here, I’m always happy your here. I wish every night could be Jeff Goldblum night here because I find you fascinating, I find you interesting, I find you provocative, I find you inengmatic, you’re a human conundrum, I, I love having you on the show because there’s always something good going on.
Jeff Thank you, so good to see you, that’s so sweet.
Dave That’s true, I feel that way.
Jeff Thank you. I mean, it’s a bright spot in my night when I watch you.
Dave oh you’re the one
Jeff ohhhh, not true
Dave see how do that, put that little zing there.
Jeff Yeaah, a little ziiing, nice way to go
Dave Did you see John Melloncamp backstage?
Jeff No I didn’t, but I know he’s here.
Dave [Dave laughs] yeah he is here
Jeff He is here, and I wouldn’t want to lie to you, I didn’t see him. But I knew he was going to be here, and it’s his birthday today [crowd cheers] Did you know that?
Dave Yes I did know that, he’s 46 today I think
Jeff He’s 47 I think today.
Dave 47
Jeff I’m 46 next couple of weeks
Dave Good for you
Jeff Yeah, the umm, yes. He used to be called Cougar yeah?
Dave I made the mistake earlier of referring to him as Johnny Cougar, but he’s not Johnny Cougar, he’s John Melloncamp.
Jeff Yeah......
[crowd laughs]
Jeff Should I put a cougar in my name? (Dave and crowd laugh)
Dave Please do, please do. Put a weasel in your name and see what happens.
[crowd laughs]
Jeff (to crowd) Thank you, Thank you. I feel so good to be here, thank you. You know I had a dream last night.
Dave Lets here what it is

Watch this Scene
Jeff You know, no this absolutely true, I dreamed that I was, I was like one a movie set with all women strangely enough, and it was kind lunch time, true enough, it was kinda lunch time and there was had a griddle going and they were making hotcakes and they look so good, and I called them oatcakes or they called them oatcakes or they were known as oatcakes and I said, they said "oh do you want something?' They gave them to me on a paper plate I remember, but they were so good and I ate them up. They were the best things I had ever eaten.
Dave Now, what do you suppose is there meaning to that or is it just random neurons firing?
Jeff Probably a little of both, but I imagined that it ... I started to think about it in the morning as I remembered it and I thought, well gee this is a good sign because I’m going on the big event of the day, of course it’s this event, and I had thought about it and planned for it, and I thought, gee on your show isn’t hotcakes a very funny you know thematic reoccurring thing, how perfect. There’s something perfect and right about this.
Dave [Dave laughs] It’s to bad you couldn’t have worked a ferret into the dream, you know. You know you did something that I have great admiration for you having done this. I would have never done this in a million years. You went a trip with 400 people, most of them strangers to Alaska. You were invited by a man, I think you probably didn’t know before. Tell people about this. It seems like a real Odyssey. I would never do this
Jeff Really?
Dave No I would never do this.
Jeff Well, I, I don’t know that I would have done it. But recently friends have said, you don’t....I travel for work and this and that, but they said you know you should take major trips.
Dave really
Jeff Yeah.......I mean, have you gone to the major places in the world. Down the Nile, To see the pyramids, the...
Dave I’ve been to the Poconos [crowd laughs]
Jeff Really?
Dave They’re nice.
Jeff Oh...I’ve never been to the Poconos...
Dave You gotta go over there.
Jeff Really?(laughs)....So people have urged me and loe and behold I get this invitation in the mail, and this was one of the places people told me to go, it was one the big trips that you should see, Alaska.
Dave Yup, yup
Jeff You haven’t been have you?
Dave No, no. Did you go up the inland waterway or whatever that is, the inland passage?
Jeff Yes, and I know hardly anything about it, I should know more, but I didn’t read that much, but anyway yes I did see...so I said yeah, and I was invited, this fellow Paul Allen, a very wealthy and generous and lovely fellow, he invited a bunch of people, for three years now, last year it was Venice Italy.
Dave Oh, I’da gone on that one.
Jeff Oh see
Dave Yeah, I’da gone on that one.
Jeff Yeah, yeah have you ever been there
Dave yeah oh yeah, I like Venice. I’da gone there
Jeff I was working at the time and couldn’t go
Dave I’d get off the boat and ditch those losers.
[both laugh]
Jeff I’ll tell you all about it
Dave But tell people who this guy is
Jeff Pau.....
Dave He’s Bill Gate’s little buddy, right?
Jeff Yeah, well, little buddy...it’s not like their Gilligan, and uh, and uh, the skipper but I think they did something together, they invented you know, stuff
Dave he’s worth billions this guy
Jeff I think he’s very, very rich
Dave and every year he invites a group of people
Jeff can you imagine that, like 400 people, invites them...
Dave from different walks of life
Jeff different walks of life, there’s like plane, a chartered plane to Los Angeles for the movie and showbiz..uh, types, and one to New York, and London, and Seattle where he’s from and all sorts of people go up and this year, it was, they flew us up to Juno Alaska, then they got....and it was all secret,
Dave Ohh, I wouldn’t like that
Jeff Like you know, whose gonna be there? They wouldn’t tell you who was going to be there.....
Dave I wanna hear about this, hold on, we’ll get you some oatcakes, we’ll be right back
[commercial]

Dave Jeff Goldblum Ladies and Gentlemen
[Dave holds up Emperor New Clothes book]
Dave Now, did you write this Jeff?
Jeff No, they gotta lot..
Dave What have you done here, it’s the Emperors New Clothes
Jeff You know that story, they gotta a bunch of
Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wrote one in there?
Jeff Yeah
Dave Let me see what yours is, Jeff Goldblum, I’ll find it (flips in book) maybe it’s an index...do they have like a table of contents?
Jeff Well sort of
Dave Nathan Lane, oh he’s very good Nathan Lane, he’s very entertaining
Jeff Isn’t he funny? He is funny... [Jeff starts to grab book to help Dave find page, but Dave won’t let him]
Dave Angela Landsbury
Jeff Yeah [laughs]
Dave Harrison Ford and Melissa Matheson
Jeff Yeah

Watch this Scene
Dave Not coming to yours
Jeff Umm, I think you’re going the wrong.....
Dave Liam Neison, Liam Neison...
Jeff I know, yeah, fabulous...I’m the other way
Dave You’re the other way? I’ve heard that about you
Jeff Ohhhh [rolls eyes, audience boos]
Dave It’s just a joke for heavens sake.
Jeff I get it
Dave If we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves, we’re screwed ladies and gentlemen
[audience applauds]
Dave Well this is a nice thing [holds book up] and the profits from the book go to a very good cause...
Jeff Yeah, the Starbright foundation
Dave Good for you....Lets get back to your big exotic cruise up to Alaska
Jeff Amazing, Falliniesque
Dave Really?
Jeff Yeah, I think so..
Dave 400 people, you and 400 people
Jeff 400 people the invitation first of all, you know, I mean you’ve gotten invitation from fancy friends and everyone tries to outdo the other, this was like, I’ve never had anything like this in my life. What arrived in the mail was kinda of a suitcase, a small suitcase, a leather thing, and you open it up and kinda take more things out of it, paper and stuff and it was all that, please come to the thing with brochures and stuff....
Dave freaky
Jeff yeah, very intriguing. Plus you got in this thing, a little totem pole. An unpainted totem pole and they said paint this, decorate it, because on our last nigh we’re gonna have..um. a native American potlatch
[Dave makes face]
Jeff You wouldn’t have liked to do that? You don’t like the idea?
Dave I ain’t going on vacation with 400 strangers to be in Arts and crafts class, it ain’t gonna happen
Jeff I know, I know, it was
Dave Now, did you have any reluctance about this at all because I imagine, once you’re in the boat, I’m guessing you can’t bail, you can’t get off.
Jeff They had in the, in the invitation they had a copy of the law, yeah, because we’re going from Canada kinda and we’re going wide...I don’t understand it but you could not get off the boat, it’s like that Vincent Price movie, House on Haunted Hill
Dave That’s a great film, very entertaining... now did you make fast friends on the boat or did you get off thinking ohhh, what was that all about
Jeff no, not at all, it’s true, up until the last minute I was thinking, why am I doing this, do I really want to go...but it was unexpected thing after another..but yeah, I made a lot of friends, I had a lot of friends who were there...
Dave Babes? Lot of babes
Jeff There were very interesting types there, and of course very fantastic women and men, yes, yes
Dave how was the food?
Jeff The food was fantastic, it was a cruise, and I had never been a cruise before. One night it was a 7, 8, 9, 10 course Russian dinner...
Dave that sounds pretty good
Jeff Does it, you like that stuff?
Dave Well, it sounds good, I’ve never had a 7 course Russian dinner.
Jeff It was fantastic, yeah, the original settlers of Alaska apparently were Russian..
Dave Well, yeah, I think we bought it through the Russian, Sewards folly, isn’t that what happened? We bought it from the Russians
Jeff I was not all that familiar with the whole thing I had to be reminded of the whole thing, I’m still shaky on it...There were dancers, there were big Russian dancers that night who would come by your table...
Dave Do you want that though?
Jeff I never, not ordinarly, this was an out of the ordinary thing...I don’t go to these places where there are belly dancers and this and that and there are people playing, but once in a while, it was kind of..something
Dave Were there a lot of people running around making Titanic jokes?
Jeff You know, there was Jim Cameron there, all manner Hollywood directors and he was there, and one day they got all us all, you know 400 people, they had to get us all in groups of 10, 12 and get us all in different life boats and give us this lesson. We all had our vests on.
Dave If it were me and I was doing that and I wouldn’t go on it anyway but just to keep from going crazy, , but you know, I’d get everyone and like at noon right after lunch and get them all over on one side of the boat just to see if you could get it to tip a little, "OK lets run over to other side" just to get a little of this (makes swaying motion) going. I don’t know that you could, but.....
Jeff You’re funny
Dave Listen, this movie Holy Man, you and Eddie Murphy and Kelly Preston and you play the guy, the TV executive who hires the Holy Man.
Jeff Kinda, I work on a home shopping network and I’m kind of in trouble but I’m a good hearted fellow, and I fall in love with Kelly Preston and the holy man comes into my life, Eddie Murphy and at first I don’t care for him to much but I put him on because my job is in great jeopardy and hilarity ensues
Dave great cast
Jeff thanks, I think it is
Dave listen Jeff, its been good to see you again
Jeff thanks
[Jeff and Dave stare at each other]
Jeff (quietly) what can I do for you?
Dave oh, nothing, I’m fine...I’d like to see you in about six months for a cleaning, that’s all Jeff Goldblum, we’ll be right back with John Melloncamp

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