Looks like John Goodman let the cat out of the bag when it comes to what will happen to Roseanne Barr's character on 'The Conners.'
Looks like John Goodman just let the cat out of the bag when it comes to what will happen to Roseanne Barr's character on Roseanne's spinoff, The Conners.
Roseanne was shockingly canceled in May, after Barr was fired due to a racist tweet against Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama. In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Goodman -- who played Barr's onscreen husband on the show, Dan Conner -- says the cast will have a lot of work to do for the spinoff to be successful.
“It’s an unknown," he says, before referring to his beloved character, Dan, and what's to become of Barr's character. "I guess he’ll be mopey and sad because his wife’s dead.”
Goodman says he hasn't been in touch with 65-year-old Barr, but did thank her for clearing the way for The Conners to move forward with ABC.
“She had to sign a paper saying that she relinquished all her rights to the show so that we could go on," he shares. "I sent her an email and thanked her for that. I did not hear anything back, but she was going through hell at the time. And she’s still going through hell.”
He later remembers the good times he shared with the controversial comedian.
"We laughed our rear ends off," he says of their first audition together. "My whole existence was to see if I could get her to wet her pants.”
“She was a force of nature when it came to getting what she wanted,” he adds.
Goodman also reflects on what made Roseanne so successful in the first place.
“There’s not a lot of people scraping by on television,” the 66-year-old actor notes. “[The Conners] love each other very much and that’s what gets them through, the humor and the love.”
In the penultimate episode of the Roseanne revival, Roseanne revealed on the 45th anniversary of her and Dan's wedding that she was seriously addicted to painkillers as a result of a bad knee.
A synopsis for The Conners reads, "After a sudden turn of events, the Conners are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before. This iconic family -- Dan, Jackie, Darlene, Becky and D.J. -- grapples with parenthood, dating, an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America. Through it all, the fights, the coupon cutting, the hand-me-downs, the breakdowns -- with love, humor and perseverance, the family prevails."
Last month, Barr appeared on Fox News Channel's Hannity and commented on The Conners, and said ABC would "be so lucky" if the spinoff is anywhere near as successful as Roseanne was before it was canceled.
"I'd tell more jokes about myself than I do anybody else, because to me, comedy is very personal, and that's what makes it funny," she explained. "That's what made people like the Roseanne show -- because they saw themselves in [me], or have an aunt, or their mom or their sister, somebody in their family was, you know, a loud, outspoken woman who loved her family."
"That was what I brought to television and what kicked everybody's a** in the ratings," she continued. "[ABC] should be so lucky that they'll ever get anywhere near that. And they can't take that away from me, no matter what's happened."
As for Barr signing off on the spinoff despite getting fired, she said she didn't want to "try to argue or win."
"I thought it was part of the -- you know, what was put before me to do. What God puts before me, I do," she said. "I just do what's in front of me."
For more on The Conners, which premieres Oct. 16, watch the video below:
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