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John Goodman remembers the day in 1975 when he left St. Louis for New York, armed only with a degree in fine arts from Southwest Missouri State University, $1,000 his brother had lent him and a dream of being a professional actor. He didn't want to look back 15 years later and say, “I wonder if I could have ...” He made the rounds, worked at odd jobs and just tried to keep busy. He’s been quite busy ever since.

Today Goodman is one of the entertainment industry’s most respected actors. He earned a Golden Globe nomination in 1992 for his chilling performance in the Coen Brothers’ heralded “Barton Fink.” Coincidentally, Goodman's breakthrough motion picture performance was in “Raising Arizona,” also a Coen Brothers film. He has since teamed with them in “The Big Lebowski” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Goodman can next be seen starring opposite Steve Carrell in the Universal Pictures comedy “Evan Almighty,” the highly anticipated sequel to “Bruce Almighty.” He was most recently seen starring opposite Marisa Tomei and Danny DeVito in “Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School.” He recently completed production on the films 20th Century Fox’s “Death Sentence” opposite Kevin Bacon and “Drunkboat,” with John Malkovich.

Goodman has lent his voice to numerous animated characters as well. His voice-over credits include “Monsters, Inc.,” “The Emperor’s New Groove,” “Tales of the Rat Fink” and “The Jungle Book II.” He recently completed production on the films “Tales of the Rat Fink” opposite Jay Leno and “Bee Movie” opposite Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger. He also voiced one of the main characters in NBC’s animated series “Father of the Pride.”

Goodman was raised in St. Louis by his mother, his father having passed away when John was two years old. As a tall, broad-shouldered teenager, he attended Afton High School, where he dedicated himself to football (his team won one game). He intended to play football at Southwest Missouri State but injured a knee and was forced to sit out a year. He spent that year studying drama with fellow students Kathleen Turner and Tess Harper. He never returned to football and graduated in 1975 with a B.F.A. degree in Theatre.

Goodman’s stage credits include many dinner theatre and children's theatre productions, as well as several off-Broadway plays. His regional theatre credits include “Henry IV, Parts I and II,” “Antony and Cleopatra” and “As You Like It.” He performed in a road production of “The Robber Bridegroom” and starred in two Broadway shows, “Loose Ends” in 1979 and “Big River” in 1985.

In 2002, Goodman starred on Broadway in the Public Theatre’s “Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui”. In 2001, he starred in the Shakespeare in the Park production of “The Seagull.”

Goodman’s film credits include “Beyond the Sea,” “Masked and Anonymous,” “Storytelling,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” “Coyote Ugly,” “What Planet Are Your From?,” “One Night at McCool's,” “Bringing Out the Dead,” “Fallen,” “The Borrowers,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “The Runner,” “The Flintstones,” “Mother Night,” “Arachnophobia,” “Always,” “Pie in the Sky,” “Born Yesterday,” “Matinee,” “The Babe,” “King Ralph,” “Punchline,” “Everybody's All-American,” “Sea of Love,” “Stella,” “Eddie Macon's Run,” “C.H.U.D.,” “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Maria's Lovers,” “Sweet Dreams,” “True Stories,” “The Big Easy,” “Burglar,” and “The Wrong Guys.”

Goodman made his small screen debut in the HBO production “Mystery of the Moro Castle.” Since then, he has given many acclaimed television performances. For eight seasons, he played Dan Conner in “Roseanne,” a role that earned him seven Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe. He also received Emmy nominations for his starring role in TNT's “Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long” and for his role as Mitch in the CBS production of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He also starred in the HBO film “The Jack Bull.”

Though he prefers to think of New York as a home base, Goodman, his wife, Annabeth, and their young daughter, Molly, reside in New Orleans. He has sold his New York apartment, which he still refers to as a “hunting lodge.” He says, “It's a place I visited once a year. The bathtub is in the kitchen. I've had this place since the mid 70s, and I really didn't want to give it up.”