'Run All Night' Actor Malcolm Goodwin on Cleaning Up for The CW's "iZombie"

I love that you're just down playing that whole thing. It's just an audition. It's for the OJ Simpson mini series.

Yeah, yeah, for the mini series.

Now, okay, so how many times have you auditioned now?

I've gone and this is this will be my third time. You know, I used to get so nervous and and in my head about it and as it get closer, you know, obviously the nerves get more and like, oh my god, this is going to really happen. I don't even think that anymore. I treat it as if it's the first one. And so it's kind of like uh all I can control is my performance. I can't control their decision. I don't know what they want, but I know this is what I can bring to it and hopefully it aligns with what what they want.

Well, speaking of reading minds and getting into people's minds, I zombie.

Yeah, I zombie.

Here's what I love about what I've seen so far of the show is that your character loves himself. Clive loves Clive. Clive is alive. My name is Liv. I'm a zombie. When I eat a brain, I get vision. I was just saying. I saw who killed her. Seriously, how did you solve crime before me?

I zombie was the first CW show I've ever auditioned for. Really? I've never ever gone in for the CW. I remember talking to my agent at the beginning of the year. I was like, how come I never gone out for any CW show? Do I not you're like, are you a CW face? I mean Well, I don't I play rugged characters. You know, I play a lot of rug, you know, a lot of rugged crazy dude. So I never had a this is the most cleaned up I've been on television. Yeah, did some shaving. Did some shaving cuz you know my cuz when I got to LA, I'm like there was so many like pretty faces and all this clean shave. I said, you know what? I'm not going to cut my hair. I'm going to let it all grow out grizzly and I'm just going to uh go against the grain and it worked out for me. So CW they was like, well, you're going to have to shave. It was fun to do. It was fun to play dress up and clean up and everything and uh and um have a haircut on camera and things like that. So I was I enjoyed it.

I should point out your style today. I mean these shoes. And they're right here. Oh yeah, to take these off for a test.

Yeah, I'm I'm uh that's one I have a vice of sneakers. Air Force ones. Really? I got a lot of Air Force ones. So these are like the denim part of the denim.

How many do you have? Are you one of those people that has like has shelves at home?

There's so many shelves. then there's a big pile of pile of other ones that I've worn. Yeah, the ones I kind of expired. Yeah, I mean, let's look at the bottom the bottoms these are not even worn. Oh yeah. These are yeah, these are yeah, these are fresh.

I want to know your best memory on set.

I think one of my one of them, I guess the one that's popping into my head right now is uh me and Raul was doing the scene. Me and Raul and Rose are doing the scene. There's a lot of scenes in this Morg. And the dead bodies are real people. And so they have like this guy has like this swollen tongue. I guess he had he went he he died of like antilactic shock. So his tongue is literally hanging out out of his mouth. It's fake. Uh we're doing the scene whatever like that. Rose talking with this pin and Raul keeps dropping this pin on this dude's tongue. This this guy can't move. So I think at one take I decided to just If you drop it again, we're going to just incorporate into the scene. We're just going to use it. It was it was so funny. It kept happening over and over again. I think Raul and I we could not look at each other for like two episodes without laughing.

And when you jump in Well, since there's brain eating, what's the grossest thing you've ever eaten?

A grass I think a grasshopper. When I was a kid, my my lips was the same size they were when I was 10 years old. All right. So So so people used to call me bubble lips, you know, and then I used to always like have my mouth open. My my bottom lip used to hang. And then everybody was like, you know, you got to close your mouth. So then one day this kid found a grasshopper and he threw the grasshopper and it landed right on my tongue. And I'm sitting there with this dead grasshopper on my tongue. I'm like and I'm freaking out. And everybody's running away from me, you know, like, you know, And then it's just just everyone's going berserk and then I'm and I'm crying. I'm a kid. So I was crying and everything like that. I cry tears coming down my eye with this and I bet it, you know, and then I I almost passed out. And then um my neighbor came and took the grasshopper off and gave me a tube of toothpaste and everything like that. And I'm like I like chugging chug toothpaste. Literally chewing toothpaste.

You've got a lot going on and you're a producer and you're a director.

Yeah, I like to work behind the camera too. Yeah, I went to uh you know, I went to film school and you know, I interned at film studios, you know, growing up um it it just it just my love. I I grew up in the theater. So as a as a theater actor you have to learn uh how to stage manage, do lights and stuff. So when I got interested in film and TV, acting in front of the camera, I wanted to learn how things worked behind the camera. So I spent years, years just working on tons of independent projects and music videos. Acting took off first and so once um uh and it it afforded me an opportunity to um actually produce and write and direct my own stuff.

So now you have two films.

Now I got two films. Yeah, I got two films. One film um we just did special advance screenings um and uh 132 theaters across the country. Um for the last three weeks and we're prepping for our legitimate like theatrical run that's called Past the Light. And we have another film called um construction, which is a musical, romantic comedy uh that comes out this summer.

What has sort of being behind the scenes taught you about being an actor?

The thing it it makes you appreciate everyone everyone what everyone brings to the project. It's not just about me, the actor, knowing what, you know, the camera people have to do, focus pullers, the grips, the gaffers and stuff like that. Understanding how hard they have to work in order to make this vision happen. It's a very, very collaborative experience once you really, really understand, you know, what what goes on. So it makes me embrace the community, you know, sometimes actors can go off and live in their own little world and you never meet the fruit and things like that. No, I'm I'm I want to I want to know everybody. I want to know who's doing sound, who's doing grip. I'm going to I want to know everybody because I really appreciate, you know, what they brought what they bring and understand how much how uh valuable they are um to this production.

I want to talk about Run All Night. It's uh stars Liam Neson and he plays uh small, you know, actor no one's ever heard.

Yeah, yeah, it's small little film. No, it's uh yeah, it's uh it's him, um Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, common. And um he pretty much plays a hit man, uh a former retired hit man who's trying to protect his son um from being um killed by Ed Harris's character who's like this um this powerful, powerful mob boss. And um I play um one of Liam Neson's friend who's also a cop and um pretty much the whole city turns against him. So you get to see whether my character turns against them or not.

You're a multi-talented. It's great it was great having you in here.

No, no, thanks for having me.

Thanks for coming. Please come back again.

No, sure. I thank you.