It’s just a couple of days before Jeff Goldblum is getting ready to head to London to host the Season 2 premiere of “SNL U.K.” on Sept. 12.
“I’m a big Anglophile,” he tells me on a Zoom from Italy, where he and his wife Emilie are enjoying a summer vacation. “I’ve read all of P.G. Wodehouse. We recently filmed ‘Wicked’ there, and I did the last ‘Jurassic’ movie there. I’ve spent a lot of time in London. I’ve done a couple of things on the West End. I’m a big fan. I’m excited and humbled and thrilled to be part of it.”
Goldblum is a two-time host of “Saturday Night Live” in the U.S. in 1993 and 1997.
“It’ll get your blood going and put you on alert,” he recalls. “It’s a fun, exciting, creatively chaotic and delicious week. It seems they’re following something of the same schedule this week. I kind of remember it in my bones. When you finally get yourself out there, you’re trying to just do the assignment. It’s a blast.”
Just three days after “SNL,” Goldblum and Emilie will be honored at Oceana’s annual New York gala at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center on Sept. 15 for their work over the last almost 20 years championing the organization and its work to protect the world’s oceans. Martha Stewart will be named this year’s Ocean Champion. Sam Waterston, an Ocean Board member, will serve as master of ceremonies. The evening will mark Oceana’s 25th anniversary.
Goldblum was first introduced to Oceana through his manager Keith Addis, who is a longtime environmental activist. The Goldblums’ love of the water even inspired their sons’ names, Charlie Ocean, 11 and River Joe, 9.
“Charlie Ocean is so named apropos because he cannot stay out of that water, like just in and out, in and out, swimming all day long, body surfing,” Emilie says.
Emilie and Jeff Goldblum attend Oceana: Sting Under the Stars on July 18, 2016, in Los Angeles.
Penske Media via Getty Images
The couple also loved the ocean when they were kids. Jeff and his family would travel from their Pittsburgh-area home to Atlantic City in the summer. “I have a memory of my mother taking me into the ocean and holding me in her arms, cradling me in her arms and feeling for the first time waves,” he says. “I didn’t know about waves. Like what’s this movement in the water going up and down and up and down, bobbing up and down?”
Emilie, who grew up in Canada, spent time at the beach when she visited her grandparents in France. “There would be these little campgrounds, and we’d always camp close to an ocean,” she says. “That’s where we’d spend the whole day, and I would do gymnastics on the beach, tumbling and playing.”
Jeff joined Oceana in lobbying California lawmakers in Sacramento in support of SB 54, regulations that aim to decrease single-use packaging and plastic waste. The act was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022. To date, Oceana’s New York Gala has contributed $20 million to support policy victories throughout the world.
“It’s magical,” Jeff says of the world’s oceans. “It’s part of our paradise of a planet. And woe be us, and shame on us if we don’t do everything to counteract the damage we’ve already begun.”
