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In what was once a red-light district, between a furniture shop and a recruitment agency, Jeff Goldblum is selling T-shirts.
And not only T-shirts, the Hollywood A-lister is also selling his own jazz albums, while meeting fans and signing their merchandise. He has not had to work too hard to sell himself to the crowds of people waiting to meet him on a sunny Monday afternoon in London – the queues stretched more than 50 yards.
“From when I was very young, I always had a great passion for films, and I never really thought I could do it,” said 18-year-old actor Jack Foley, who was waiting in the queue to meet Goldblum. “Watching his films, seeing how big he is and how much of a great actor he is, really has pushed my career to be better. His music is class and he’s just an inspiration to everyone.”
Rather than in the now-gentrified surrounds of Granary Square in King’s Cross, Foley had envisaged meeting Goldblum “in a parking lot”, adding: “You know where you’ve paid for your ticket and you’re just kind of walking up, you see Jeff Goldblum and you say, ‘oh, there’s Jeff Goldblum’?”
He suggested the actor and musician had a quality that made him seem just like everyone else – as long as everyone else was a style icon and a Hollywood actor. “He’s the greatest person … he cares for people,” he said, adding that Goldblum was taking time to meet his fans.
Goldblum was in the UK for the launch of his fourth album as well as playing several concert dates with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra and meeting fans, declaring: “I love London, I love England.”
He appeared at a popup shop in Spiritland, a cafe, bar and radio studio near King’s Cross.
“Honestly, I just love him,” said Peach Richmond, a children’s book illustrator. “He got me out of a bit of a twisty-turny place when I was younger with his comedy. So that’s why he’s a bit of an idol for me, I think. It’s just his energy, it’s just his whole joy that he gives off. And he’s just himself – it’s what’s really inspires me to be who I am as well.”
Goldblum is in the class of actor whose “energy” – or perhaps, more specifically, his distinctive delivery – has set him apart.
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It was with that idiosyncrasy that he spoke to Amelia Wilding, a musician. He seemed to be listening intently while simultaneously holding sway over the conversation. Here, repeatedly asking her to spell out her first name so he could sign her record cover; there, crooning her surname as he scribbled his own.
“He has a really distinctive style and sense of humour,” said Stephen Barber, who was queueing with Laura Shorthall and dog Fiadh – all three apparently Goldblum fans, two of them wearing Jurassic Park T-shirts. The actor’s performance in the 1993 Oscar-winning dinosaur film was in Barber’s “top three”.
Sanny Hoskins, who runs a London events TikTok account, said she had never expected that a cafe a few doors down from an Indian restaurant would be the place she would meet one of her favourite actors. “You can connect with someone who you see through cinema, through TV, and get a face-to-face moment with them. I think that’s what makes London so amazing.”
