John Goodman went through a bad period when his show, Roseanne, was canceled due to Roseanne Barr’s racist tweets. Now, he’s opening up about the experience with People magazine. 

“I was consciously trying to accept it,” he reflected. “Just like, ‘Okay, this is happening, just breathe and go with it.’ Underneath I’m trying to get out of a plastic bag that is closing in on me, but I’m trying to be calm on the surface. I remember that contradiction.”

Though he’s grateful that the show reemerged as The Connors, and is expected to be just as successful as the original, he added that he still struggled “for about a month” and then “other things started going wrong. I fell down the steps and broke a rib. My wife got sick — just all kinds of weird stuff happened at one time. But I just had a feeling that it would work out.”

Read more (including interviews with Sara Gilbert and Laurie Metcalf, at People.