Hollywood scion Tony Goldwyn is unafraid of being branded as a nepo baby.
“I had my struggles coming from a famous family,” Goldwyn, 65, admitted on Obsessed: The Podcast. “I’m the third generation of Goldwyns in show business.”
“When I was in my twenties, it was really hard to get out from under the pressure of that,” the Scandal star continued. “But I knew I had to kind of figure it out.”
Goldwyn is the son of Twilight Zone actress Jennifer Howard and film producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. His grandfather, Samuel Goldwyn, is a film legend who has the distinction of producing the first movie made in Hollywood. The third-generation star, whose breakout role came in 1990 opposite Patrick Swayze in Ghost, found joy in building on his family’s legacy.
“What I discovered was that it was an absolutely beautiful thing to share that with my dad and my mother, and to feel that I was part of a legacy,” he said. He quickly realized that “it’s not unusual at all throughout history that people come into the family business. It’s pretty normal.”
“If your dad’s a plumber, you’re going to be a plumber. If your mom’s a lawyer, there’s a good chance you’re going to go to law school or be a doctor or whatever it is that you do,” he continued.
“It’s just not unusual, but somehow it’s become this sort of pin cushion of people putting their babies in entertainment,” he added.
Goldwyn is among the numerous “nepo babies” to take Hollywood by storm—Kate Hudson, Dakota Johnson, Maya Hawk, Anjelica Houston, Chris Pine—and he’s proud of it. Alongside his daughter, Anna Musky-Goldwyn, the Hacks star launched a podcast, Far From the Tree, to explore the phenomenon across different career paths.
“There are some people who say, ‘You know what, I just want to get away from that.’ Which I respect a lot,” he said. “Anna and I find it to be very special, so we wanted to hear what other people think.”
“What it really becomes is a family show,” he said. On the podcast, he and his daughter can “really get into pretty deep discussions about parent-child relationships, and what it is to be an adult child of a parent and a parent with an adult child, sharing a work life.”
On the show, the Goldwyns have interviewed Hollywood families like Everybody Loves Raymond creator Philip Rosenthal and his actress daughter, Lily, as well as non-Hollywood families like college basketball star Sarah Strong and her former WNBA All-Star mother, Allison Feaster.
“I just think it’s super cool and you hear from everyone that it’s a very special thing,” he concluded.
Goldwyn is no stranger to being hated. His filmography is filled with villainous roles, including his breakout as the murderous banker in Ghost.
“Well, you know, a man’s gotta do his job,” he quipped. “I keep playing these heinous characters. I don’t know, it’s my alter ego or something.”
On HBO’s Emmy-dominating comedy Hacks, Goldwyn plays a formidable television executive, Bob Lipka, who repeatedly targets the show’s protagonists.
“That’s the thing about playing a character like Bob Lipka, I’ve known several Bob Lipkas in my career and have interacted with some of them,” he explained. “Some are wonderful, warm, gentlemanly or ladylike people—gentle people—and some others are real little motherf---ers.”
New episodes for the final season of Hacks premiere on HBO every Thursday. Far From the Tree is available on YouTube and all other podcast platforms.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch new episodes of ‘Obsessed: The Podcast’ every Wednesday and Friday. And follow our feed to listen to the show the next morning on your favorite podcast platform.
