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Co-host of MSNBC’s The Weekend and former senior advisor to Vice President Harris Symone Sanders Townsend joins Sam for DNC week! Sam and Symone talk about how as kids they both hosted fake news shows, where she was when she heard President Biden was ending his campaign, why Symone had to make a pro/con list when deciding to leave the White House, being a risk-taker, and why voters like making history—and hopefully will again soon.

MSNBC will host MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024 on September 7, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It’s MSNBC’s inaugural audience-focused, live event featuring more than a dozen of your favorite hosts, including Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, Symone and more. Tickets are available at https://www.msnbc.com/democracy2024.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Tony Goldwyn, Samantha Bee

Samantha Bee  00:25

Not to get too meta on you, but I have some serious choice words for some actual choice words that the former president has been using recently. It has been reported, and it’s also on camera that former President Trump has called vice president Harris a bitch on multiple occasions. Okay, look, I’m so not surprised, of course. I mean, when we’re all adults here, I’m sure he’s actually used some adjectives that are even more beneath his former office, very much more beneath. I just wish that he would show a little more respect for his future president. Of course, it’s not the first time we’ve gotten reports of him calling women bitches. He bestowed the title upon German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well. Honestly, it’s a source of pride if he hurls this particular insult at you. I’m still waiting for it so far he’s only called me no talent Samantha Bee. Oh, and as he continues to slip in the polls, I can’t not smile when I say that. We should all be ready for the verbal escalation to come. He will lash out at whoever is nearest, and bitch might be the nicest and most coherent thing that he says. And this is my actual warning for the media all around us. You better call this behavior out like it is, or I’m gonna have some choice words for you too.

 

Samantha Bee  03:17

As you might have guessed, this is Choice Words. I’m Samantha Bee, my guest today is a different kind of former President, the good kind beloved actor, Tony Goldwyn. You know Tony from TV shows like Scandal and films like Ghost, and he was on full frontal way back and check out his new film, Ezra, and catch him soon on Law and Order. Until then, take a listen and make good choices.

 

Samantha Bee  03:49

Hi, how are you? Great, so good to see you. So good to see you. We have so much to talk about. You’re doing so much stuff, okay? And we’re going to talk about it all. But I do want to ask you, because, like, the launch point of this, you know, the access point of this podcast, is all about choices that you’ve made in your life. Can you think of, is there a choice, like, first of all, are you good at making are you good at making decisions? Are you like, decisive? Are you decisive? Are you just?

 

Tony Goldwyn  03:49

Hi.

 

Tony Goldwyn  04:20

I’m I used to be horrible at making decisions. I would worry tremendously, like, is this the idea, what if this goes wrong? What, I’ve gotten quite good at it. Because I someone once said to me, successful people, however you define, that are not identified by the number of right decisions by they make. It’s by the number of decisions they make, and not a good one.

 

Samantha Bee  04:49

So good I’ve never heard before.

 

Tony Goldwyn  04:51

You know, and I sort of came to realize, maybe in my 20s, that the most painful part of decision making is the. The time between when you get the idea like, oh, I have been impulse to make this choice, and then the time between that and when you actually take action by making that choice, the intervening time is like agony, and that used for me to be quite long, and I just so I sort of have developed the discipline of going, Oh, this feels like the right thing to do. Yeah, let’s do that. Sometimes I make a lot of times I’ll make the wrong choice the consequences of doing. Oh, man, that was I made that one a little too, has its benefits, you know.

 

Samantha Bee  05:42

Do you give yourself, like, a time limit? Do you go, I’m gonna make this, I’m gonna make this decision. Because it’s weird. I feel like, also, when you’re in the arts, you know, particularly, you’re making creative decisions, but you’re also making, there’s no map for your career. Like, it’s very much instinctive. You’re kind of like this. I’m gonna go with my gut here. There’s no like, you can’t model your career really after anyone’s career. You just You’re so acting with your head and your heart, trying to, like, combine them, to give yourself a time limit. Do you go like, I will decide Monday morning I shall inform my team that, in fact, no, I will not be taking this project or do you just like.

 

Tony Goldwyn  06:26

Yeah, no, I’ve never done with a time limit. I’ll have a gut instinct about something, and almost impulsively now go, that’s what I’m doing, and I slow myself down a little bit now to go away. Let me make sure I think about this, or do I want to get some advice, or is there someone I want to talk to, yeah so it’s like, I very it’s very much what you said, like, I listening to my instincts about something, because sometimes I’ll have an impulse to do something for maybe the wrong reasons. Like, I’ll have a choice because I just want to get it done, or I want to please somebody, or I’m doing it for someone else, or I’m doing it because, you know, for maybe the wrong reasons so, or because I feel an obligation or something so I kind of go, okay, well, why am I? Why am what’s let’s just take a look at what that impulse is to make this decision, and what are the consequences of it. And then I kind of go through a pretty rapid analysis, and then go, well, just jump. Just do it.

 

Samantha Bee  07:25

Just do it, is it, who’s your best sounding board? Is your wife, dude? Are you just, let’s talk it through.

 

Tony Goldwyn  07:30

My wife, yeah, my wife, not always. We don’t always agree. So she’ll go, why would you do that? Yeah, I’ll disagree with everyone. This is what I’m doing. But, um, yeah, she I find Jane is the most sane and grounded person I know, so she ever has really good instincts. And sometimes I just we have different perspectives. And, uh, I’ll go, yeah, I hear you what you’re saying, but this is what I’m doing.

 

Samantha Bee  08:02

Sometimes I’ll want to say yes to something, and then I’ll talk it through with my husband, and we’re disagreeing about it, and he’s like, look, I just like, he’s like, I know in your heart that you don’t want to do it, and I don’t really want to live with you being miserable the whole time, and I know you’re just gonna be so you’re just gonna be so sad that you said yes for so long, and it’s so unfun, and it’s the summer. Can you just say no for us? Like, that’s fair. That’s very fair.

 

Tony Goldwyn  08:31

Yeah, we have the same again, I do the same for her, you know? You know, Jade sometimes tends to, she was taking one project after another. She’s designs, she’s a scenic designer for movies is a production train, and she loves to work, and she loves her cruise, and she loves the thing, but she was getting a little burned out. And so if she’d say, oh, I just got offered this movie, and I would do what your husband says, are you really sure you want to do this? Because remember last time you said, I will never.

 

Samantha Bee  08:57

Yes, yeah.

 

Tony Goldwyn  08:59

I just like to complain. And sometimes she’ll say, yeah, you’re right. I’m just gonna let this one go or she’ll say, no, I’m doing it.

 

Samantha Bee  09:06

You’re right, then she’s like, no, you’ll be fine. You’re everyone’s gonna survive, she’s like, I won’t I don’t have time to read a book this summer. I’m working. I’m making a movie. Is there a choice that you can think of once you look back at your life that that surprised you in a way, was something unexpected or like just changed your life in a way that really mattered, even if it was a small decision at the time that actually turned into something so huge.

 

Tony Goldwyn  09:37

Many, there’s so many, you know, choices, but terms of my career, there was one moment where I made a decision. It was pretty early on in my career when I had my first experience of being in a big success. I was in Ghost, which was my first, like big breakout role in a movie. The movie opened, and it was like a surprise giant hit. No one really realized it was going to be successful, and it was huge hit. And at the same time, I had done a play in Williamstown, which is this summer theater festival, that I’d worked at a lot, and the play was going to move to New York, and it was a smaller off Broadway play, and I really loved the role, and they wanted me to come and do it in New York. And it was when ghost was blowing up, and I was getting a lot of advice, like, you should move to LA and, you know, get, you know, take advantage of this and be in the scene and being in the kind of like scene had never appealed to me, and never felt like that was my vibe, you know? And so I made a decision, no, I’m an actor. This is a great role. I’m into this little play in New York. And so I made a decision to do that. And I think there wasn’t like huge consequences to it, that it defined my life in a way, in terms of the play was a big success, actually, was an Obie Award for doing it was called the some of us. It was this Australian play, and we did it at the Cherry Lane theater, and it was a about, it was set in Melbourne, Australia. Was about a guy and his father who lived together, and the son was gay, and his father was extremely accepting of his sexuality. And this is in the 80s. You know, we did it was like 1990 when we did it in New York. But the play was written in the 80s, at a time when that was rather unusual, that a father would be fully and the story was that the father and son are very kind of codependent, and they live in a pretty macho society, and no one can accept the fact that they have such an easy relationship about the son’s homosexuality. Both the women the father’s involved with because his mother’s dead, and the men that the son is trying to get involved with can’t deal with the fact that his dad is so cool with him being gay. So both have trouble finding love in their life, and yet they have this deep relationship, this very beautiful play. And it was at a time when, honestly, when I got a lot of people telling me, are you sure you want to play a gay character? You know, at the time when you’re like, you’re like, becoming like, well known, and you sure you want to do that? Because that so I did that wasn’t a big consideration that I said yes, but, but it made our life more on the East Coast, and I kind of opted out of kind of getting in the Hollywood scene and going to the Hollywood parties and just chasing, you know, Hollywood career when ghost was and I don’t know if that was smart or stupid. It ultimately was smart because it was something that was who I was so, maybe it may have taken me a little more. May have slowed down my trajectory a little bit, I guess. But, um, I would say that was a defining choice.

 

Samantha Bee  12:47

Great, yes, that’s a great decision. That’s a beautiful decision to look back on. I could feel like knowing where you’re going to put your roots down and being firm about who you are. I mean, that’s kind of, it’s kind of hard to come by, so a lot of pressure like, there is when you have a success like, I mean, there’s a people put the gears to you. I imagine that your whole team kept trying to convince you to move. I bet they tried to convince you to move to LA so many times.

 

Tony Goldwyn  13:18

Yeah, they did. My team and then my, you know, I’m from a showbiz family, so there was a lot in my dad was very concerned. Like, what you finally have, like, you know, made it now, and now you’re gonna do what like, you’re we lived in Hoboken, and when I was doing this play, Cherry Lane theater, you know, and I knew my dad in terms. He was super proud of me, and he came to opening night and all that, but, but it just made no sense. He goes, you should move to LA and I’m like, dude, what are you doing? And I, you know, for a few years there, he was really, I think he couldn’t understand it, you know, kind of freaked him out.

 

Samantha Bee  14:00

But don’t you think there’s something so there’s something so good about because we as a family also made the decision to stay on the East Coast, and it was like, we thought about it for years, and we were like, what are the what is the cost? Like, what are the benefits? Like, what do we what should we do? And then we were like, no, East Coast. We’ll just if we have to go out there, you can always go out there. It’s not like it’s not available to you to go out there and film and do what you need to do, and then you just come home to a place where it’s very grounded. There’s a lot of friction when you live in New York, and friction.

 

Tony Goldwyn  14:35

Yeah, no, I, I honestly am so grateful, because I feel like it wasn’t who I was. It’s just some people make that choice, and that’s a great thing for them. I don’t like who knows. You can’t read the tea leaves of what you know, what’s at the counterfactual of what would have been but for me, it was, it was who I was, and even if it slowed down the trajectory of my acting career and over. I wasn’t out in LA chasing, going to the parties and chasing and meeting whatever it was. You know, what actually happened for me, because we made our life here, which was a great thing for our kids, are the lifestyle that we have lived. And you and I live near each other. You know? It’s an amazing place to be. It allowed me to keep working in the theater. And maybe most significantly for me, I experienced being in a huge hit and having all this success and being like, super hot for the first time, maybe a couple of years later, the next film I did didn’t do so well. It wasn’t so great. And suddenly I became less hot, and I was there living in Hoboken, going, wait, what? What happened? What’s going on? How does this work?  I thought I did everything I was supposed to do, like I was in a movie, I did this play, I won these awards, like, why isn’t Hollywood coming to court, but dealing with that struggle, thankfully, continuing to work and to be able to, you know, I was sort of on the map, but it wasn’t what I thought was supposed to happen. But that struggle that I suddenly didn’t anticipate forced me into a position where I was like, well, this I want to be like spending my whole career waiting by the phone thinking, well, you know, allowing, we’ll call it Hollywood, allowing the industry, allowing other people to sort of decide my fate based on the box office of whatever last project I had done. So I was like, wow, I need to get a hold of this and take control somehow, and figure out how to have some agency over my creative life, and that led me to directing, because I kind of thought like, I’m just going to be an actor. I’m not, I’m not going to just be an actor sitting by the phone waiting for someone to give me a job. That’s how I started looking for material to create my own stuff, and that led to me, it took a few years, but that led to me directing my first film, and that opened up a whole like world to me, where I thought, oh, wow, I can do all of it, and discovering aspects of myself that I never would have achieved so perhaps, look, who knows, I may have gone to LA and been unemployed for 10 years, I don’t know, but if I had, even if I’d gone, and that was, you know, like my father thought, I should be in the mix, and, you know, getting in the stream, if it suddenly become a big movie star from that, I don’t know that I would have been forced to discover this other part of myself that was awesome.

 

Samantha Bee  17:29

That makes a ton of that makes a ton of sense to me. There’s something, like grounding about an East Coast life where you’re like, oh, wait, when you look out the door, life is happening. Like, it’s lively, there’s all kinds of people doing all kinds of different jobs, and there’s and it’s high and it’s low, and it’s like, it’s so Scattershot and kind of wild all the time, and you’re on the subway, and it’s like, sometimes it’s incredible, and sometimes it’s the worst experience of your life, and you’re like, and it kind of contributes to the stew of creativity. I think, I think it keeps you very sharp. I think it keeps you very sharp.

 

Tony Goldwyn  18:14

Totally agree.

 

Samantha Bee  18:15

And it makes it forces you, it forces you to do better and be creative all the time. Otherwise, you don’t have that experience of only meeting people who are in your industry all the time, just doing kind of like the same thing, and all your friends are trying to get the same job that you’re trying to get, and you’re all reading the same scripts. It’s like totally different. It’s different vibe, I love it.

 

Tony Goldwyn  18:35

Yeah, and I find that it forces you to look to yourself, to be to laser, do things your way, because people are doing so many different things, so many different ways. And there isn’t a, as you said, in the creative field, there’s no template for the way it’s done. There are conventions. And a lot of times what people do, which, thank God. You know, as painful as it was at times, I sort of seem to have avoided, is repeating yourself. In other words, you have success at one thing, then everyone wants you to do that thing. Like, oh, that’s what you do. Okay, cool so, you know, we all do that to some degree but I find the East Coast, like, forces you to reinvent a lot. And they go, yeah, people are as entranced by that. They’re not, they find that a little boring or something I don’t know, you know, as opposed to fitting you into commoditizing you? You know, in our business, I think LA is an amazing city and, you know, but it’s a town of commerce, so the industry is commodified. So then, by definition, people go, okay, so what sell? What sells? So that sells. So it’s package that up and and do that. And that’s what that is whereas New York has a, I don’t know, the East Coast, I find doesn’t it’s not as natural to do that, does it?

 

Samantha Bee  19:49

It totally makes sense to me. We used to say this all the time when we were making full frontal that it was like, the key to making it was dynamic variance. I was like, dynamic variance. Like, I don’t want to stay in one place too. I don’t want to do one thing forever. Like, I want to, let’s mix it up. Like, let’s do seven minutes on this, and then we move this way, and then we’re gonna go out in the world and, like, just like, mixing it up. You get to mix it up.

 

Tony Goldwyn  20:13

Yeah.

 

Samantha Bee  20:16

We’ll be right back after this.

 

Samantha Bee  23:41

So when we met, you did something for full phones. You came on our bus tour. I put my face on the side of the bus, you were so generous with your time. It was so kind of you to spend the day with us. Do you’re the bus driver? Of course, you do so many jobs. You drive busses. You are director, do you? Are you? So we have to talk about the election a little bit because, like, wow, when you’re a celebrity, I do believe, like you, we should use it for good. Like you have this platform, gotta use it for good. Like, not necessarily. Kid Rock, I’m not sure he’s doing, not sure he’s really doing anything special, but I actually think that you do an incredible job with your platform, when it comes to voting and being involved in elections, is that? How did that evolve for you? Is that, is politics a totally natural fit for you, or did you kind of stumble into it? Is it because you played a president on TV and you were like, wait a minute, people keep thinking, I’m the president.

 

Tony Goldwyn  25:20

That was sort of part of it no, it was a couple of things. I’d always been really fascinated with politics, my parents were super engaged. You know, I grew up, you know, vivid memories at 12 years end of watching the Watergate hearings, right? 11 and 12 years old, so, and, you know, I was a little young during the Vietnam War, but the movement in the 60s was a part of my early childhood, and then going through the politics of the 70s was just insane. So I always found it fascinating and but I didn’t see any way to get involved myself when I was younger, I the involvement for me came more when I first experienced celebrity, you know, honestly, with Ghost, I was kind of uncomfortable with it. It felt a little bit fraudulent to me. I thought, you know, I’m an actor, and she goes, that’s great. And I know that’s part of success, but I really, and I don’t, this feels unmerited, unmoored, like, you know, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

 

Samantha Bee  26:26

Because everyone wants to know your opinion. They all want to know like, your opinion.

 

Tony Goldwyn  26:30

And it felt shallow to me, yeah, you know. And, and I thought, honestly, I was like, What do I have to contribute? I just want to, kind of, like, do my thing. And if things are successful, great, but I wasn’t sure how to manage it. At the same time, my father was very involved, you know, in service. And both of my parents, you know, service, and making a part of your life, making a contribution to the nonprofit world and financial but, you know, engaging in service, a community service of some sort, was important, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that myself. So then suddenly, with celebrity, I splashed around for about 10 years trying to figure out what’s how can I contribute, or what can I get involved with, and how can I be involved. And so it took me a while, but I started to find things organically that meant something to me. So it was, it was in combination. So then I found certain causes that I and organizations that I thought, wow, I really want to promote these and help them. And politics became a natural extension of that. Like, part of it was like lobbying on Capitol Hill for arts funding, I got very involved in criminal justice reform, you know, and ended up being involved with the Innocence Project and so different organizations I started to care a lot about and realizing there was a connection, because lawmakers are the ones that influence those things. And then got fast, well before scandal, got fascinated with politics, and would be, like I said, you know, interacting with with lawmakers, and then going to, you know, the Democratic Convention and even the Republican convention to try and advocate for issues that mattered to me on behalf of the organizations I was involved with. And then, you know, whatever, in 2011 or 2012 whenever was, you know, scan, I get cast as the president, and all of a sudden, hilariously, people start looking to me like I have some authoritative voice, which just slayed me. I thought it was hilarious. I go, you know, and people took me seriously. It was ridiculous, but I even, you know, scandal was this phenomenon at the time. And you’d go to Washington, and people like wanted you to show up at their event. You go to the White House, people want so then I thought, oh, I can really have an impact. Just so I got more engaged then and and honestly, following the example, seeing, you know, what an incredible activist carrier Washington is, no, Carrie is really.

 

Samantha Bee  29:03

She’s great.

 

Tony Goldwyn  29:04

She’s incredible, so brilliant and so intentional and purposeful, and is such an incredible you know, she wasn’t an actress. She would be an organized community organizer. She really is. She should run around. So I learned a lot from Carrie, and you know, to this day, still on this in this election cycle, she’s my sort of Guru. No, you know, she really were very involved in this, you know now the Harris campaign. But you know, when it was the Biden campaign, when we were all in despair of, my God, the world is ending. So what are we going to do? And then two weeks ago, it all seems to have changed so.

 

Samantha Bee  29:43

Kerry Washington, should 100% run for office, and you 100% should be on her ticket with the I don’t know, like you know, but isn’t it? So, I mean, so can you believe how fast the world changed? Oh, my God, the last two weeks, or however, many. Weeks it’s been, I don’t even know how many days it’s been. Have been incredible. I mean, there is such excitement, but there was, you know, it’s a newly exciting moment again, because 2016 was pretty damn exciting, but it feels so refreshed. How does this feeling compare to that feeling? Obviously, that one didn’t really turn out. But I have high hopes. Isn’t it nice to feel like.

 

Tony Goldwyn  30:24

This felt more to me like, Oh, wait. I remember being at the um, Democratic Convention of, oh, wait, and there was this sense of excitement in the air, you know, and of a man who, you know was had found his moment. Now, granted, that was a long primary battle, you know, and a lot of people, myself included, initially, I saw Obama speak. I was at the Democratic Convention in oh four, and Jane and I were like, on the floor of the convention, and this guy walked out who I’d never heard of, and they said the senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, and he spoke, and I was like, that’s the guy who is that amazing speech. But even when he at the beginning of that primary, I was like, well, I’m not sure he has the experience. He’s so new, like, can you do it? And I thought I admired Hillary for a long time, you know, so, so that was a moment then 2016 we thought, okay, now this is, you know, the first woman president that was terribly exciting, as you say. And, you know, it didn’t, it didn’t work out that way. And that was dramatic.

 

Samantha Bee  31:27

I rather, I do, I agree with you. This does feel like oh eight, like I remember that feel. I’m sure you remember this too, just being at the convention in oh eight, and then when he spoke, when he gave the kind of like the big final speech in oh eight just I can remember where I was great and how quiet it was because everyone was watching, like everyone it was really a moment, just a shared experience with 1000s and 1000s of people were just like, laser focused on the speech everyone in the building. It was great.

 

Tony Goldwyn  32:06

I was there with my I brought my daughter, Anna, she turned 18 that year on voting, and I was like, we’re going to the convention together. And it was a transformative experience for her. And this year I’m going to go, I’ll be in Chicago, and I’m bringing my younger daughter, Tess and her boyfriend are going to come with me.

 

Samantha Bee  32:23

Oh, my God, that’s so exciting. That’s so much fun. My daughter’s voting. She’s voting for the first time in this election, and I can’t wait to go with her. Like, I just can’t.

 

Tony Goldwyn  32:33

Are you going to Chicago?

 

Samantha Bee  32:34

We’re just going to just go vote. I mean, oh my god, I can’t wait. Um, okay, so Well, tell me about the Innocence Project, because I they do incredible work. So you’re on the board for them?

 

Tony Goldwyn  32:50

Yeah, on the board of the innocent judge. I made a film, God no, 14 years ago, um, called Conviction, which was based on an innocence project, case where a true story of a woman in Massachusetts who whose brother was convicted of murder and spent 18 and a half years in prison for a murder he did not commit. And they were, you know, uneducated High School and he’d been in trouble his whole life, and she was the only person who believed her brother was innocent, and she said, I’m going to do I’m going to get you out. If you stay alive, I will get you out. And she went, put us, got her GED, went to college, put herself through law school, became an attorney, just to try and get her brother out. She succeeded, and with the help of the Innocence Project, got Kenny out. And so we made this movie with Hillary Swank and Sam Rockwell. So I got involved the Innocence Project, because they are the organization. Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld are these two incredible civil rights attorneys who pioneered the use of DNA to prove innocence. And, you know, they started at, I think 89 was that when it’s WD, they, you know, they formed this organization, and it started out with using DNA to prove someone’s innocence, and now it’s expanded. They’ve exonerated hundreds of people, and there’s a network across the country, and really across the world, with innocence organizations. And now they’ve moved into not only non DNA cases, they’re at the forefront of criminal justice reform in this country so that to prevent people from being wrongfully convicted in the first place so, you know that we have in our policy department that goes, you know, changing laws around the country and and trying to, you know, promote prosecutors who are not just have a knee jerk propensity to just, convict, but really looking at the conduct and the incentives in both police departments and getting police and prosecutors on the side of actual justice, as opposed to, you know, just putting people away, because that’s the incentive.

 

Samantha Bee  34:59

So the act of getting into law school, attending law school, becoming a full lawyer, so that you can fight for your brother is unbelievable to me. That is a long it’s an incredible story.

 

Tony Goldwyn  35:16

She’s an amazing woman, Betty Ann waters, who it’s based on, and by the way, she had no interest in being a lawyer. She got any out, and she never practiced law. She did not want she became an advocate for the Innocence Project and for other people, and helped other people’s cases who’d been wrongfully convicted. But she is a mom, just three, you know, two kids, and she just, grandma and she had no interest. She wanted to get her brother out. And yes, it’s a great story to check out. Check out the movie people. Check out available on her Netflix or something.

 

Samantha Bee  35:55

Okay, you have joined law and order. How many times before you you must have been in the law and order universe multiple times before, like joining as like a regular cast member, right? How many times were you twice?

 

Tony Goldwyn  36:11

I directed an episode of Law and Order, I think 2006 and then I played a, I was on a I was on an airplane with Vincent D’Onofrio, and he was like, hey, man, we’re creating a character of my brother on Law and Order Criminal Intent. Would you play my brother? So I, I said, Sure, so I did four episodes as Vincent’s brother in a criminal intent as well. That’s my law and order universe experience. But now I’m, you know, say I’m in Waterston retired this past season, so I took over for him.

 

Samantha Bee  36:44

Oh, my God, it’s gonna you can fridge this like world. You’re building a new universe that could go on forever. You can’t ever stop.

 

Tony Goldwyn  36:53

We’ll see we never who knows, you have no guarantees in in our life. But yeah, I’m doing it now, and it’s really fun. And the it’s a it’s a New York institution.

 

Samantha Bee  37:02

It really is. It feels so right to me. I mean, have we all like it is an institution? I feel like I was 18 years ago, like pregnant, laying on the couch watching reruns of one order that I’d already seen probably 10 times. Like it’s just like part of it’s almost in my bones. Do you know what I mean?

 

Tony Goldwyn  37:24

Yeah, totally. And people are so I didn’t, I did not appreciate how much people love that show, like I thought I had had such a positive experience working on the show years ago, and I thought that sounds really fun. I’d be home. And it’s a, you know, they created this interesting character for me and Sam, of course versus one of my heroes and someone whose shoes, I thought, well, those are big shoes to step into so, but I thought, I don’t know if anyone still watches law and order. I mean, it’s been on for 30 years so, or season 24 I took a bit of a hiatus with the current version we’re doing now. It ended in 2012 and then resumed a few years ago, came back, but, when, as soon as it was announced that I was doing it, I got floods, maybe more than anything I’ve ever done, floods of emails and people so excited.

 

Samantha Bee  40:33

Oh, more people. Yeah, more people reach out to you. I did one episode, one time, and I for some reason, like, wardrobe wise, I had a hat, and the more people texted me and they were like, what’s with the hat? I’m like, I didn’t choose it. It’s not my fault. If you don’t, if you like the hat, great. And if you don’t like the hat, I’m sorry.

 

Samantha Bee  41:10

Now that you’re a district attorney, everyone’s going to ask you for advice in that arena, just like they ask you for.

 

Tony Goldwyn  41:19

Presidential advice.

 

Samantha Bee  41:20

Presidential advice, like as a for as a former protist, what do you what should Joe Biden do starting January 2025, you know? I mean, you know, right, exactly. You’re the one to ask, are you doing? What’s your stance on? Re watching things you’ve done. I know there’s a scant, big scandal, rewatch podcast.

 

Tony Goldwyn  41:40

I don’t really. I don’t have an aversion to it. When I do rewatch stuff, I always go, Oh, that was fun, amusing, or terrible or something. But I don’t have neurosis about it. I just don’t. Once I’ve finished something, I’ll watch it if I’m promoting it, you know, because I have to promote I want to know, or sometimes I’ll watch I want to know about how it turned out. I don’t even necessarily I’ve seen some of the lawn orders that we did, you know, because they we did. I was in the final seven episodes of last season, and I think I watched a couple of them, one of them I did my daughter Tess played my daughter in the season finale.

 

Samantha Bee  42:14

Oh, that’s fun.

 

Tony Goldwyn  42:15

So that was super fun. So I did watch that. That was really fun. But, um, but, yeah, I don’t. I’m not a once I do the work, I try to put my attention on that’s it. I did the thing that’s over and done with so.

 

Samantha Bee  42:28

But when you direct a film, like, okay, let’s so you. Ezra came out last in 2023?

 

Tony Goldwyn  42:35

No, 24 it came out this just, yeah, Ezra came out 31st yeah, it just came out. Okay, that’s okay, yeah, just on demand. Now, it’s like […] It was, it’s on demand now, but it was, it may still be in movie theaters and places, but it was for a couple months.

 

Samantha Bee  42:53

Okay, but you, when you do, when you direct a movie such as Ezra, you have to watch it 10,000 times, sure. In the Edit, you’re just 10,000 times so you are pouring over every minute of it. Do you love that part? Do you love post production?

 

Tony Goldwyn  43:10

I do. It’s really, you know, it’s, it can be stressful at times. It’s magical at times. It’s exhausting at times. Some of the go, I cannot watch this movie, but you do. I mean, I guess it’s like rewriting a book or something, you know, you just constantly pour over it to try and find the you know, it remains a fluid thing until you just, you go, okay, now it’s cooked, it’s done. I can’t leave it, let it go, but it’s a fascinating experience. You’re always when you’re watching it over and over and over and over again, you’re watching it with your attention on some certain elements, you know what I mean. And then you go, okay, we solved that problem onto the next one. Now let’s watch it again to watch this other problem, whether it’s, finding the rough shape of it initially, or finding a certain music cue and refining that, or, you know what I mean, or trimming it down for some

 

Samantha Bee  44:02

Right one, you pull one little thread, and then you’re like, oh no, I just undid a whole now this next scene doesn’t make any sense. I have to go back and oh, so it was written by is it based on the life of a friend of yours?

 

Tony Goldwyn  44:16

Yeah, so my Okay, oldest and best friend in the world, Tony Spiridakis. We met as young actors, like over 40 years ago. Tony became a screenwriter, and Tony has an autistic son named Dimitri, and you know, we’ve been like in each other’s family. We’re basically family, our family, you know? And they went through a real, honest Odyssey when Dimitri was diagnosed with autism, particularly when he was approaching puberty at like 11-12, years old, and Tony wanted to write a movie about it, and so I had read many drafts of the script over the years, just as a friend, because we often share each other’s work. And a couple of years ago, Tony called me and he said, You know, I wrote that script. Would you take a look at it just to get some notes? And I read it, and I was. Like, dude, we need to do this together. I was kind of looking for a movie to direct, but it’s just something hit me. I said, this is the moment. And I thought to myself, What an incredible thing to do for my best friend, like to get his story made. I really whether we it’s so hard getting independent movies made like it’s almost impossible, so hard if we can do this, who knows if something’s successful or not, but if we can do it like, what a great thing for our friendship, this 43 year friendship, Tony was the best man at James my wedding. I’ve been the best. He’s reduced me to Jane, actually, my wife. And he’s Anna’s my older godfather. I’m godfather to his oldest kid. And so, you know, we worked on the script for another year, and then we, you know, then it kind of came together. We put this amazing cast together, Bobby Cannavale and Robert De Niro and Rose Byrne, and this amazing young autistic actor named William Fitzgerald, who plays Ezra and vero Farmiga and Rayne Wilson and Whoopi Goldberger in it. And again, it all just like came together pretty quickly, and we made it last year, and, yeah, it came out this year, so this really magical.

 

Samantha Bee  46:08

That is an incredible cast. So, okay, so did you? Were you? Was he on set with you every day? Like, how much were you collaborating with your friendship? Did he write the script to kind of walk away or he was every minute.

 

Tony Goldwyn  46:23

First of all, as a director, I’ve always really insisted that the writer of the screenplay is with me at all times, which is sometimes anathema in Hollywood, because studios and producers sometimes get very anxious about a writer being around. They find them intrusive, which I makes no sense to me. I always give that’s my primary partnership. So, um, so I said to Tony, when we do this, so we are locked, it’s his story, essentially, so I was like, well, you and I are locked or joined at the hip. And I said, we’re producing it together, and we brought on partners, you know, and we have amazing producers who really helped us pull the movie together. But, you know, I said, Tony […] is anything I’m doing. He’s by my side. So he was more than any other writer. He was on every location scout. He was just with me the whole time. So we were, like, we were besties, throughout, and not, you know, in the cutting room, they were talking, you know, it was like, I’m the director. It was my decision was final, but, and he wasn’t in a cutting room every day, you know, but every, couple of weeks, I’d go, I need you to look at this, and I’d show him something or, you know, so he was my closest collaborator.

 

Samantha Bee  47:26

Wow, and how long did you take, like, a from the time that you read the script that you loved, and you were like, Okay, we’re gonna try. We’re gonna try to make this. How long did it take you to assemble all the financing and assemble the whole team. And did you, find the cast, or.

 

Tony Goldwyn  47:43

Tell you exactly, so, it was unusually fast, actually, as these things go, people might be shocked to hear how long it takes to make a movie. Conviction took me 10 years to get me, but, um, my first one to walk on the moon was like four years to get me. This one, I read it in the winter of 2020, right before the pandemic, we worked on the script for most of that year during the pandemic, in the fall of 2021, I called Bobby Cannavale, and I said, Look at this script, what do you I wanted to we said that Bobby would be the right person to play Max, the protagonist, the Father, and Bobby said, yes, then we kind of, you know, took a couple of months to do some readings and get some more notes, and he had some more thoughts on it. Basically, a year later, I called up Robert De Niro’s agent, who was an old friend of mine, and said, you know, Bob is our first choice. And I think this project, and the agent was like, this might really interest Bob. And literally, in three days, I was told, Bob wants to sit down and talk to you. And I was shocked, because usually with movie stars, it takes months to get them even read something.

 

Samantha Bee  48:53

Oh yeah, if they ever read it.

 

Tony Goldwyn  48:55

And then Bob had some notes about the character of the grandfather that he’s playing, and but he had an availability window, and Josh, his agent, was like, Look, if Bob says yes, here’s when you have to shoot this movie, because this is when he’s available. And that was amazing. So, you know, we addressed his notes, and, you know, another month or so later, he said yes. So that was the beginning of May of 2022 so it had been a little bit over a year. And then suddenly we had Robert De Niro and Bobby Conway attached, and we had dates in the fall we had to shoot, so he like had to go. And so then we brought on producing partners, and these amazing two producers, John Killick and Bill horbert, who went out and helped us. You know, we’d already been working on the financing, but they helped pull it together, because that’s not my area of expertise. So basically, by the by we shot it in September, October of 22 then we edited all through 23 and it came out in the what year are we in?

 

Samantha Bee  49:56

2020 I think, 2024?

 

Tony Goldwyn  50:01

May 2024, so it was basically a little bit of a two year process, which is incredibly fast.

 

Samantha Bee  50:06

For two years to make a movie, people think that things go very fast, but two years to make a get a movie like made is like, that’s like, turbo charged. That’s a rocket ship. That’s incredible.

 

Tony Goldwyn  50:20

Tony was working on the script for 10 years. So that was not.

 

Samantha Bee  50:25

That part, exactly 10 years of labor prior to that doesn’t count, okay, you’re gonna be doing a podcast with your daughter is that true?

 

Tony Goldwyn  50:34

We are, yeah. We’re just developing it now, and we started recording, and we’re doing this podcast, which hopefully, you know, along we’re not sure when we’re launching, but soon called far from the tree, and we were fascinated. You know, being in a she’s the fourth generation of our family in our business, in our industry.

 

Samantha Bee  50:51

Wow, okay.

 

Tony Goldwyn  50:52

So because both sides, both my mother’s side of my my both my paternal and maternal grandparents were in show business, and I’m the third generation, and we’re fascinated by people who go into the family business and want to talk to other parent child, you know, duos who were in either show business or sports or politics or industry or finance, whatever, lawyers or, you know, we’re just fascinated by that dynamic. And so we’re talking about that’s the concept of it.

 

Samantha Bee  51:22

That’s so smart. When did your okay? So when did your daughter kind of look at your fam? Because there really is a family business. I mean, like, it really is, I know somebody else has made this point over time, but it really is kind of the same thing as like, as like to Chico and sons grosseteria. Like, you’re like, right? Like, it is a family business. But at what point did your daughter kind of look at the family business and go, this is appealing to me. I think I have something to say. Like, I want to I’m going to be.

 

Tony Goldwyn  51:50

Yeah, so both my kids, Anna, who I’m doing this with, is a writer, and I’m a television writer, so, but also writes teachers. But Anna was, I think, in college, she was at UCLA, and she was an English major. She was writing for the UCLA newspaper, and took a screenwriting class and just got interested in it, and thought, well, maybe this is a way that I could express myself. And she, you know, sort of thought, obviously was interested in the business, but wasn’t sure where she fit. And she thought, well, maybe I’ll just apply to film school and see what happens. I think this is correct. And she happened to apply to USC Film School, which is, like, one of the best schools, you know, for the screenwriting programs. And she got in and was like, Oh, God, so I guess I’ll go and and then just kind of fell in love with it and focused in TV writing at USC. And then got on a show after college and after, you know, grad school, and so I think it was while she was at UCLA where it kind of clicked for her that that was her way of expressing but Tess, our younger daughter’s an actress in New York and and is a writer and filmmaker too. And, you know, she’s working in both film and television in the theater, and she’s doing an amazing play this year, you know, off Broadway so, yeah, so they’re both. It’s all kind of like, I don’t know, it’s all been kind of organic.

 

Samantha Bee  53:08

Oh my god, this was such a pleasure.

 

Tony Goldwyn  53:10

Yeah, oh, likewise.

 

Samantha Bee  53:12

For saying yes, oh my god, I’m gonna see you.

 

Tony Goldwyn  53:15

Talk for hours.

 

CREDITS  53:20

That was Tony Goldwyn, and I had no choice but to look up one thing Tony spoke of his work with the Innocence Project. And they do incredible work. And I had to check how many people have actually been exonerated with their help. Well, they have done almost 400 DNA exonerations, and over 20 of them were people who were previously sentenced to death. It is truly heroic work. Check them out, and thanks for joining us. I’m Samantha Bee, see you next week for some more Choice Words. Thank you for listening to Choice Words, which was created by and is hosted by me. The show is produced by […], with editing and additional producing by Josh Richmond. We are distributed by Lemonada Media, and you can find me @realsambee on X and Instagram, follow Choice Words wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.