Tony Goldwyn recalls Hollywood ‘people that were mean’ changing their attitude toward him after this hit film

Key Points

• Tony Goldwyn said that Hollywood treated him “like I had the plague” when he was an unemployed actor.

• The Scandal star said everything shifted when Ghost became a hit.

• “All of those same people who were mean to me were hugging me like I was their old friend and they always loved me,” he said.

Hollywood treats you differently when you have a hit movie under your belt. Just ask Tony Goldwyn.

The Scandal star explained during a new interview with Ben Mankiewicz on the Talking Pictures podcast how his colleagues in the entertainment industry completely changed their attitudes toward him after his breakout success in Ghost.

“The thing that had freaked me out was: I would go to Hollywood parties and stuff — oh, God — in the ’80s when I was struggling and I was a young actor,” Goldwyn explained, noting that his brother, John, had found huge success as an executive for MGM/United Artists. “And John was like, ‘Oh, you gotta meet this person. You gotta meet that person. You got to come to this party’ — he was trying to help me out.”

Goldwyn said that his brother’s contacts were not thrilled to meet him. “And of course, being an unemployed actor… it was like I had the plague,” he said. “You go to these parties, people go, ‘Oh, hi, you’re John’s [brother]. What do you do? I said, ‘Oh, I’m an actor.’ And then they go, ‘Oh!’ and then they’d walk away.’ It was just, it was like having, you know, like leprosy or something.”

Once Ghost became the biggest hit of 1990, everyone acted much friendlier to Goldwyn, who played the villainous Carl Bruner in the film. “Ghost comes out and instantaneously, all of those same people who were mean to me were hugging me like I was their old friend and they always loved me,” the actor recalled. “I didn’t know how to manage that.”

He continued, “I’d go to a party and they’d say, ‘Tony, oh, remember, we had dinner a couple of years ago. I knew you were going to be a big star!’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, how do I handle this Hollywood thing?’ I was not a natural at it.”

Based on Ghost‘s warm reception, Goldwyn wrongly assumed that his career would be smooth sailing from that point forward. “Everything was going great, and I thought, ‘Okay, now it all happens,'” he remembered. “And then I learned, oh, no, that’s not how it happens. Because then if the next movie you do doesn’t make money, then you’re not as hot as you were the year before.”

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As a result, Goldwyn struggled to maintain the high status that Ghost temporarily earned him. “A couple of years later, I was working and grateful to be working and able to support my family,” he said. “I was doing the thing, but I wasn’t a movie star. So that was when I realized, ‘Oh, I need to get control of this. Because if I’m in my 40s, I don’t want to be praying that someone gives me a job or the right thing comes along.’”

You can watch the full conversation between Goldwyn and Mankiewicz above.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly