Hollywood director returns to Fountain Valley School

Although he was an heir to one of the most powerful families in Hollywood, Tony Goldwyn never wanted to act before he came to the Fountain Valley School.

At Fountain Valley, Goldwyn performed in “Sleuth” and, he says, butchered the role of Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and fell in love with acting in the process.

“By the time I left here,” he said this morning at Fountain Valley, “I knew what I wanted to do with my life.”

Finding your dreams and the strength to follow them will be the theme of Goldwyn’s commencement speech today at Fountain Valley.

“At 18, I had these big, big dreams – it was very scary,” he said. “It worked out for me, and even if it hadn’t, it would have been the right decision for me.”

This is only the second time he’s been back since graduating in 1978.

Security and Widefield, he said, used to be a lot farther away from campus.

“The school is surprisingly the same, only nicer,” he said.

Goldwyn’s grandfather, Samuel Goldwyn Sr., was the “G” in MGM and a legendary film producer, while his father, Samuel Goldwyn Jr., is himself a producer and a studio executive.

Samuel Goldwyn Jr. graduated from Fountain Valley in 1943 and wanted his sons to attend the school as well.

“It had completely changed his life, so he really wanted his sons to come,” Goldwyn said.

After college, Goldwyn had a successful run as an actor, most memorably as the villain Carl Bruner in 1990’s “Ghost” and as Kendall on the TV show “Designing Women.”

Gradually, however, he felt only acting was limiting him.

He thought he’d go into producing, but wound up becoming a very successful television and film director on shows like “Dexter,” “Dirty Sexy Money” and “A Walk on the Moon.”

Becoming a director, he said, “felt like a familiar suit of clothes.”

But taking a film from concept to the screen is a long and often grueling process that fails far more often than it succeeds.

That’s just the nature of the job, Goldwyn said. “Failure is something you need to make fast friends with quickly in life,” he said. “As my grandfather used to say, ‘If you succeed 51 percent of the time, you’re a genius.’”

The film and TV business is in a state of flux. The writers strike last winter disrupted the normal pilot season, while a potential actors strike later this summer may disrupt film and TV schedules for the next year.

Plus, the industry’s financial foundation is being challenged by the Internet and digital video recorders.

What the future holds, he doesn’t know.

“Maybe I’m a dinosaur,” he said. “I feel like the experience of sitting in a movie theater and watching a big screen is something people will always want.”

He’s scheduled to direct another “Dexter” episode later this year and next year’s season finale of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” but a feature film he’s working on or an actors strike could change his plans.

“For me, I keep it diversified,” he said. “It’s fun and keeps it exciting and you’re entire life doesn’t depend on one project.”