“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!’”

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

"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!'"

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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June 27, 2026 2:06 p.m. ET

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Tony Goldwyn. Credit:

John Nacion/Variety via Getty

- 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."

Tony Goldwyn in 'Ghost'.

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."

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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."

Tony Goldwyn in New York City on May 11.

Noam Galai/Getty

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.

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