Actor Randy J. Goodwin has spent his career saying no to roles and opportunities that would compromise his integrity, even when broke. He worries his three adult children, ages 24, 21, and 18, are losing moral and spiritual grounding as younger generations drift from the values that once anchored him.
I didn't get there, do stuff, do some dirt. They think I'm on their team. I get to break the $200 million glass ceiling. And then I realize, you know what? I've done a lot of dirt. Let me get back to my Christian roots. No, I didn't do that. I came in as the guy that said no from the beginning. I said no when I was sleeping in my car. I said no when I was sleeping on the park bench. I said no when I had negative money in the bank. Well, I take that back. I didn't even have a bank account. Lost. So I've said no my whole life, my whole acting life. And even before that, it was just, I just, I couldn't degrade myself for the money. And they put checks in front of me and asked me to, and a couple of times I had to, you know, get a little, I had to drop my voice a little bit. Take my glasses off and say, if you ever, if you ever say something like that to me again, or you ever offer me something like that again, we're gonna have a problem. We're done. Understand me? Do you understand? I need you to say you understand me before we leave this room. I had to do that a couple times, Toby. I don't like, I don't like, I don't like going there unless it's on camera.
And, and, you know, that is the, the, you know, but What's so powerful about Randy is it's deep in Hollywood, but it's everywhere in society that people have to compromise just to have success, just to rise up. And the expectation, it's become the norm. And I love— this is why it's— when I met you and I told Brenda, I said, Brenda, I want to run side by side with Randy. I want to share his message so loud because it's not just Hollywood, it's now nation and worldwide that we— there are no such things as morals and values. There are no such things as integrity. It's all about what will I need to do to climb the ladder of success.
Yeah. Yeah, it is everywhere you look at. What hurts my heart is I have a daughter who's 24, and then I have a son who's 21, going to be 22 pretty quick here. And then I also have an 18-year-old who's going to be 19 coming up. Um, and I see what the young people are doing to make money. Oh my goodness, my kids are like, Dad, I'm not doing that. I'm like, thank God. But that's where we, we come from a different, uh, cut of cloth. And, you know, like the Bible says, with each generation we will get further and further away from God. And that's something that I've been able to see being in my 50s now. Um, you know, you know, we, we, we saw, uh, like going all the way back to, to Dr. J and those guys playing basketball, and we've seen the eras change all the way up here to LeBron James. Well, that's the same thing in cinema. That's the same thing in businesses. It was, it was wholesome and it was, uh, family-oriented back then. Now it is completely farcical now.
