Alfred Molina Fights Tears Saying I Did Disappoint My Dad by Being an Actor and Rejectin

July 2024 · 5 minute read

Alfred Molina has gone viral for sharing an emotional story to Vanity Fair about his father, who never vocally supported his son’s acting career. Molina once had the chance to become the manager of a restaurant for a higher salary. He turned it down to pursue the arts, which baffled his father. This was long before Molina became a Tony and BAFTA-nominated actor, plus an iconic movie villain thanks to Doctor Octopus in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2.”

“When I was very young, my dad got me a job as a waiter in the restaurant where he was working. If I say so myself, I was a good waiter to the point where the management offered me the chance to do a two-week management training course,” Molina said. “I turned it down because I got an acting job. My father says, ‘This acting job, how much are they paying you?’ I said, ‘I’m getting union wage, so 15 pounds a week.'”

Related Stories

Downward line graph with an Apple Vision Pro on fire VIP+

Apple Vision Pro Clouds the Bright Future for XR

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 04: Zach Bryan attends the 66th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Zach Bryan Is Absent From 2025 Grammy Ballot, as He Joins the Superstar Ranks of Drake and the Weeknd in Declining to Submit

Molina revealed that the management job would’ve started out with a salary in the 30 pound range, which had his father asking: “Wait a minute. You’re making 30 or 35 here. Then you go to making 15?”

Popular on Variety

“I said, ‘Yeah.’ He looked at me and he had the look on his face that you reserve for the mad and the lost,” Molina recalled. “He stared at me like he didn’t recognize me. The only thing I could say to him was, ‘This is what I love, Dad.’ He never quite got it. I did disappoint my dad. Yeah. If my dad had lived a little longer, he’d hopefully would have realized I hadn’t wasted my time.”

Molina took a long pause while trying to fight back tears, reflecting on his father’s disappointment. It wasn’t until after his father died that Molina even got an inkling that his dad had paid any attention to his acting career.

“My father and I never really talked about my work,” Molina said. “He wasn’t phoning me up saying, ‘So what are you up to? What’s going on?’ We didn’t have that kind of relationship. When he passed away, I went to Spain for the funeral and I was with his widow and she drags out this suitcase and it’s full of clippings and photos and bits from magazines and letters from people that wrote to him saying they saw me. He kept all this stuff, but he never talked about it.”

“My step mom said, ‘Do you want any of this?’ I couldn’t handle it. I said no,” he added. “I’ve always tried with my kids. … All you can do is tell them how brilliant you are. That’s all you need to do.”

Molina is currently back on Broadway in a new production of “Uncle Vanya” opposite Steve Carell. He’ll next be seen on screen in the “Harold and the Purple Crayon” movie, co-starring Zachary Levi. Sony is releasing the family tentpole in theaters on August 2.

Watch Molina’s full Vanity Fair interview in the video below.

Read More About:

Jump to Comments

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9nfXOAjp%2BgpaVfo7K4v46ao5%2BqlZl6rrvLoqWaZZOntqa%2FjJ2YnWWUnsCivM%2BooKeslZl6oq%2FTqKlmaWJognqEl3BucGc%3D