NYLON - January 2008 - (Page 132) AMERICAN DREAM Twenty minutes before I’m supposed to interview Malcolm Goodwin, I get a call from a number I don’t recognize; the phone rings three times, then stops. When I arrive at the SoHo coffeeshop where we’re scheduled to meet, and find Goodwin already sitting outside, looking anxious, I ask if perhaps he tried to call. “Yeah,” he says, nodding a bit sheepishly. “But then I realized I was early.” As we sit down, Goodwin has another confession: This is his first interview. Almost. “Well, the only other interview I ever did,” he responds, “was in college, when my roommate decided to write for the school paper.” In the last year, Goodwin has completed roles in American Gangster, with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington; The Tourist, alongside Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams; and the George Clooney-directed Leatherheads. So this might be his first interview, but certainly won’t be his last. Goodwin’s earnestness isn’t the only reason to like him, as the boyishly good-looking 31-year-old’s story reads like a dream-come-true for anyone, which is almost all of us, who has ever worked a day job while harboring bigger ambitions. A New York native, he graduated from a performing arts high school—“It was a bad school,” he says—and spent the next seven years doing a bit of this (producing a few plays), a bit of that (interning), and working at a limousine company. “I wasn’t happy, working a nine-tofive, or rather a nine-to-nine, it was like 12 hours a day,” he says, “and one night, after work, I went to see Life is Beautiful. I remember sitting there, just mad at the world, like ‘What am I doing with my life?’ And I saw that movie, and I was moved, I mean, I was moved! And I knew then I had to utilize my life to the fullest, because at that point, I definitely wasn’t using it.” The next day, he applied to the performing arts program at SUNY Purchase. “It was the only college I applied to, and they audition thousands of students,” he says. “I knew that if this was meant to be, then this school would accept me.” Every actor, Goodwin says, has a goto monologue, “their golden piece they can kinda do on the fly.” His was called “Vietnam,” from a play by Tom Cole, and he performed it at his SUNY Purchase audition. “It was probably the best I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “So I retired it after that day, because I knew it would never get there again.” Needless to say, he was accepted, excelled, and even landed a manager at his final performance as a college student, the same manager he still has today. Goodwin won his role in American Gangster off of the strength of a video audition that he shot himself, and his first day to report to the set was also the first day he met Ridley Scott. It’s one of many experiences he’s had recently that have been slightly surreal, such as having George Clooney school him in basketball on a regular basis during the filming of Leatherheads. “People are like, ‘Oh, did you cut him up? You cut him up!’” Goodwin says. “But I’m telling you, George is a baller! He’s been playing longer than I have!” What is most apparent in talking to Goodwin, though, is that what he’s proud of is not where his career is now or where it’s going, but what it took to get there. “It’s just been one of those years,” he shrugs. “It might seem like this is just kind of happening, but no, it’s been a lot of years. It’s been a lot of work.” stylist: akari endo. grooming: gita bass at exclusive artists management using stila. jacket by diesel, yellow cardigan, white shirt, and shoes by calvin klein, vest and jeans by polo by ralph lauren. Malcolm Goodwin’s hardscrabble path to success has been well worth the struggle. By Kate Williams. Photographed by Matthew Frost
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