BEN SAUCEDA: Hello! How are you?
TONY GOLDWYN: I’m Tony! How you doin’?
BEN SAUCEDA: Ben, nice to meet you.
TONY GOLDWYN: Nice to meet you, Ben.
BEN SAUCEDA: Thank you.
JONATHAN Z: Welcome!
TONY GOLDWYN: A treat…
BEN SAUCEDA: Yes, thank you.
TONY GOLDWYN: …to get to do this, yeah.
BEN SAUCEDA: I’m excited about this.
TONY GOLDWYN: Me too.
I hope to have an interesting conversation to make contact with someone I don’t know. I don’t really have any fears, uh… except that I don’t have any idea where this conversation’s headed, but that’s always exciting.
BEN SAUCEDA: My name is Ben Sauceda, I am 41, and I’m here in New York City with Tony Goldwyn, who is my One Small Step partner today.
TONY GOLDWYN: Ben, um, was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, firstborn to a first-generation American Hispanic family, and is the CEO of a prominent nonprofit in Wichita.
BEN SAUCEDA: And this is Tony’s bio: he’s been married to his wife Jane for almost 38 years — that’s incredible — and has two daughters, Anna and Tess. Tony grew up in Los Angeles, uh, but has lived in the tri-state since college. Uh, Tony is an actor and director in the entertainment industry.
TONY GOLDWYN: Okay, so first question is: Ben, [00:01:00] why did you sign up for One Small Step?
BEN SAUCEDA: So, for me it was really important to have dialogue and conversations with people who, who have different opinions and beliefs than I do.
TONY GOLDWYN: It is so important for me to, to… have con — be in conversation with people, particularly people who might look at the world in a different way than I do, to challenge myself to listen and see another perspective. And, um, I’m very concerned in our country today and in our society in general, for many, many reasons, we’ve stopped listening to each other, and stopped learning how to talk to each other, and people are afraid to talk to each other.
BEN SAUCEDA: There are extremes on both sides, no doubt, that don’t have the same end goal. But I would say you could probably say that 80% of Americans have the same end goal. Just the avenues in which we’re getting there looks different. So how do or did your politics and general beliefs, um, differ from your parents or your family?
TONY GOLDWYN: My father was actually a Republican for much of my life.
BEN SAUCEDA: Okay.
TONY GOLDWYN: But my mom and my stepfather were very — you know, [00:02:00] ardent and sometimes strident Democrats. Uh, and I grew up through Watergate and all that as a seminal kind of experience. It was about, you know, uh, when I started to be awakening to politics and when I was a small kid, the Vietnam War.
And, and, and so there was a, it was a very, um, politically tumultuous time when I was a young kid. So we had a lot of very spirited, um, conversations around the dinner tables in, in my family.
BEN SAUCEDA: Interestingly enough, my parents were not political. So I will say as a second-generation Hispanic involved in the Hispanic community back home, yes, it is assumed that I should be a liberal Democrat.
My mom leans conservative. Uh, my dad is kind of indifferent and I — my dad didn’t register to vote till 2012 or 2010. Um, and he’s only voted I think three times. Uh, twice was when I ran for office, and so he had to vote for me. Like, ”That was kind of the deal, Dad!”
TONY GOLDWYN: Ben, is there something that gives you hope for the future?
[00:03:00] I’m guessing talking to you that there’s a lot that gives you hope for the future!
BEN SAUCEDA: There is a lot. So again, for me, faith is such a central part of my life. I, I’ve grown up that way, but I — it’s, it’s become personal and real for me. And so to that degree, my faith is truly what gives me hope. What about for you? What, what…
TONY GOLDWYN: I, I feel exactly the same way. Faith is a big one and it’s, um — uh, I’m not formally religious, I was not raised in a religious tradition, but I have tremendous faith in humanity.
BEN SAUCEDA: Yeah.
TONY GOLDWYN: And, uh, that, that is a deeply spiritual dimension for me. I know that when people put down, put aside their assumptions about other people and just talk, the miracles happen. I, I feel that we all need to, um, take responsibility for that. And so I have a, I have a lot of faith that, um, most people, uh, crave that.
BEN SAUCEDA: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think the more that we talk and the more that you just have these conversations, [00:04:00] people realize that we have a lot more in common than what divides us.
TONY GOLDWYN: Yeah. Look, it’s why I do what I do for a living. I mean, I’m a storyteller for a living, and I’ve seen the impact of when you tell stories, that completely transcends politics and presumption. You see, you get inside other people’s lives and experience their experience in a subjective way, and it changes you.
BEN SAUCEDA: Yeah.
TONY GOLDWYN: Um. And um, and people who relate to the — who, maybe you’re telling a story that’s related to their life, they feel seen. That’s what we all want: to see and be seen.
BEN SAUCEDA: Exactly. Exactly. I appreciate this. This has been fantastic.
TONY GOLDWYN: Yeah, likewise. Likewise.
BEN SAUCEDA: Yeah. I think one of the things I learned today about Tony was just: I’ve always had preconceived notions going to that there about someone in the film industry.
Tony’s just a great down-to-earth individual that you could have a great conversation with, really. Uh, it was something I took away from today.
TONY GOLDWYN: My conversation with Ben really, um, confirmed for me my belief [00:05:00] and, and strong instinct that people are so multifaceted and complex that the things that di — where we differ is a beautiful thing.
It’s… like that’s, that’s a positive, um, to interact with people who, who are — have different beliefs from different cultures, a different worldview, uh, um… And you’ll inevitably find that there are endless similarities as well.
