"He never quite got it" — Alfred Molina says his father was disappointed with him pursuing an acting career 

Alfred Molina recently opened up to Vanity Fair and revealed how his father was disappointed with him due to his career choice. In the interview, published on April 29, 2024, Molina stated that his father was extremely disappointed when he got to know that the Spider-Man: No Way Home star had decided to become an actor.

“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,” he recalled.

During the interview, Alfred Molina became emotional as he remembered his deceased father.

Born in 1953, Molina started his acting career in 1978, as he appeared in the sitcom The Losers. Two decades later, his father passed away in 1999.

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“Never really talked about my work”: Alfred Molina talks about how his father never approved of him becoming an actor

During the interview, Alfred Molina recalled the time he decided to leave his job as a waiter, and told his father how he wanted to pursue acting.

He stated:

“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. 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.'”

He went on to state how his father was not happy with the wage, as Alfred was earning double the amount while doing his job as a waiter:

“He looked at me and he had the look on his face that you reserve for the mad and the lost.”

Molina then stated that while he did many projects in the field of acting thereafter, his father still never understood his work:

“My father and I never really talked about my work. 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.”

Alfred Molina became emotional when he spoke about going to Spain for his father’s funeral. He stated that he was surprised as he found that his father had a bag full of clippings and photos of him from various magazines:

“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.”

Born and brought up in London, as per Broadway.com, both of Alfred Molina's parents were immigrants. His father was Spanish, and his mother was Italian. He grew up in a working-class home, as his father was a waiter, and his mother had the job of a cleaner.

Alfred Molina’s initial movies and TV soaps include minor roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and many more. However, he rose to fame after he was cast in Letter to Brezhnev, Prick Up Your Ears, and Red Dwarf. Furthermore, he has also appeared in hits like Coffee and Cigarettes, Spider-Man 2, The Da Vinci Code, The Pink Panther 2 and Frozen II.

Molina concluded the interview by stating how he is now very liberal with his kids and always tells them that they are “brilliant,” no matter what they do. The actor will be seen next in The Instigators and Harold and the Purple Crayon, both to be released in 2024.