As strange as it may sound, John Goldwyn has a serial killer to thank for his involvement in Gracepoint, the Fox miniseries inspired by the U.K. drama Broadchurch, which starts shooting in Greater Victoria Tuesday.
“I think if I hadn’t done Dexter I wouldn’t have done Gracepoint, because Dexter taught me how television works, which is very different than movies,” said Goldwyn, referring to Showtime’s serial-killer drama series, on which he was executive producer with Sara Colleton.
“What Dexter did was it branded Showtime as an alternative to HBO,” he recalled. “It said, ‘We’re a network that’s going to live in the extremes.’ It made a lot of noise.”
Gracepoint is a different beast. The 10-episode series stars British actor David Tennant (Doctor Who), who played Det. Insp. Alec Hardy in Broadchurch, set on England’s Dorset coast. In the U.S. version, produced by Shine America, Tennant plays Det. Emmett Carter, lead investigator into the murder of a young boy in the northern Californian seaside town of the title.
It finds Goldwyn, who has just brought Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty to the big screen, working again within the confines of TV production.
You may think that for Goldwyn, son of Samuel Goldwyn Jr., 87, and grandson of the legendary movie mogul and MGM co-founder, shepherding production of Gracepoint here until May would be a walk in the park after spending nearly two decades trying to mount the remake of Samuel Goldwyn’s 1947 comedy, which starred Danny Kaye.
“Walter Mitty was a long haul and it was massive. We shot in Iceland for Greenland and Afghanistan, and it was a very big effects movie,” he said, recalling his Christmas blockbuster directed by and starring Stiller, one of many actors considered over the years. Before it landed at Fox, Steven Spielberg expressed interest in directing Jim Carrey in the starring role.
“With Gracepoint, it’s four and a half months and it’s over,” Goldwyn explained.
“It’s a much different kind of undertaking but, in its own way, has the same challenges working on a big movie has. How are we going to get this done in the amount of time we have, what compromises will we have to make? In TV, the rules are more restrictive. In movies, budgets are more porous. In TV, budgets are absolute.”
While Goldwyn, 55, has asserted The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was not just a remake of his grandfather’s 1947 hit, he doesn’t have as much of an issue with Gracepoint.
“It’s OK,” he said, referring to Gracepoint being widely tagged as a remake of Broadchurch, ITV’s crime series.
“The thing I learned long ago is people like what they know,” Goldwyn said.
“It’s why a band will do eight albums, why a movie star will keep playing the same kind of part. There’s a comfort doing something people are familiar with, and seeing it repurposed in a way that makes it different enough that it stays interesting, but not so different that it violates the concept.”
Citing other shows such as HBO’s In Treatment, inspired by an Italian series, and The Killing, which originated in Denmark, Goldwyn said adhering to the original to a large degree made sense, even though locations being used here from Oak Bay to Sidney to depict the town of Gracepoint will ensure the series has a distinctive look and tone.
“We’re not trying to just reproduce the original, but there are characteristics — the same essential story and characters. Like Broadchurch, it’s set in a small, closely knit community and how that community unravels when evil emerges with the death of a young boy.” Goldwyn said it brought to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt.
The amiable executive producer, casually clad in a light blue shirt and jeans during a pre-production break, said it was a big plus landing such a stellar cast, as well as James Strong, the respected British director, whose credits include episodes of Downton Abbey and Doctor Who, and five episodes of Broadchurch, including the first.
“It was a very special project and people responded to it,” Goldwyn said, gazing at photographs of his dream cast.
“We’ve got David Tennant, a remarkable actor; Anna Gunn [as Det. Ellie Miller], who has really revealed herself to audiences recently; Michael Pena, who I don’t think has given a bad performance; Virginia Kull, who’s mostly known for her work in theatre but is our find, and Nick [Nolte] and Jacki Weaver.”
Stanford-educated Goldwyn rose through the studio system to become vice-chairman of Paramount Pictures before producing his own films, including Baby Mama, MacGruber, The Guilt Trip and I’m Not There.
It is not surprising that he has been so hands-on since he was brought in to oversee the multitude of “constituencies” — Shine, Kudos, Fox and so on — involved in bringing Gracepoint to life.
“I don’t know how not to be,” said Goldwyn, whose drive, work ethic and creativity, much like that of his brother Tony, the actor-director (Scandal), are also a product of his lineage.
Goldwyn has learned that being a scion of Hollywood royalty can be a mixed blessing.
“When I first started in the movie business, the big thing in my family was being told you come from good stock but you’ve got to run your own race, but do it in a way that doesn’t discredit the legacy,” he said.
“My grandfather fought hard for everything and my father was the same way. He said your career is what you make of it and it’s important you don’t ride on the coattails.”
One thing Goldwyn said makes him “very, very proud” of his father was how he acquired and distributed “specialized films” from around the world to the U.S. though the Samuel Goldwyn Company.
“There would have been no Ang Lee, no Paul Verhoeven if he hadn’t released movies when there was a sudden appetite for product because studios weren’t making enough movies,” he said.
“He’s done something very significant, taking the Goldwyn name and repurposing it. Tony and I are very conscious of what that means.”
