Scott Caan, star of “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “Boiler Room,” was in his late teens when he decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, veteran actor James Caan—who rose to fame playing Sonny Corleone in the 1972 cult classic “The Godfather.”
However, Mr. Scott Caan recently told Fox News Digital that his dad cautioned him against pursuing a career in the entertainment industry.
“My old man told me that this business was goofy and stay away from it,” he shared. Instead, the 47-year-old chalked his foray into acting up to luck.
“I would do anything to not go to school, so I had like all these different creative ideas—anything to not [have] to finish high school or go to college,” he explained.
“I sort of got lucky and met a director and ended up on a set somehow,” he continued. “And the second I was on that set, I was like, ‘Oh, these are my people; I belong here.’”
Mr. Scott Caan added that his father, who passed away in July 2022 at the age of 82, taught him the importance of maintaining a good work-life balance. “He always just said, ‘Look, work’s not your life,’” he recalled. “And I think it’s a good lesson.”
“It’s funny because he was pretty contradictory. He would say, ‘Don’t take it too seriously,’ but then he also took it very seriously,” Mr. Scott Caan continued.
Following in His Father’s Footsteps
Despite having a famous actor as a father, Mr. Scott Caan revealed during an April 2023 episode of the “Inside of You” podcast that he never saw his dad in that light.“He wasn’t an actor to me,” he told the podcast’s host, Michael Rosenbaum.
“My dad wasn’t like a normal actor guy. He was really good at everything. He was an amazing athlete, he was good on a motorcycle, he was a cowboy, he could play any instrument he picked up ... he was like a master at a lot of different things,” the actor said.
“To me, him being an actor was just something else that he was good at,” Mr. Scott Caan continued. “To me, he wasn’t like an actor—he was just somebody who was really tough, really handsome, really smart ... he was good at everything.”
Reflecting on his father’s larger-than-life persona, Mr. Scott Caan noted that “it made [him] want to be good at stuff,” too.
“I felt like I got to grow up with someone who had a lot of amazing qualities to look up to,” he said. “And now, as I get older, the qualities that weren’t worth looking up to were also a lesson.”
The “Hawaii Five-O” star continued, “He was like watching a hero’s tale and a cautionary tale at the same time and getting the best out of both.”
Mr. Scott Caan, whose parents divorced when he was a baby, has been open about the struggles he faced growing up bouncing between the homes of his father and mother, model and actress Sheila Ryan.
Ms. Ryan was the late actor’s second wife. The two tied the knot in 1976 and were married for about a year. Mr. James Caan was previously married to actress Dee Jay Mathis in the early ‘60s and later married model Ingrid Hajek in 1990 and actress Linda Stokes in 1995. Mr. James Caan and Ms. Stokes reportedly finalized their divorce in 2017.
Lessons on Parenting
Mr. Scott Caan currently stars in the second season of Fox’s crime drama “Alert: Missing Persons Unit,” which premiered on March 5.The series, set in the Philadelphia Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit, follows two detectives—Jason Grant, played by Mr. Scott Caan, and Nikki Batista, who were once married—as they pursue missing persons. The cases hit home for the detectives, whose son, Keith, was abducted and thought to be found six years later. The pair soon come to the realization that the boy they found isn’t who he seems.
Mr. Scott Caan, who shares two daughters with his partner, Kacy Byxbee, per The Talk, told Fox News Digital that filming the “whole season was rough.”
“Trying to figure out if the kid is yours or not, the kid that you have adopted, and you don’t know if it’s actually your kid. I mean, to play that over and over again for 10 episodes—it was brutal,” he said, reflecting on his experiences during the show’s first season.
Although Mr. Scott Caan noted the first season was “emotionally draining” to film, he said it gave him a new outlook on his role as a father.
“You can’t hover over your kids. You gotta let them figure it out,” he shared. “You just try to teach them to be smart and good humans and avoid trouble if they can.”
