Mason Gooding opens up about father Cuba Gooding Jr. ‘speed-parenting’ him between film roles

Mason Gooding is reflecting on what it was like growing up with his Oscar-winning father, Cuba Gooding Jr. According to Mason, Cuba’s demanding acting career often resulted in “speed-parenting” whenever he returned home between projects.

“My father was an actor and grandfather [the late Cuba Gooding Sr.] was a singer,” Mason said on the July 28 episode of the “Wildmen Podcast.” He explained that, for much of his life, he understood both men more through their public personas than personal experiences.

“I have probably a stronger relationship and understanding based on who they were publicly than who they were privately. It wasn’t until I was older that they could — not my grandfather, God rest his soul — but like my dad would have been able to articulate like a lot of the lessons I learned as a kid,” Mason noted.

Mason described how his father would return after long absences and immediately try to address any issues at home. He stated, “‘Cause when you’re a parent who’s an actor and you’re gone for so long, then you come back, you try to… speed-parent… ’cause you come in for a week, and you’re like, ‘Why is that broken? Why are you failing school? Why are you fighting?’”

Mason admitted that, as a child, he struggled to reconcile his father’s upbeat public persona with the person he knew at home. He said, “At the time, I didn’t really understand that relationship ’cause I was like, ‘You’re so positive and charismatic in these interviews, and then you come home and it’s a different guy,’ and I didn’t get that correlation.”

He also shared that people often “come up to me on set and ask a very polite version of ‘How do I not f*** up my child?’” He encourages them to remember that their children interpret their public personas “the same way an audience does.”

Mason further explained, “It’s just understanding that that dissonance between who I get at home and who you are on camera will actually be a factor in how I parse out our relationship moving forward.”

Alongside Mason, Cuba shares son Spencer and daughter Piper with his former wife, Sara Kapfer.