Malcolm McDowell Says Son Finn Refuses His Acting Advice: “I’m Just Dad”

Malcolm McDowell may have six decades of acting experience and more than 300 credits to his name, but at home, he’s just “dad” and that means his teenage son isn’t looking for career advice. The 81-year-old actor told PEOPLE that his 18-year-old son, Finnian “Finn” McDowell, is stepping into the entertainment world on his own terms. “He’s just starting, and to see the longing, and also the nervousness of doing it, and getting out for one of the first times, it was really fantastic for me to see,” Malcolm said. “But he doesn’t hear anything from me.”

Malcolm explained that Finn makes it clear he doesn’t want help preparing auditions. “In fact, I said, ‘Look, do you want me to help you with this audition?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay.’ And then he’ll go, ‘Dad, could you just watch the audition I did?’ So I’ll watch it. If he asks me, I’ll watch it.”

The Et Tu star laughed about how his kids view him. “They don’t look at me like I’m this actor who’s got 300 credits and has been doing it for 60 years. I’m just dad, and dad doesn’t know diddly squat, you know?”

Malcolm, who shares Finn, Beckett, 21, and Seamus, 16, with wife Kelley Kuhr, is also dad to Lilly, 44, and Charlie, 42, from his marriage to Mary Steenburgen. Despite their resistance to leaning on him for career coaching, he respects their independence. “They’ve got to do that. They’ve got to find their own way and do their own thing. That’s just the way it is,” he said.

What he does pass on is something broader. “…My only advice to all of them is — just make sure you do something in life that you absolutely love,” he shared. “Most people are stuck in jobs that they hate or that they’re just going through the motions, and that’s not living a life for me. So if there’s anything I can imbue in them, it is that they have to find something that they just love, and I don’t care what it is.”

For Malcolm, whose latest project Et Tu is available to stream now, seeing his kids chart their own paths is what makes him proudest of all.