Barbara Streisand's son says he knew he was musical 'in my mother's womb'

Sharing your singing ambition with your mum shouldn’t be that daunting, especially when you have a voice as good as Jason Gould’s. But the performer admits he was “pretty scared” about the prospect, and understandably so. Jason’s mum, after all, is none other than Barbra Streisand, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, with ten Grammys including the Legend and Lifetime Achievement Awards.

“So when I first started to write and record music, I was deeply insecure about it because my mother was an icon in that world and she still is,” says 57-year-old Jason, who this month releases Sacred Days, his EP of self-composed songs. “I was afraid to even sing in front of her, let alone anybody else.”

Fearing inevitable comparisons with his mother’s pitch-perfect vocals, Jason hid his talent for decades. “It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that my mother even knew that I could sing,” he says. “I was deeply insecure and afraid of exposing that part of myself. It took a lot of work on myself to be able to walk through that fear because I’m a naturally musical person.”

He smiles. “I always have been, probably since I was in the womb.”

Jason’s father is the actor Elliott Gould, best known for the ‘70s comedy classic M*A*S*H as well as for playing Ross and Monica’s dad in the hit US sitcom Friends. But as someone who seldom gives interviews, he resists the notion of nepotism, insisting: “People have been following in their family business footsteps for millennia. It’s a little dismissive and mean-spirited to call people nepo babies. You have to have the talent or you won’t survive.”

Having done some acting, he sang in private, then in 2012 finally plucked up the courage to record his version of the Irving Berlin standard How Deep is the Ocean in the garage with a producer friend. When he played it for Streisand, she was impressed.

“And also quite shocked, I think,” adds Jason. “She said ‘I want to sing this with you’.” And that’s exactly what she did, inviting him to join her on her tour later that year.

Was he daunted by the prospect? “Of course. I had never performed in front of anyone before but I said yes because it seemed like another opportunity to work through what scared me.

“I didn’t know if I could do it, but I went from performing for no-one to 18,000 people in auditoriums around the world. It wasn’t something I had in my head, like wanting to be on a stage with my mother or anything like that, but I really enjoyed it.”

I saw the show in London, where Streisand declared herself in awe of his talent with no prior idea that Jason could sing. She was also thrilled to have “the love of my life” on the road with her, cementing mother and son’s close bond.

Barbra and Elliott met in 1962 when they both appeared in a Broadway show called I Can Get It for You Wholesale and had been married for three years when she gave birth to Jason. His middle, Emanuel, was in honour of Streisand’s father, who died when she was just 18 months old.

Back then she was a fast-rising superstar whose pregnancy coincided with the move of Funny Girl from Broadway to the West End but Elliot was still to break through with M*A*S*H.

Still, the couple worked through any tensions for a while before separating in 1969 and divorcing two years later. Jason has no memory of his parents together. “I don’t remember my mother and father as a family unit because I was too young,” he says.

But of being the son of famous parents was inescapable. “I sussed that that was the case pretty early on,” he recalls. “As I grew up I observed that famous people not only got treated differently but that the people around the famous person acted differently too. Celebrities got special attention and it always made me uncomfortable, to be honest with you. I never sought the spotlight. I was born into it by proxy but it wasn’t something that I wanted for myself.”

Despite a string of high-profile relationships, Streisand didn’t remarry until she tied the knot with actor James Brolin in 1998. So she was effectively a single parent when Jason was growing up, taking him on location for the likes of Hello, Dolly and What’s Up, Doc?

“And I loved it,” he says. “I became interested in all the facets of making films, including set design, lighting, editing and music. When I was quite young I started making my own short films and I started making up melodies on the piano. That was my mother’s influence.”

He seldom saw his father. “He wasn’t a big part of my early childhood because he was off doing his own movies. I had a nanny and I was sort of raised by women, so it was unconventional to say the least, but I got to see and experience parts of the world that most people probably don’t get to see.”

That included Kenya, Africa. Streisand took him there in the early 1970s for the fantasy sequences in the drama Up the Sandbox about a pregnant woman who escapes the confines of pregnancy through her daydreams. She spends time with an African tribe in one of them and its scenes were filmed in Samburu National Reserve. “That made a huge impression on me – seeing giraffes, elephants, peacocks and monkeys, as well as meeting the Maasai people because they were featured in the film,” says Jason.

Appearing uncredited in the film, he made his acting debut proper in the 1989 romantic comedy Say Anything. Then in 1991 Streisand cast him as her son Bernard in The Prince of Tides. Thinking he was right for the role, he sent a secret taped audition to Barbra in New York, where she was prepping her second directorial effort after Yentl eight years earlier. A young Chris O’Donnell was also in contention but Pat Conroy, author of the book on which the film was based, saw Jason’s tape and said: “That’s the kid.”

Gould received good reviews for his performance but admits: “It was a very risky thing for my mother to do and it was challenging at times because she knew I had to be good, otherwise it would not have reflected well on her. I felt that pressure and I remember shooting a couple of scenes and feeling like I wasn’t sure if she was pleased, but then the next day when she saw the dailies she was happy.”

Did he find her to be the perfectionist she’s always been rumoured to be? “Well, I don’t believe there is such a thing as perfection. But yes, my mother is someone who strives for excellence and I understand that. I feel that way about the music I make and I’m sure my mother has struggled with that too.”

The Prince of Tides was a success with critics and moviegoers but the year of its release saw Jason outed as gay by a US tabloid, which he believes hurt his acting career.

“Suddenly the roles I was offered to audition for were basically stereotypical gay parts that I didn’t relate to or want to play. Also, I didn’t like being in the spotlight. I walk a fine line between being creative but being turned off by the showbiz part of it all.”

Streisand, who he’d come out to a few years previously, voiced her support in an interview, saying: “I would never wish for my son to be anything but what he is.” In return, Jason says: “I have always felt a need to protect her, in a sense, because she has so often been attacked in the press. And also I have never asked her for anything.”

As for why such’s an icon among the LGBT+ community, he muses: “It’s because my mother is an original. She’s a force of nature, deeply driven, ambitious and unconventional. That makes her a role model for gay people who also struggle with being different.”

Jason’s new music is his first since his 2017 album Dangerous Man and the song World Gone Crazy shows that he’s inherited Streisand’s social conscience. “It’s an expression of sadness, of anger, of desperation that so many of us have been feeling in a time of misinformation, corruption and this sort of fascistic thing happening in my country and in other countries,” he says. “How could I not be affected by that? It’s not that I think a song like this is going to change things but maybe it will inspire people to vote or to stand up for their own beliefs.”

How does his voice compare with Barbra’s legendary prowess? He smiles. “She has such an incredible voice. It can pierce your soul. I can’t do what she does but I’m not trying to. For so long I was afraid of being compared to her and judged for it. Now I’m trying to find my own voice, not only as a singer but also as a human being. That’s my journey.”

Jason describes his relationship with his father as “complex because we’ve been close at times and less close at other times”. But his bond with Streisand is rock solid. “There’s nothing more intimate and special than the bond between a mother and son,” he beams. “It doesn’t mean that the relationship can’t be challenging or hard sometimes but I love my mother deeply and I know she loves me.”

Sacred Days is out on Friday, available to buy from iTunes; visit music.apple.com