2025 Commencement Address - Richard Gelfond

Don't worry, I've been in your seat. It won't be that long. Thank you, Chair Waller, and thank you to the distinguished faculty, alumni, and the class of 2025 for having me here today. It's an honor. I'm Richard Gelfond, and as you can see, I'm a star basketball player. No, it's true. I was starting center for a team called the Delusionals, a collection at the time of 50-some desk jockey weekend warrior executives trying to relive the glory days on the hardwood. Not in the NBA, just a rec league in Eastern Long Island. We might have been called the Delusionals, but we had very high hopes. Sadly, our first game drew a very tough draw. We played a team of employees from Sports Illustrated, which apparently only hires former Division I college hoopers who are over 6'5". In a word, it was ugly. They ran us out of the gym. I had a few shots blocked into the next zip code. We didn't have a chance in hell of beating these guys, but that certainty didn't stop us from trying. If I'm being honest, nothing ever stops me from trying. When I'm not shooting hoops badly, I'm the CEO of IMAX Corporation, a company that builds and sells the biggest and best movie theaters in the world, and works with filmmakers to shoot and produce blockbuster movies in pristine quality. Fortunately, I'm better at shooting movies than shooting baskets. We regularly do business with folks like Chris Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Michael B. Jordan, Zendaya. Everyone from Marvel to Minecraft. Oppenheimer, Avengers Endgame, Top Gun Maverick, they were all shot with IMAX cameras. And if you'll allow me a shameless plug, all this summer's biggest blockbusters—Mission Impossible, How to Train Your Dragon, F1, Fantastic 4, to name a few—will be on IMAX screens shot with IMAX cameras. You look very excited. And the same approach that made me the starting center for the Delusionals is what helped me build all these theaters across 90 countries worldwide. I never let anybody tell me what I can't do ever, and neither should any of you. I was pumped to come to talk to you all today. I may not know you personally, but I admire you. High school is hard. Your classes are tough. Your teachers are demanding. Your extracurricular activities are intense. Your friendships are complicated. But you overcame all of that while adapting to different learning styles and turning what a lot of the world sees as challenges into strengths. That's a hell of an accomplishment. One of my oldest friends in Hollywood was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child. His name is Tom Cruise. His movies have made 12 billion dollars worldwide, and he's probably the most famous actor in the world. You think he lets anybody tell him what he can't do? The most successful people I know in Hollywood are kind, loyal, and filled with gratitude. But at the same time, they're relentless, and they absolutely won't take no for an answer. You may remember last summer, Tom Cruise jumped off the top of a stadium as part of the closing ceremony for the Paris Olympics. He is a little nuts, but that's another speech. At home watching on TV, I texted him to tell him that I thought the stunt was beyond awesome. I only half expected a reply. In fairness, the man had just jumped off a building with a billion people around the world watching. But he texted me back within a minute saying, 'We're going to crush it next summer with Mission Impossible.' Like I said, relentless. Next Thanksgiving, IMAX will be the only way you can see Greta Gerwig's next movie, Narnia, in theaters before it's released that Christmas on Netflix. Netflix never puts movies in theaters that long with a gap. They don't like to release their movies in theaters if they can avoid it. They hate it. But Greta was determined to see the film get an IMAX Global release. She called me every day for a month to help put together a plan and convince Netflix to make it a reality. And thanks to her efforts, our partnership could end up changing the way the movie business works. Like I said, never take no for an answer. You're at a stage of your life where you're beginning to cultivate your sense of self. You're beginning to figure out who you are—a process that in reality never ends. You're learning what you're good at, what kind of work motivates you, what really excites you, and what gets you out of bed in the morning. Not an easy task for a teenager. I still wonder every day. But you're also socially aware enough to worry about what other people think of you. The world is constantly trying to tell you who it thinks you are—your family, your friends, your teachers, the algorithms generating your social media feeds. But ultimately, the only person who can decide who you are is you. There is an incredible amount of noise and distraction out there, but the signal you need to be sure to isolate and listen to is your own sense of self. I may be standing up here today, but I've been told no, and I've had more doors slammed in my face than I could possibly count. From day one, the world was telling me what I couldn't do. I grew up lower middle class on Long Island. My father used to yell at me when I went to the doctor to say, 'Did I really need to do that?' My dad sewed pelts for fur coats on a sewing machine for eight hours a day and came home looking like an animal himself—he was so covered with fur. Out of season when people weren't buying fur coats, he was unemployed for six months a year. I remember visiting him in the shop when I was 8 years old and his boss standing next to him and snapping back, 'Lo, get back to work.' I remember saying, 'Nope, that's never going to be me, and no one's ever going to talk to me like that.' I remember it like it was this morning. And so I hustled every day 50 years before hustle culture was even a thing. When I was eight, I started a shoe shining business. When I was 12, I had three kids working for me on my lawnmowing business. When I was 15, I started a sports newspaper called New York Ball that was sold at Madison Square Garden, the Nassau Coliseum, and in newsstands all over Manhattan. And I walked up and down Madison Avenue and I sold ads. You get the idea. I was a psycho. I had all the old-timey jobs that kids could have in the days before you could just become a YouTuber. By the way, I'm jealous of that. I wish that's a lot better career. That ethos—never let anybody tell you what you can't do—still guides me and everyone at IMAX today. When I bought the company as part of a group in 1994, it was pretty much broke. Our entire business back then was creating IMAX documentaries about whales, seals, and bears for science museums. And I remember we were competing with Air Force One in the next screen. Really bright idea, wasn't it? I'd always thought IMAX is awesome. If people want to watch nature documentaries in IMAX, why wouldn't they watch Star Wars in IMAX? So, we begged for a meeting with Steven Spielberg, the biggest director at that point in time, and asked him if he wanted to make a movie for IMAX. He said to me, 'Come back to me when you have a thousand theaters.' We had 50 at the time. Well, today we have 2,000 theaters, but we still hold on to that underdog challenger mentality. When people tell us what we can't do, that only makes us want to do it more. IMAX is a global company. We have about 700 employees worldwide. We're tiny compared to the companies we do business with like Disney, Warner Brothers, Netflix, all of which have tens of thousands of people. But we know who we are, and we focus on what we do well. We create the best canvases, the best cameras, and the best projection and sound system for movies on the planet. And so filmmakers really like working with us. They like their movies shown in IMAX. And as a result, all the big powerful Hollywood studios line up at our door to get their movies shown in IMAX. We like to say we punch above our weight. I think there's a lesson in that for everyone. We all have our limitations. We all experience self-doubt, impostor syndrome. I can't tell you how many times in my career I've looked around a meeting and thought, 'What the hell am I doing here?' But a little self-belief and a dose of fearlessness go a long way in the world. And I promise you, every time the world tells you you can't do something and you prove it wrong, it gets a little easier to stand up for yourself. Take time to identify the things you love to do, to understand what motivates you, what excites you, to know what you're good at, and then put in the work to get even better at it. And you'll be surprised how effectively you can make the world what you want it to be. Of course, it won't always be easy. Actually, that's a lie. It's never easy. IMAX will probably have the best year in our history in 2025. Just last week, the New York Times ran a splashy piece calling IMAX a ray of light for the movie industry, noting that our relationships with filmmakers position us better than even the biggest studios in Hollywood. And yet, I still have a sign on my desk when you come in. It says, 'Welcome to the show.' Because all the things that are required for success in today's world—managing change, understanding and influencing people, building and maintaining relationships—all that stuff can get messy, really messy. But I have a favorite saying that all IMAX employees can recite by heart, and I hope you remember it: 'It's never as good as it looks or as bad as it seems.' It's a very moderating principle in your life, and it helps you maintain a lot of balance. I'll admit it's much easier to have that perspective when you're 70 years old than when you're 17 years old. But I've seen plenty of ups and downs in my day, and when everyone thought streaming and Netflix were going to kill movie theaters, that wasn't a great narrative. When COVID closed down every IMAX theater in the world and every studio for the better part of a year, I didn't love that. And when Christopher Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas thanked me and IMAX for supporting Oppenheimer from the stage of the Best Picture awards at the Oscars last year, I really loved that. But I've learned over the course of my career to keep it all in perspective and to never get too high or too low, and to never let anyone tell you what you can or can't do. Next to IMAX, I dedicate a great deal of my time to my college alma mater, Stony Brook University in Long Island. And I do that because I think education and opportunity are so important. And I've been chairman of the school's board of trustees for over 20 years. It's a school known for creating opportunity and fostering social mobility for students from working-class backgrounds. I believe deeply in the power of education and opportunity to help young people overcome any challenge they face in their future. And I believe that all of you, the 2025 graduating class of Eagle Hill School, know that better than most and better than perhaps you even realize today. And I think over time you'll realize it even more. You have all adapted to learning differences to complete your education at an elite institution. You haven't let the way you process and retain information define you. You've taken an active role in identifying your strengths, building your identity, and influencing and shaping the world around you. You made a very strong statement to the world about who you are. If you continue to do those things and tackle everything in life with the passion and dedication you've shown at Eagle Hill, never let anyone tell you what you can't do, I promise you that you will succeed in life. And I'll be rooting for you. Thank you again for having me here today. And congratulations to all the graduates.